18-05-2018
Richard Geoffroy during his speech in the council chambers in Parma’s town hall. For 28 years now he’s been chef de cave at Dom Pérignon. He’s going to leave the Maison in Epernay after the 2018 harvest. Photo by Matteo Fornari
One more harvest, and Richard Geoffroy, chef de cave at Dom Pérignon, will end his task in Epernay, which started in 1990, at the age of 36. Vincent Chaperon, 41, will take his place. He’s been working with him for 15 years. Official as of mid-June.
The future of this oenologist who widened the temporal borders of a unique maison, is in Japan, and there’s no wine involved. This comes as no surprise. When asked: what does the person who makes the champagne par excellence drink, is it other champagnes, other wines, water? Richard said: «Beer». Of course this is not the case. But there’s always place for a good joke.
Federico Pizzarotti, mayor of Parma, offers an ancient print of the city to Richard Geoffroy Geoffroy was in Parma on Tuesday the 8th of May. In the first town in Italy to receive the title of Creative City of Gastronomy from Unesco, the second being Alba, the Frenchman received the Premio alla Creatività. This happened on a day marked by three different moments. In the morning, the event in the council chambers in Piazza Garibaldi, then lunch followed by a lectio magistralis at Alma in Colorno, and finally dinner at Langhirano at cured pork producers Fratelli Galloni, which was destroyed by a fire in July 2016 and opened again in July last year, one year minus one day after the accident. All this included the words of mayor Federico Pizzarotti and dishes by Paolo Lopriore at lunchtime and Massimo Bottura in the evening.
Federico Pizzarotti, mayor of Parma, offers an ancient print of the city to Richard Geoffroy
We owe him a length in time that would be otherwise unknown, expressed in the three Plénitudes, from the first, Harmony, with at least eight years of ageing, to the third, the one of Complexity, for which you must wait 25 years. And there’s the second in between, at least 16 years of wait for the Age of Energy. All this summed up in an anecdote:
«One day a man, thinking he was making a compliment, told me in English that Dom Pérignon was beyond champagne. I was struck and told him that we were both ahead and beyond. That we were in the middle, because Dom Pérignon is champagne». Absolutely true.
Richard Geoffroy, Massimo Bottura and Carlo Galloni
The menu was signed by Massimo Bottura, using Galloni’s prosciutto, thus fulfilling a promise made right after the fire. A painful event that had its happy ending, of which we will write soon.
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
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born in Milan in March 1955, at Il Giornale for 31 years dividing himself between sports and food, since 2004 he's the creator and curator of Identità Golose. blog www.paolomarchi.it instagram instagram.com/oloapmarchi