Jay Z Purchases Armand de Brignac ‘Ace of Spades’ Champagne Brand
Rap mogul Jay Z loves Armand de Brignac Champagne — nicknamed “Ace of Spades”- so much that he raps about it, hosted a fundraiser for President Obama with the expensive champagne and now he has purchased the company.
The owner of the brand confirmed the sale this week with a statement saying, “We are proud to announce that Sovereign Brands, a New York-based wine and spirits company owned by the Berish family, has sold its interest in the Armand de Brignac (‘Ace of Spades’) Champagne brand to a new company led by the globally renowned Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter,” Sovereign Brands said in the statement.”
Yvonne Lardner, global director of brand communications for Sovereign, added in an emailed statement to the New York Times: “We have had a wonderful relationship with Jay Z throughout the years since he first discovered Armand de Brignac. He became interested in owning the brand and made us an offer we simply couldn’t refuse.”
Terms of the deal, including the price of the deal and the details of the name of Jay Z’s company, were not disclosed.
“Ace of Spades” has been Jay Z’s champagne of choice since he denounced the champagne house Louis Roederer, which makes his former favorite drink, Cristal, over unfavorable comments made by one of the company’s directors.
“What can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it,” Frederic Rouzaud told The Economist, when asked if hip-hop artists were tarnishing the high-end brand, and added that the heavy promotion was “unwanted attention.”
When Jay Z heard of the comments, he immediately stopped promoting the drink.
“We used their brand as a signifier of luxury and they got free advertising and credibility every time we mentioned it,” he wrote in his 2010 book “Decoded.” “We were trading cachet. But they didn’t see it that way.”
The 44-year old rapper also brushed off a bottle of Cristal in favor of some “gold bottles of that ace of spade” in the video for his 2006 single, “Show Me What You Got.”
The acquisition of Armand de Brignac is the latest addition to the rapper turned businessman’s growing empire, which already includes a clothing line, restaurants and a recording label that are all a part of his estimated net worth of $520 million, according to Forbes.
Each bottle of Armand de Brignac is made by hand by a staff of eight people in Chigny-les-Roses, France. A standard bottle retails at $300. There’s also a 100 lb.-bottle (equivalent to 40 regular ones) that sells for over $200,000.
(Photo Credit:Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images and Armand de Brignac)
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