Personal Vintage - FAQ

The Personal Vintage Experience is a comprehensive service that includes the advance reservation of grape juice, the production of your bespoke champagne, storage, personalisation, and access to related events. The minimum reservation is 60 bottles in 0.75L equivalents, with formats available in 0.75L, 1.5L (Magnum), 3L (Jeroboam), and 6L (Mathusalem). You must be of legal drinking and purchasing age in your country of residence — minimum 18 years. The champagne is intended for your private enjoyment, and any commercial resale using the HATT et SÖNER name, trademarks, or marketing materials requires our prior written consent.

The Personal Vintage Experience begins at the very start of the winemaking process, with the advance reservation of grape juice. Under strict French regulations, the liquid cannot legally be called Champagne when it is just freshly pressed juice. We ensure that only the first pressing of the grapes is used for your reservation, and the liquid is initially placed in your chosen steel tanks or oak barrels as grape juice. The terms carefully distinguish between this initial reserved grape juice and the final bespoke champagne — it only becomes your custom champagne after it has completed the full production, ageing, and bottling process.

You select the origin of the grape juice, the vinification method (oak barrel or steel tank), the ageing method (crown capsule or natural cork), and your bottle format. You also choose your dosage level during the disgorgement phase, either by following our winemaker's recommendation or by specifying your own preference. Personalisation of the back label with your logo or image is included in the Reservation Fee; personalisation of the front label with your initials is available as a separate option for an additional fee.

The Family Reserve is our annual allocation programme. By joining, you commit to a recurring annual production of the same recipe — same grape origin, vinification, ageing method, and bottle format — for each successive vintage, and your family's recipe is preserved in our archives. Each year, we send you the invoice for that year's allocation, stating the harvest year, quantity, and price. If you do not wish to receive that year's allocation, simply notify us in writing within twenty (20) days of the invoice date, and we will cancel it with no further obligation — your membership remains active and your recipe stays preserved for the following year. If we do not hear from you within the 20-day period, the allocation is confirmed and production continues as planned. You can amend the recipe or quantity for any future vintage, or end your Family Reserve membership altogether for future vintages, by written notice. Each confirmed allocation is its own Reservation under our Terms & Conditions.

Our winemaker evaluates each year's harvest to ensure it meets our quality standards. If the harvest is insufficient, your reservation is postponed to the following year and we will inform you without delay. If we have to postpone for two or more consecutive years, you may cancel your reservation by written notice and receive a full refund of the Reservation Fee.

You have a statutory right of withdrawal within 14 days of paying the Reservation Fee. Simply write to pv@hatt-soner.com within that window and we will refund the Reservation Fee in full within 14 days. After the 14-day period, the reservation is firm and final. Because the Personal Vintage Experience is a bespoke service produced to your personal specifications, with grape juice allocated and committed to your recipe shortly after confirmation, the bottles cannot be reallocated, resold, or returned to general inventory. For this reason, and under Article 16(c) of EU Directive 2011/83/EU, the right of withdrawal does not extend beyond 14 days. The Reservation Fee is therefore non-refundable after that point, except in specific circumstances such as harvest postponement for two or more consecutive years, extended force majeure, or loss or damage during storage.

We understand that life sometimes intervenes — serious illness or bereavement, for example. In genuinely exceptional circumstances, we may agree to cancel your reservation at our discretion. Any refund in such cases will reflect the costs already incurred in production, storage, and administration, and is not a matter of right. We treat each situation individually and in good faith.

The reservation passes to your estate, which has three options: take delivery under the existing terms, assign the reservation to a beneficiary with our consent (assignments to a spouse, descendants, or family trust will not be unreasonably refused), or cancel the reservation with a refund of sums paid, less costs we have reasonably incurred in production, storage, and administration.

Your Reservation Fee covers optimal storage for a minimum of three years from bottling, with at least three months of ageing after disgorgement.

Yes. You can extend storage of non-disgorged bottles on the lees in increments of one year, at the applicable storage rate. We will contact you at least three months before the end of each storage period to confirm whether you want to disgorge or continue storage. If you do not respond, we will send a second written reminder. If we still do not hear back within 30 days of that second reminder, storage will be extended automatically by one year at the applicable rate. Automatic extension applies for a maximum of three consecutive cycles, after which we will require active written confirmation from you before extending further. Disgorged bottles that remain uncollected more than three months after disgorgement are subject to a finished-bottle storage fee at the applicable rate; we will notify you of this fee in advance.

