Can you help Ukraine and democracy by drinking champagne? Maybe — with the project Victoire de la dignité. It’s been a week of ups and downs for world politics and the progress of democracy. Unusual words here on a wine magazine. The EU has opened accession talks with Ukraine. It has done the same thing with Moldova. Good news. Congratulations, Moldova and Ukraine. (We have previously written quite a bit on Moldovan wines; see here.) However, both Ukraine and Moldova are still under threat from Russia. And, as a consequence, so is Western democracy. This week’s bad news was that Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Prime Minister and Putin’s friend in the EU, blocked a new aid package for Ukraine. But there are still things we can do to support Ukraine. For example, we can buy a bottle of champagne specifically created to help one of Ukraine’s military hospitals in Kyiv, created by Mariia Didkovska in the project she calls Victory of Dignity, “Victoire de la dignité”. If all goes well, we can then, one day, toast the victory of Ukraine and the defeat of Russian aggression in a glass of champagne.
A while back, I had the opportunity to talk to Mariia Didkovska, who created the project Victory of Dignity. Being far away from the war in Ukraine, as I am, it is in many ways hard to believe that life goes on more or less as normal despite the war. I have seen it on other occasions too. The Ukrainian drinks magazine Drinks+ has been running a global wine tourism competition where I am part of the jury (being a partner in one of the leading wine tour operators in the world) for two years. It goes on despite the war. Last summer, I was also asked to do a series of online seminars for wineries in Ukraine on how better to work with wine tourism. I was amazed that people could think of wine tourism when a war is going on (most wine production is close to the war zone). But of course they do. Life has to go on. If you think about it, that’s how it has to be.
This is a longer version of an article published on Forbes.com.
In Mariia’s words: “It’s projects which help people to believe in the future, to believe in tomorrow. And to keep people in touch with the life we have now and to build our plans. Because we all understand that we will have a lot of work to do, even after Victory Day, and we don’t believe in [just] Victory Day; we believe in victory steps. After this, it will be the huge work actually. So some people, a lot of people, are trying to prepare something to be ready for these steps.”
But today is war. War means casualties. Hospitals are needed to deal with casualties, and that is what Mariia’s project, Victory of Dignity, is about. At least at the most concrete level. To put it simply, you can buy a bottle of champagne created specifically for the project, and the proceeds of the sale go to support the military hospital in Kyiv. But it has broader meanings than that.
The project has already been able to support the hospital financially to enable them to buy, for example, new surgery and endoscopy equipment and other things that are difficult to find and finance in Ukraine today.
The Victory of Dignity champagne is still available in Ukraine and other countries for those who would like to give their support. Here’s the story behind it.
Mariia is a Ukrainian businesswoman living in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, where she owns two restaurants. One is called Citronelle, a French-style restaurant with the tagline “la cuisine française”. The other is a cocktail bar called Saint Bar.
Mariia has been working with the champagne producer Champagne Pierre Morley for over five years, to supply Mariia’s restaurants with champagne.
It was initially a contact through a friend, and through her business as a restaurateur, she came in contact with Eric Morlet, fourth-generation owner of Champagne Pierre Morlet. They became one of her champagne suppliers. Five years ago, when the restaurant celebrated its anniversary, Champagne Morlet came with a surprise for Mariia. They had created a special edition champagne for the restaurant, a blanc de blanc (a champagne made only from chardonnay). This was later followed by another special edition, this time a blanc de noir, a champagne made exclusively from red grapes, for Citronelle. A close relationship between Mariia and the Morley family led to them visiting Kyiv in December of 2021, shortly before Russia started the war and invaded Ukraine. This family friendship was the basis for the Victoire de la Dignité project.
And then, on February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine. Eric Morley called Mariia to see that she was alive and well and, from what I gather, even offered to open his house to Mariia’s family so that they could stay in Champagne if they wanted, but, as many Ukrainians who could, they have remained in the country, despite the war.
As Mariia explained to me when I talked to her, “I was trying to understand what to do, how to help, how to save my kids and how to help my people to survive. I had the idea that we could create a specific Ultimate Collection of champagne and involve our Ukrainian interest in modern artists. And sell it first of all to be ready for the Victory Day.” Because it is actually more a way of looking towards the future for Mariia, for the Victory Day that she knows is coming, and not only to help in the short term. She wanted to create a special edition of champagne, with labels illustrated by Ukrainian artists, to be sold to support the Military Hospital in Kyiv.
