Didier Mariotti is the custodian of a 250-year-old Champagne house, overseeing a team of 40 and making decisions that shape millions of bottles each year, but if six-year-old Didier had had his way, he would be a fighter pilot.
‘It was my childhood dream,’ he says. ‘I was always interested in planes and reading comics about fighter pilots. Unfortunately my eyes weren’t good enough to pursue it.’
‘A moment for myself’
Mariotti’s family was involved in wine, so he followed in their footsteps instead. He always intended to learn to fly, but a busy career and raising a family got in the way.
‘When I turned 40, I thought, “This is the time for me to have my moment for myself,”’ he says. ‘I got my private pilot licence, then my night-flying and flight-instructor qualifications. Now I am treasurer of the flying club here in Champagne and help train the new pilots.’
He compares the joy of teaching people to fly to the joy of opening a bottle of wine: ‘When you open a bottle, it’s always about sharing something with someone else. It’s the same when teaching: you’re sharing your passion with other people.’
The skills required to fly a plane and lead a major Champagne brand are similar, too, he believes.
‘You need to be able to learn every year,’ he says. ‘With wine, every vintage is different. When you’re flying, the weather conditions will be different, the airport will be different.
‘What I like with both is that you have to trust yourself – that you have the knowledge and you’ll be able to find a solution. But at the same time, you have to be humble: the weather is always stronger than you are. That’s a difficult combination.’
Where they differ is how they treat mistakes – and Mariotti firmly believes that what he has learned in the cockpit has made him a better boss.
‘The culture of flying is very different to wine and industry in general,’ he says.
‘In companies and in wine, most people try to hide or avoid their mistakes – or try to blame someone else. With flying it’s the opposite. We share our mistakes straight away to make sure they aren’t made again. I’m teaching my team [at Veuve Clicquot] not to be scared of their mistakes.’
Peace and freedom
Of course, neither job is without stress. ‘For me, the most pressure in flight is when you have to land without visibility. You go through the clouds and can only see the ground about 200m before landing. You have to trust your instruments,’ Mariotti says.
‘You have to be very methodical. We have checks at all times. I apply that to my work [in wine] – you have to double-check, triple-check everything.’
The feeling of being in the air, however, is priceless. ‘You have this freedom – you’re like a bird. I love flying above the clouds. It’s like soft cotton that you can almost touch with your hand. It feels like you’re surfing the clouds.
‘I enjoy it most when the weather is bad on the ground. You take off, go above the clouds, and it’s beautiful, sunny. The sun is my energy – both in the plane and in my work.’
Part of the reason Mariotti wanted his licence was to be able to fly his family around Champagne. ‘We can see the vineyards from the air, the hills, the valleys,’ he says. ‘I love to fly over it [Champagne] in autumn, when all the vineyards are orange and red.’
He finds these moments very peaceful. ‘You’re not connected to the rest of the world,’ he says. ‘Your phone isn’t working and you can’t look at your emails. You just have to enjoy it.
‘It’s the same when I go down into the cellar – it’s 20m underground, so my phone doesn’t work there either. The world is moving so fast; it’s good to disconnect sometimes.’
