Regina Troy Barrios

Solaire Unveils Its New Grand Cru Champagne, Pure Old-School Luxury

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<p>The right way to be introduced to a new champagne is not in a tasting room with a spit bucket, but at <strong>Sunday brunch at Finestra</strong>, with a plate of freshly shucked oysters in front of you, and<strong> Daniel Blais</strong>, <strong>Solaire&#x27;s Director of Beverage</strong>, pouring golden bubbles directly into an oyster shell and handing it to you. The oyster slides into your mouth in all its cool, briny smoothness, surrounded by the fizz and fruit of the champagne. It is, simply, bliss.</p><p>What Blais poured was something <a href="https://www.instagram.com/solaireresort/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Solaire</strong></a> has never had before: its own Grand Cru champagne, made by a small family in France whose champagne, until recently, almost never left the country.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1779264500395Solaire Grand Cru Champagne.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner">Finestra&#x27;s Sunday brunch feels even more luxurious with Solaire&#x27;s new Grand Cru champagne | Photo: Solaire PH</span></span></span></div><p>About a year and a half ago, Blais called <a href="https://www.instagram.com/champagneboeveras/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pierre Boever</a>, a grower-producer in Louvois, a Grand Cru village deep in the Montagne de Reims. The Boevers have been farming the same land since 1847 and making their own champagne since 1946. They produce around 32,000 bottles of champagne a year. For context: Moët &amp; Chandon makes around 35 million bottles a year. Dom Pérignon, Moët &amp; Chandon&#x27;s prestige cuvée, makes around six million, sourcing its Grand Cru grapes from independent growers exactly like the Boevers. In fact, Blais says the Boevers&#x27; fruit has almost certainly ended up in Dom Pérignon before they decided to bottle it themselves.</p><p>Thomas and Laure Boever, according to Blais, don&#x27;t advertise. Nor do they need to. Every bottle sells in France, mostly to private individuals and by word of mouth, often poured by the glass in the most prestigious restaurants in the country. When Blais called to ask if he could purchase 5,000 bottles, he was essentially asking for nearly a sixth of everything they make in a year. Price, remarkably, was not the first topic. &quot;At no point we discussed about pricing,&quot; he said at the launch. &quot;It was all about if they wanted us to purchase.&quot; They did. And then they offered something Blais hadn&#x27;t asked for: permission to print the Solaire name on the label. For a champagne that has never needed to court anyone, that was a very big deal.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1779264658898Daniel Blais, Director of Beverage for both Solaire properties.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner">Daniel Blais | Photo: Solaire PH</span></span></span></div><p>Grand Cru, for those who haven&#x27;t had it explained properly: in 1920, the French government sent the world&#x27;s top geologists, winemakers, and sommeliers through every plot of land in the Champagne region. They tested soil composition, tasted grapes before crushing, assessed finished wine. After evaluating more than 320 villages, they designated exactly 17 as Grand Cru, the highest classification in all of Champagne. That list has never been revised. It is the definitive judgment on quality, and it still stands. Louvois, where the Boevers farm, is one of the 17. The grapes grown there are, by a century-old consensus of experts, among the best on earth.</p><p>Solaire&#x27;s Grand Cru is a lovely champagne to drink. Its color is a light, bright gold, finer and more luminous than the pale straw of entry-level bubbles. The bubbles are abundant and very fine. On the nose you get citrus first, then pear, then something richer: fruitcake, almonds, a faint saline note that makes you want yet another sip. In the mouth it is complex in the real sense, meaning there are several things happening at once rather than a single clean fruit note, and it has what sommeliers call a long finish, meaning several seconds after you swallow, the flavors are still there. This is what Grand Cru terroir tastes like when nobody has blended it into a house style.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1779264681717Solaire Grand Cru Champagne(2).jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner">Tiny bubbles, pale gold, impossibly elegant | Photo: Solaire PH</span></span></span></div><p>Which brings us to Joy Wassmer, Solaire&#x27;s Director of Communications, who made the quietly excellent decision to debut this champagne at Brunchissimo, Finestra&#x27;s Sunday ritual. One appreciates the strategy. You don&#x27;t truly understand a champagne until you&#x27;re eating real food alongside it.</p><p>Brunchissimo runs every Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and is the kind of lunch that makes you feel extremely good about your Sunday choices: a seafood tower with fresh oysters and lobster, handmade pastas finished tableside by the chef, a roaming steak trolley with tomahawk and wagyu, baked oysters, mushroom risotto, a live tiramisu station, cannoli made to order. A cocktail trolley makes the rounds with negronis, bellinis, and bloody marys. The Grand Cru pairs beautifully with all of it, structured enough for the steak, bright enough for the oysters, interesting enough to sip on its own.</p><p>Now here&#x27;s the best part: entry-level champagne at most Manila hotels and restaurants costs between P6,900 and P8,900 a bottle. The Solaire Grand Cru is P5,800. It is both the better wine and the lower price. Blais explains why without embarrassment: there is no importer, no distributor, and no marketing budget, because the Boevers have never needed to advertise. Every saving goes directly to you. &quot;We are serving Ferrari but charging Toyota,&quot; he said. &quot;Our competition is serving Toyota and charging Ferrari.&quot; If he sounded a little smug while saying this, he could be forgiven.</p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1779264705076Solaire Grand Cru Champagne(1).jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner">One of the best reasons to book a table at Finestra | Photo: Solaire PH</span></span></span></div><p>One more thing to know: the current bottles carry the cuvée name Bastien Thomas, a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot noir from the Grand Cru vineyards of Louvois. A cuvée, simply put, is the winemaker&#x27;s specific blend, and in grower champagne, each one reflects a distinct parcel of land. The next shipment will bring a second cuvée called Les Demoiselles, from a different parcel on the Boever property. Same family, different terroir, slightly different character. This is what makes grower champagne different from the big houses: it doesn&#x27;t taste like a brand. It tastes like a place.</p><p>The Boever family, for the record, is three people: husband, wife, and a teenage son, with four employees. They were invited to Manila for the launch and politely declined. The vines needed tending.</p><div><br/></div><div><em>The<strong> Solaire Grand Cru</strong> is available now across all outlets at </em><a href="https://www.instagram.com/solaireresort/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Solaire Resort Entertainment City</em></a><em> in Pasay and </em><a href="https://www.instagram.com/solaireresortnorth/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Solaire Resort North</em></a><em> in Quezon City. Brunchissimo at Finestra runs every Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Reserve at +63 2 8888 8888 or sec.solaireresort.com. </em></div>

<p>A tiny Grand Cru champagne family in rural France turned down the world, then quietly said yes to Solaire Resort Entertainment City — and now Manila is drinking grower champagne that tastes like Dom Pérignon’s secret source, poured straight into oyster shells at Sunday brunch.</p>

A tiny Grand Cru champagne family in rural France turned down the world, then quietly said yes to Solaire Resort Entertainment City — and now Manila is drinking grower champagne that tastes like Dom Pérignon’s secret source, poured straight into oyster shells at Sunday brunch.

Solaire Unveils Its New Grand Cru Champagne, Pure Old-School Luxury

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Solaire Unveils Its New Grand Cru Champagne, Pure Old-School Luxury

Troy Barrios

Published May 18, 2026 04:25 PM PHT

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Updated May 20, 2026 10:55 PM PHT

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