Going against the flow

Champagne house Ruinart's collaboration with Brazilian artist Vik Muniz is just one way the brand continues to push the creative envelope.

When champagne house Ruinart gave Sao Paulo-born artist Vik Muniz carte blanche to conjure his own creative vision of the venerable maison of bubbles, Muniz went straight to its foundations: the earth, the vineyards and the roots of the vines themselves - from which Frederic Panaiotis, Ruinart's cellar master, also takes inspiration for his craft. "I take it as a great positive that you can find this project a little bit edgy," says Ruinart's president, Frederic Dufour. "One of the objects was to bring some modernity to the brand."

Ruinart is the dark horse of the champagne world - and yet a leading light. For a start, it's the first established champagne house in the world. Forget what you thought you knew about Dom Perignon divining bubbles in a cellar; Ruinart is 290 years old this year.

"We are nearly 300 years old," says Dufour. "So you need to shake the brand a little sometimes, but only insofar as it tells something that is important to the ongoing evolution of the story to us."