It all began with Florens-Louis Heidsieck. Born in Westphalia in 1749, this son of a Protestant minister started out as a draper in Reims where he fell in love with a girl from Champagne… and with the wine from Champagne. He was a self-educated man, overcome with the incredible ambition “to make a cuvée worthy of a queen”. In 1785 he founded the Cloth and Wine Trading Company Heidsieck & Co. He straightaway made his name with a distinctive champagne, whose reputation quickly spread beyond the local region and won favour at court.