Ep 148: Conversation with Champagne Laurent-Perrier President Michelle DeFeo

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2015

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michelle DeFeo is a rock star of the Champagne world. She's a fabulous businesswoman, a Champagne nerd, and a normal wine person! We discuss everything from Bon Jovi to being a woman in the wine biz to differences in Champagne styles to flutes vs wine glasses.

Here are more detailed show notes:

We discuss the landscape of the Champagne industry and Laurent-Perrier's place in it
Then we discuss Michelle's background -- her journey from Jersey girl to Francophile and whether she's on team Springsteen or team Bon Jovi
We trade war stories about the perils of being a woman in the wine industry and Michelle shares her hopeful outlook on the situation
Then it's a Champagne dork out -- flutes v. glasses, occasions for Champagne, and sugar levels in the wine (and a little secret about sugar in wine)
We discuss the storied history of Laurent-Perrier and it's pure, fresh, elegant style plus vintage and multi-vintage Champagnes from the house
We wrap with some information on what it's like to work for Laurent-Perrier

Finally Michelle tells us what she'll be drinking for the holidays!

A super informative podcast with a great lady. The wine is delicious too -- so put it on the list!

Enjoy!

Transcript

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0:00.0	MC Ice, guess what?
0:02.0	Today's podcast is brought to our listeners by audible.com.
0:05.0	Yep, and they can get a free audiobook download at
0:08.0	W.W.
0:11.0	www. Audible Trial.com, forward slash wine for normal people there's over a hundred thousand
0:14.7	titles to choose from and those are for your iPhone Android Kindle or MP3
0:19.0	player go get a buck let's get to the show. Thanks for listening to wine for normal people.
0:29.0	The podcast for people who want to learn about wine but could do without the attitude
0:34.4	that seems to go with it. I'm Elizabeth Schneider, a certified
0:39.3	Silmaier and certified specialist of wine. And I'm MC Ice, just a wine-loving normal person.
0:44.4	All right, I'm like the luckiest person alive today because I have with me Michelle
0:50.1	Defeo, I said your name right? Yes you did. Is it Italian? It's Italian. And you were?
0:54.0	It's not Italian technically.
0:56.0	I tell you that's right because you're from Jersey.
0:58.0	That's right. From Laurent Perrier. Now you speak French, my French is horrible. I speak Spanish. I feel like if you do you speak
1:05.1	Spanish at all? A little bit. Okay so I feel like if you speak Spanish you can't speak
1:08.6	French. The one you start with is definitely the easiest one. Yeah, I totally agree. But the accents don't line up
1:14.9	really well. You have to just pretend like you're clearing your throat a lot.
1:17.9	In French? Kind of thing. Well I'm Jewish I should able, like the whole Hebrew thing, right,
1:23.2	shouldn't that work? I don't, it's just not not working.
1:25.6	Anyway, Michelle is the president of Laurent Perrier in the United States,
1:30.0	and she's going to tell us what that means, but Laurent Perrier is a Champaign house that's been around since 1812.
	...

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