Famed French champagne house Piper-Heidsieck, founded in 1785 in Reims, is coming out with a stylish new limited edition bottle for Valentine’s Day to salute its status as the favorite tipple of legendary ladies from Marie Antoinette to Marilyn Monroe. The new Rosé Sauvage Bodyguard bottle’s crocodile-like skin was painstakingly created using the latest thermoplastic elastomer technology to perfectly replicate the real reptile. An actual Nile crocodile was scanned for twelve whole days to create the perfect template for the realistic wrapping. The resulting image was laser printed onto a steel mould, which was then filled with molten latex. 

A limited number of bottles of Piper-Heidsieck’s renowned Rosé Sauvage, made from the same award winning blend as Piper Brut NV with the addition of red wines from the Côte des Bar imparting a distinctive intense color and fruity nose and mouth, were then wrapped in the high-tech croc patterned latex skin, which keeps the champagne cool much longer than an uncoated bottle. Piper-Heidsieck has become one of the most awarded champagnes worldwide under the guidance of celebrated winemaker Régis Camus, who was recently named the “Sparkling Winemaker of the Year” for the seventh time since 2004 by London’s prestigious International Wine Challenge.