But at the moment, it was just an idea. She called Eric Morlet and explained her idea. The call went well. Mariia explains: “He said, ‘Okay, give me some time,’ and they came back to me with the information that Morlet have (in their cellar) a special limited edition champagne, a special blend not yet commercialised.” Eric told Mariia, ” We’re ready to give it to you because you have a wonderful idea, and we want to be in touch, and we want to support Ukrainians, and this is maybe our way to support.” From that moment, Mariia started to think about this concretely to figure out how to realise her project.
Now, she had the champagne, but she needed the artist. “First of all, I called my friend, who is a friend of my favourite artist,” to see if he wanted to be part of the project. After this first contact, other artists joined the project.
All of the artists were people who had stayed in Ukraine when the war started. “We could feel all this energy [of the project], all of this atmosphere. They could also feel rockets all around them. I asked them to create or find some specific painting with a symbol of the victory for them. I have a few works actually which were created especially for this project.” They are now the illustrations that are used for the labels of the champagne Victoire de la Dignité.
She managed to convince six of her favourite painters to participate in the project, and each of them has contributed with a painting: Oleksii Apollonov, Mykola Bilous, Olena Pryduvalova, Maryna Skugareva, Oleksandr Sukholit, and Oleg Tistol. The Victoire de la Dignité champagne is thus bottled with six different labels, one from each artist.
But this is just one of many projects, one of many ways for people in Ukraine to survive and support the country.
In Mariia’s words: “I think that there is one good thing with this (the war) that we’re bringing to Ukrainian national, it’s being together. It’s coming back to the nation, that it’s a proud thing to be Ukrainian. I am talking about the normal people you know; it’s not about the populism or PR or something like this. I’m talking about the people who think about tomorrow, about the children and, what we want to save and why we are trying to save our country. (…) All of us, we deal with it, we act together, and we don’t forget that we are friends if we meet each other. We think just ‘okay, I’m here; what can I do?’ (…) This united us, I would say, in one nation, and this is the biggest result. We call our project Victoire de la dignité, Vicotry of Dignity, because I think that we understand that the war is going to continue. We don’t know how long it will be. But we understand that we have the first victory now. It’s a victory of dignity. Because we are still here. We started to be together. We started to be honest with each other. I would love to believe. We started to act like one organism. People around the world helped us so much and believed in us. So this is actually the second meaning of the project: that the taste of victory is not just one, but victory has many faces. That’s why it’s one champagne and six artists.”
The wine, Champagne Pierre Morlet cuvée Victoire de la Dignité 2015, is also quite an unusual champagne. It comes from Champagne’s Montagne de Reims sub-region, known for its full-bodied champagnes. It is one of very few vineyards in Champagne that is on such a steep slope that it has been terraced to be able to grow the vines there.
2015 was a very difficult year, and the harvest was almost lost due to the weather. Spring frost almost wiped out the vines. “The grapes were saved thanks to the united efforts of my family. We made a really special wine with them which we’ve kept for something important. I am very happy that this millésime has been bottled for the Victoire de la Dignité collection. It will serve a great cause,” says Eric Morle
The wine is a vintage champagne from the 2015 harvest, made from 85% chardonnay and 15% pinot noir. Only 2,388 bottles were made of this cuvée. It has spent six years on the lees before disgorging, a long time that often gives extra depth to the wine.
We were given the opportunity to taste this very special champagne.
The wine has a deep golden colour and is quite powerful, more than expected from a chardonnay. An excellent creamy mousse. It has very well-developed notes of yellow fruit, apricots, a touch of mango, and what we like to call “dry” honey. Already quite ripe in style. With its eight years of age, the acidity has been rounded off. This makes it a perfect champagne to match with food.
Today, it is still possible to support the Main Military Clinical Hospital of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, as is the full name. There are even a few extra-special bottles that some prominent Ukrainian politicians and other famous people in Ukraine have signed that you might be able to buy, too.
You can buy the bottles in Mariia’s restaurant in Kyiv, of course, but you can also get them in other countries by contacting Mariia. They have already delivered bottles to London and New York. The charity has its own website, victoiredeladignite.com where you can find her contact details. Why not get a “six-pack”, and you will get one each of the six artists’ labels?
A great way to support Ukraine and, at the same time, enjoy an excellent wine.
No doubt there is an added symbolism in this charity project. Champagne is a drink with which one often celebrates a victory, and in this case, the future victory of Ukraine.
