Moët & Chandon

Moët et Chandon began as Moët et Cie (meaning "Moët & Co."), established by Épernay wine trader Claude Moët in 1743, and began shipping his wine from Champagne to Paris. The reign of King Louis XV coincided with increased demand for sparkling wine. Soon after its foundation, and after son Claude-Louis joined Moët et Cie, the winery's clientele included nobles and aristocrats. In 1833, the company was renamed Moët et Chandon after Pierre-Gabriel Chandon de Briailles, Remy Moët's son-in-law, joined the company as a partner of Jean-Remy Moët, Claude Moët's grandson. Following the introduction of the concept of a vintage champagne in 1840, Moët marketed its first vintage in 1842. Their best-selling brand, Brut Imperial, was introduced in the 1860s. Their best known label, Dom Perignon, is named after the Benedictine monk remembered in legend as the "Father of Champagne". The brand was owned by Champagne Mercier but was given to Moët in 1927. Moët & Chandon merged with Hennessy Cognac in 1971 and with Louis Vuitton in 1987 to become LVMH (Louis-Vuitton-Moët-Hennessy), the largest luxury group in the world, netting over 16 billion euros in fiscal 2004. Moët & Chandon was holding a royal warrant as supplier of champagne to Queen Elizabeth II. In 2006, Moët et Chandon Brut Impérial issued an extremely limited bottling of its champagne named "Be Fabulous", a special release of its original bottle with decorative Swarovski crystals. ==Dom Pérignon==

Dom Pérignon (; ) is a brand of champagne produced by Moët & Chandon. It is named after Dom Pierre Pérignon, a Benedictine monk who was an important quality pioneer for Champagne wine but who, contrary to popular myths, did not discover the champagne method for making sparkling wines. Dom Pérignon was the first prestige cuvée, an idea proposed by Englishman Laurence Venn. The first vintage of Dom Pérignon was 1921 and was only released for sale in 1936. It is a vintage champagne, meaning that it is only made in the best years, and all grapes used to make the wine are harvested in the same year. Many champagnes, by contrast, are non-vintage, meaning that the champagne is made from grapes harvested in various years. File:Dom Perignon 1999.jpg|A bottle of vintage 1999 Dom Pérignon with accompanying materials File:Moët & Chandon Dom Perignon Sculpture.jpg|Statue of Dom Pierre Pérignon, a Benedictine monk Current production Around 5 million bottles are produced in each vintage. ==Domaine Chandon==

In 1973, the then Moët-Hennessy company founded Domaine Chandon, an outpost winery in the Napa Valley. It was the first French-owned sparkling wine venture in the United States. The fine dining restaurant étoile was located at the winery, until it closed in December 2014. Chandon had already founded an outpost in Argentina in 1959, and was doing the same in the southern city of Garibaldi in Brasil in 1973. Domaine Chandon was later established in 1986 in Australia in Coldstream, Victoria, in the Ningxia region in China in 2013 and India's Nashik region in 2014. ==Sponsorships==

Moët was the official Formula One champagne provider between 1966 and 1999 and again from 2016 until 2017 when they signed a deal with champagne maker Carbon. They resumed their role as Formula One’s champagne supplier from the 2025 season onward. On 30 November 2012, Swiss tennis player Roger Federer became Moët et Chandon's brand ambassador. On 30 September 2015, Chandon announced it would be a sponsor of the McLaren F1 team starting 2016. ==Pronunciation==

Moët is pronounced with a "t" at the end (; 'mo-et') as the French-born founder's surname is assumed to be of non-French origin – allegedly Dutch-German. ==Incident==

In June 2022, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority warned that the 3-liter champagne bottle from Moët & Chandon Ice Impérial contained MDMA, killing a person in Germany. ==See also==