A Disgorgement Campaign runs every year from May to December and is available to you from the fourth year after harvest. We will notify you by email at least three months before the campaign, and you may also choose to defer disgorgement to a later year, subject to the extended storage terms. Your reservation includes one level of dosage per disgorgement — either our winemaker's recommendation or your own choice. Labelling is carried out at the time of disgorgement, so please submit your labelling preferences together with your dosage decision.

Your bottles will be ready for delivery no later than three months after disgorgement. We will notify you when they are ready, and you will provide a written Confirmation for Delivery. Unless you elect ex-cellar collection in writing, we will arrange transport, insurance, and customs clearance to your designated address (Delivered Duty Paid, Incoterms 2020). Transport, insurance, alcohol duties, and applicable VAT are invoiced to you at cost on the final invoice. If you prefer to collect ex-cellar from our bonded warehouse, you remain responsible for collection, export formalities, and onward transportation; risk transfers to you on collection.

It is your responsibility to keep your contact details current. If we cannot reach you at the end of your storage period, we will make documented efforts to contact you via email, postal mail, and telephone over a 12-month period. If you remain unreachable after that, your reservation will be considered cancelled and the bottles may be disposed of. Disposal means either destruction or removal of all personalisation and reallocation to general inventory, at our discretion. Sums paid that exceed costs reasonably incurred by us will be held for a further three years in case you resurface, after which they will be retained.

If bottles are lost or damaged while in our storage, we will, at our option, either replace them with the next available vintage at no additional cost, or refund you the value of the lost bottles calculated at the then-current published price for equivalent Personal Vintage bottles. This protects you against changes in bottle value over the four-year process.

For visible defects, submit a written complaint to pv@hatt-soner.com within 30 days of delivery. For hidden defects (vices cachés), report them within a reasonable time of discovery, and no later than two years from delivery. Include your name, reservation number, a description of the defect, and photographs where possible. We will respond within 15 business days, and available remedies include replacement, credit, or refund at our reasonable discretion.

Yes. Prices applicable to a confirmed reservation are those stated in the Reservation confirmation invoice and are not subject to subsequent price changes. Storage fees, disgorgement fees, labelling fees, and other variable charges are billed at the rates published when the relevant service is rendered.

We may amend our Terms & Conditions from time to time, with at least 30 days' notice by email. For non-material changes — corrections, clarifications, updates to contact details, changes to the events programme — the new version applies automatically to all existing reservations after the notice period. For material changes — pricing structure for services not yet invoiced, liability, delivery terms, cancellation rights, intellectual property, or governing law — your reservation continues to be governed by the version of the Terms & Conditions in force when you confirmed, unless you expressly accept the new version in writing. In other words, material changes do not apply retroactively to existing reservations without your consent.

The Reservation Fee is invoiced excluding VAT and delivery costs, and is payable within 20 days of the invoice date by wire transfer, credit card, or any other method we agree to in writing. The final invoice is issued after your Confirmation for Delivery and includes VAT, transport, insurance, alcohol duties, and any additional fees such as extended storage.

For anything related to your Personal Vintage, contact Noémie Radiere at pv@hatt-soner.com or +33 6 45 82 56 88. Our address is 10, Av. des Comtes de Champagne, 51130 Bergères-lès-Vertus, Marne, Grand Est, France.

If you are not satisfied with our response to a complaint, you may refer the matter to the Médiateur de la consommation du secteur des vins et spiritueux before pursuing any legal remedy. Members resident in the European Union may also use the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution platform at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

We process your personal data to deliver the Personal Vintage Experience, under Article 6(1)(b) of the GDPR (contract performance), and where applicable Article 6(1)(f) (legitimate interests) and Article 6(1)(a) (consent, for marketing). Full details — including retention periods, recipients, and your rights to access, rectification, erasure, portability, and objection — are in our Privacy Policy at www.hatt-soner.com/privacy. We will not disclose your identity or the existence of your reservation to third parties without your consent, except as required by law or to service providers bound by confidentiality.