The last Gratien was killed in the Battle of Verdun during the First World War, and control passed wholly to the Meyer family.

[3] At the start of the 21st century the French inheritance laws, requiring equal division between heirs, threatened to break up the business, and the Seydoux family sold both the Loire and the champagne houses to Henkell Freixenet.

[2][8] The grapes are picked and pressed near the vineyards, the juice (technically known as "must") is then transported to the rue Maurice Cerveaux where it is put in oak casks and fermented.

[3] Only the cuvée – the first and purest pressing of juice – goes into the 1,000-plus 205-litre oak casks known as pieces that that once held white Burgundy and are up to fifty years old.

"[2] The company has a long-standing British connection: it has supplied The Wine Society with its house champagne for well over a hundred years.