Pharrell Williams, Kate Moss, and a soil expert walk into a bar… and share a bottle of Moët.

Not my wittiest opening, but that’s because it isn’t really a joke. Musicians, models, and soil expert, Marc-André Selosse, are all connected by their affiliation with Moët et Chandon, the world’s largest Champagne producer.

Once, glamour was all Gatsby and Studio 54, classic cars and catwalks, and, yes, bubbles by Moët. In those days, the dirtiest a glamazon would get would be shooting pheasants on a chum’s estate; in 2025, there’s nothing more stylish than soil. From Clarkson’s Farm to Kiss the Ground – a regenerative farming documentary boasting cameos from Woody Harrelson, Jason Momoa, Donald Glover, and Gisele Bündchen – dirt-related content is hot right now. Online, celebs are showing off their green fingers: The Crown’s Josh O’Connor enjoys time with his plants as much as being on set; Will Young is instagramming from his potting shed; and supermodels are sewing wildflower meadows and touring herb gardens. Move over Fashion Week, this year’s hot ticket was the Soil Exhibition.

This may explain why, last month, I found myself picking grapes in a pair of Moët-branded designer wellies with a troop of gorgeous fashion models, lifestyle influencers, and Sex Education’s Connor Swindells. In this unlikely coalescence of soil and celebrity, I belonged strictly in the former camp as one of a few wine journalists invited to join Moët’s annual harvest visit, a trip that typically involves more bubbles and blinis than worm counts and tractor innovations. I should have been perfectly at home – vineyards and soil chat, check – but with my Vinted jeans, high-street top, and scruffy ponytail, I felt a little incongruous beside what looked suspiciously like Massimo Dutti’s Autumn collection.

Soil may be chic, but it hasn’t featured on Moët’s Instagram just yet. This trip, with its particular focus on Moët’s ecological initiatives, was a first of its kind and marked a step-change in their communication strategy. I was interested to learn why they had chosen this moment to start talking, if tentatively, about the environment, and how they would approach the mucky, technical aspects of sustainable wine production.

During the visit, we would learn that Champagne’s biggest grower started quietly investing in sustainability over 20 years ago. The Maison owns 1,300ha of vines (almost 4% of the entire appellation), half of which are Grands Crus. L’Agence, France’s chicer answer to Selling Sunset, would love to get its hands on that real estate. Since 2014, all their estate-owned vineyards have been High Environmental Value and Sustainable Viticulture in Champagne certified, and the House is helping its 2,350 partner growers – 70% of which are also certified – to do the same. The result is a 50% reduction in chemical inputs since 2008: across a combined vineyard area of 4000ha, that’s significant.

In 2021, Moët launched Nueva Nostra, a biodiversity project that aims to establish an eco-corridor of woodlands and hedges from Epernay to Reims. They have also established a vine conservatory, Essentia, and have taken inspiration from the regenerative movement, planting 250ha of cover crops, mob grazing sheep, and converting to lighter-weight tractors to reduce compaction. Most interestingly, though, they are working with Champagne’s regional body, CIVIC, on a trial of “semi-wide vines,” a study which has proven that reduced planting density can mitigate competition from cover crops – an important feature of regenerative viticulture – while also reducing disease pressure and increasing natural grape acidity, all without impacting on yields. This is important data that could help move the dial for some regenerative sceptics.

This is all good stuff. Why, I wondered, isn’t this PR powerhouse splashing it all over social media?

The Sustainable Wine podcast’s 2023 episode “Is trying to communicate sustainability to consumers a waste of time?” provides some insight. In the episode, Toby Webb and Joe Fattorini argued that producers, in Fattorini’s words, ‘should probably talk about [sustainability] an awful lot less.’ He reasoned that ‘only about 12% of British people believe companies’ claims about sustainability,’ and stressed that ‘if you hammer away at people, the impression is you’re probably lying to them.’ Not only that, 30-40% of people are actually “eco-dismissers” who will be ‘actively turned off by environmental and sustainable messaging.’

According to Webb, however, the bigger problem is that sustainability is simply ‘too difficult for consumers to understand,’ and talking about it ‘distracts us from the real business of [tackling] sustainability in wine.’ Ultimately, the pair concluded, ‘there’s actually a bigger downside for you [talking about sustainability] than there is an upside, unless you can really prove it, and you know it’s absolutely solid.’

Being able to ‘prove it’ is important to Moët. When I put this to Patricia Criton, Moët’s Head of International Communication, she revealed that they ‘haven’t talked about sustainability in the past because [they] were afraid of being accused of greenwashing.’ As we walked through a row of cover crop seedlings, Vineyard Director, Frédéric Gallons, added that: ‘communication is good, but for us it’s secondary’ – from the viticultural team to the marketing department, the emphasis has been on doing before speaking, and rightly so.

And then there’s the matter of how producers, particularly glamorous Champagne Houses, should communicate about such a ‘difficult’ subject. While I disagree with Fattorini’s point that we should talk about sustainability ‘an awful lot less,’ I suspect we could be doing it more effectively. Criton confirmed this thought over dinner – a glittering affair served at Château de Saran, Moët’s private mansion that has previously hosted Natalie Portman and Uma Therman – telling me that, in her experience, ‘journalists aren’t interested in sustainability.’ Although I find this hard to imagine, I can see how soil health might not provide the killer headline most journos are looking for when reporting on a brand known for celebrity partnerships and glamorous parties. I hope some of the lifestyle press who joined us for the harvest will disprove Criton’s theory; but I’ve seen no evidence of this so far.

That said, some Houses have found imaginative ways to grab media attention. In 2024, fellow LVMH brand Veuve Clicquot partnered with Stella McCartney to transform ‘grape waste into vegan luxury,’ a selection of which debuted at Paris Fashion week last year. The environmental impact of this initiative was negligible at best, but it certainly was an original way of getting the super-rich talking about wine’s byproducts (a pair of Veuve Clicquot platform sandals will set you back £850).

Organic and regenerative producer Champagne Telmont has taken a more direct approach, making environmentalism the defining feature of its brand and partnering with actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio to enhance its cause. I asked Telmont’s President and ex Global PR Director of Moët et Chandon, Ludovic du Plessis, how Telmont is balancing sustainability communication with champagne’s lifestyle image: ‘who said sustainability isn’t lifestyle? For us, living sustainably is the ultimate expression of style today. Glamour or luxury without sustainability feels outdated, almost hollow. What really resonates now is a lifestyle that combines pleasure with purpose.’ Asked whether sustainability is ‘too difficult’ for drinkers to understand, he exclaimed: ‘not at all! Let’s not underestimate consumers. The fact that we’re still in the game today, with double-digit growth, proves that consumers embrace and endorse our approach.’

Back at Château de Saran, I asked Criton how Moët is planning to tell its sustainability story: ‘when you talk about sustainability, it becomes very technical, so we need to find the right words, the right initiatives to make it interesting. For example, when we talk about the harvest we can talk about sustainability because the two are linked. We need to find the right moment, like when we plant trees [for Moët’s biodiversity corridor], because then it’s easy to understand: it’s easy to explain that the more trees we have, the more flora and fauna we will have, and the fewer products we will need to use on the vines because we will have more bats, more birds that will take care of them.’ ‘Ultimately,’ she concluded, ‘I can’t talk about sustainability all year long, I have to pick the right moment.’

With the rise of the soil loving celebrity, ‘the right moment’ is there for the picking.