French Champagne houses are busy buying up the South Downs of England, which are rapidly turning into fertile sparkling wine growing country. The results will surely be top-notch, but the drink won’t carry Champagne labels, because it doesn’t come from vines crawling up the select group of French villages that make up Champagne land.
Personally, I’d prefer to run a boutique winery on the picturesque South Downs than on the rather dull, grey hillsides situated two hours east of Paris, which are populated by Dom Perignon, Ruinart, Moet & Chandon or Veuve Clicquot. It’s a very strange feeling, to be driving around deserted villages dominated by agricultural warehouses and vineyard machinery, knowing that you’re travelling through prime real estate that’s worth billions on the global luxury markets, yet feeling distinctly underwhelmed by the view. The landscape here is serious rather than stunning, with one aim in mind: to squeeze every last droplet of grape juice from the dusty earth, and turn it into liquid gold. The prized beauty is entirely in the terroir, most of which is owned by luxury powerhouse LVMH. Everything looks rustic and local, with church bells ringing and tractors trundling in and out of mama-and-papa courtyards, but the air thrums to the distant drum beat of corporate investors and global export balance sheets.
One patch of land, however, marches to its own music: the independent vineyards belonging to Champagne house Carbon. Like the rest, this label has been in the hands of the same family for generations, and its vines and cellars nestle in next to those of Dom Perignon, but it has gone its own way, avoiding a buy out, and instead sponsoring Formula One, wrapping its bottles in carbon fibre, giving them loud labels aimed at younger customers, and now, launching a new label in partnership with Bugatti.
Hence my wheels for my tour of Reims and Champagne this month were those belonging to a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, a hypercar that comes with a AUD$5.6 million price tag (plus local taxes). It is therefore one of the few cars that makes a magnum of Carbon Champagne look like a bargain.
How does it feel to drive a car worth AUD$5.6m plus VAT? Disconcerting, in a word. My car was black, mean, growly, wide and low, with a massive wing and mega attitude, but so are a lot of supercars, and most of them won’t cost you more than AUD$880,000 which is a fraction of the Bugatti. Like Rolls-Royce, however, Bugatti has gone beyond the realms of making cars, and is really now a brand producing dynamic art/treasure/jewellery (delete as appropriate). Owners don’t buy Bugattis and Rolls-Royces because they need a car; they buy these masterpieces to add to their automotive collections, as investments or static gallery displays. Or just because they’re curious, like I was, to experience 1,600 horsepower.
To put that number in context, your average VW Golf produces perhaps 200 horsepower. Try, if you can then, to imagine what 1,600 horsepower feels like.
It feels fast in a way that doesn’t belong to the roads. It feels frighteningly fast, like a jet before lift-off, or the rollercoaster you last screamed on. It certainly doesn’t feel like a car. You have to bite your lip and trust the four fat tyres to provide enough grip as you plunge the throttle pedal downwards and grab the steering wheel for dear life. The tyres bite the road, turn and spin with a velocity that literally takes your breath away. Then it’s a case of holding on until either your nerve or the road runs out.
For this, the forest-clad roads that skirt the beautiful city of Reims are perfect: largely straight, smooth and empty.
We set off from La Caserne Chanzy, an airy, contemporary hotel and spa directly opposite Reims cathedral, occupying one side of the central square. Reims is the elegant, sandstone-coloured capital of the Champagne region; you can fill your boots with fizz tours from the city, or buy bottles to take home. Half an hour later, we arrived south of Reims at Carbon’s HQ, with a gaggle of influencers trailing the Bugatti, filming the car on their phones.
There is much to admire about the interior of this hypercar as well as its performance: our version was covered in tan leather and glistening chrome, with a huge curved bar separating and cocooning driver and passenger in their own little worlds of wealth. The illuminated bar is in the shape of a “C”, for Chiron.
There’s even a speed key – a satisfyingly heavy metal lozenge that sits snug in the leather by the door. Release it and slot it into the secret opening, and you unlock the Chiron Super Sport’s top speed, which is 273mph. Of course, your honour, we didn’t reach anywhere near that speed on our drive, but you only need to boot the car from a standing start to sense what that top speed would feel like. (Terrifying.)
By lunchtime, my nerves could take no more of the Bugatti’s speed or value (added to which, only 30 have been built and all, including mine, are sold), and my taste buds were jangling, having passed countless posters featuring Champagne-tasting events. We pulled up in Epernay at Royal Champagne, the hotel at the centre of the Champagne game, where serious waiters welcome you to a dining room of blonde wood and cream leather overlooking the endless rows of vines, and the clientele are investors, tasters and masters of wine, and no one would dare ask for a bottle of the house white.
The Bugatti felt entirely right in such elevated environs, but I was left with the overwhelming sense that, while it’s a privilege to be part of such truly rarefied global circles from time to time, my happy place is probably back on the South Downs with a bottle of organic Chardonnay and a taxi home.
The car: Bugatti Chiron Super Sport:
- Price: $5.6m plus GST
- Engine: petrol W16
- Features: speed key to unleash 273mph; the best leather in the world; smart digital air vent displays that also show speed and performance; active rear wing that rises as you go faster.
- Configure yours: you can’t. All sold.
