Brand Bollinger: name of the game

Drinks columnist

Saturday 14 July 2012

Whenever City traders gather to celebrate some dodgy deal or their latest bonus the cry goes up: "Break open the Bolly!"

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Tom Bruce-Gardyne

"Dude I owe you big time!

"Come over one day after work and I'm opening a bottle of Bollinger." Whoever sent that infamous email to Barclays about rigging that obscure inter-bank lending rate got one thing right – the brand of champagne. Whenever City traders gather to celebrate some dodgy deal or their latest bonus the cry goes up: "Break open the Bolly!"

When he was questioned by MPs recently, Bob Diamond denied any knowledge of the scandal and I imagine Bollinger would also be keen to disassociate itself from the get-rich City culture, although these things can be hard to control. Many years ago in South America, I was told that Chivas Regal had become the whisky of choice among Colombian drug barons, so much so that people were turning to other brands for fear of the bad association. Bollinger, more than any other champagne house, is part of the establishment thanks to its English-sounding name and its unbroken string of royal warrants from Queen Victoria onwards. It was founded in 1829 in the village of Ay, in the heart of the Champagne region, and was soon sending most of its exports to the United Kingdom. Its non-vintage special cuvee was launched in 1911 and helped shift people's tastes towards bone-dry styles of champagne. However, this doesn't really explain why City trading floors have been awash with the stuff for so long. For that we probably have to blame 007, who has been drinking Bollinger ever since Live And Let Die in 1973. James Bond would never dream of calling it Bolly, though, and he soon abandoned non-vintage expressions for something more classy. As he says to CIA agent Holly Goodhead in Moonraker."Bollinger? If it's '69, you were expecting me." Six years later, in A View To A Kill, Bond takes a sip of champagne and declares it to be Bollinger '75, which impresses detective Archille Aubergine no end. "I see you are a connoisseur," he says. Apparently this is enough to convince the ridiculous-sounding Frenchman that Bond is legitimate. In Ian Fleming's books, however, his preferred fizz was Taittinger, which was apparently also the author's. Taittinger appeared in the early films until a glass of it was spiked with poison in From Russia With Love. Of course, you may find all this name-dropping of brands a bit naff – rather like Jeffrey Archer and his "Krug and shepherd's pie" parties. But if you were Bollinger, being in bed with Bond is obviously brilliant. The champagne house was concerned when Absolutely Fabulous appeared on television with Joanna Lumley lurching from one episode to the next as the Bolly-loving Patsy Stone, yet all was fine in the end. So who knows – perhaps even the "dude" who emailed Barclays will be good for business. n tombg22@googlemail.com

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Brand Bollinger: name of the game

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