Founded in 1729, Ruinart is the oldest champagne producer in the world.
The first to use ancient caves carved out of the stone beneath the city of Reims in order to age its wines. The first to store its bottles, starting in the 18th century, in wooden crates and the first to reinstate the traditional champagne bottle.
With these things in mind, the Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek created the wooden crates for Ruinart’s Blanc de Blancs.
And naturally his Nordic style is very “eco-chic”.
In order to avoid unnecessary waste and optimize transport while minimizing the solution’s environmental impact, the designer conceived and built a trapezoidal chest whose profile has been appropriately refashioned, with a series of minimal touches, against the physical space occupied by the bottle.
What results is a truncated pyramidal crate which, – in addition to serving as a designer packaging – with its shape reminiscent of the keystone in an arch, as if it were a recurring architectural feature (or a piece of “Lego”), can be stacked in a very compact manner and used to create grandiose scenic installations.
In line with Eek’s typical approach, the wood used in the crates is recycled, but in order to better reflect the colors of Blanc de Blancs an essence of pine was patiently selected in hues of pale gray, white and cream and then treated on the surface with lacquers to make a precious finish. Each case has been handmade in the studios of Piet Hein Eek, in Geldrop, near Eindhoven, and has been signed and numbered to make it a unique item, like the bottle it contains.
