Champagne Taittinger

Pierre Taittinger arrived in Champagne during World War I as an injured officer, convalescing in the Château de la Marquetterie, a French command post just outside Épernay, about 150 km east of Paris. Smitten by the building and the landscape, he vowed to return to buy it should he ever have the means. When the Great Depression of the 1930s swept through Europe, the fortunes of the champagne house Forest-Fourneaux which owned the chateau, diminished considerably, and Pierre stepped in and relaunched the business under the Taittinger name.