She’s from Bordeaux, he’s from Champagne; they met “in Napa Valley, the Mecca of California wines,” says Agnès. When her work took Sébastien to Luxembourg, she followed him. They set up Craft et Compagnie, a company entirely dedicated to importing wines from Champagne, in their garage in Bertrange. “And then Sébastien had a mid-life crisis. A positive one,” laughs Agnès. “He wanted to give our company a new lease of life by inventing a concept based around champagne.”
They liked the premises--a listed historic building--but it was too big for what they had imagined. One day, they stopped thinking and went for it. “We could have continued to weigh up the pros and cons. But if, at some point, you don’t make up your mind, dreams remain dreams. We wanted something real, something intimate. Just really good champagnes and good food, shared in a warm setting,” says Sébastien.
Flûte Alors draws its DNA from the wines of the Champagne region, with a very fine list of 250 wines that give pride of place to independent winegrowers, those who have been cultivating their knowhow for generations, craftsmen who work the vines with passion, producing subtle and rare champagnes. “Here, each cuvée has been carefully chosen for its quality and its history.”
An award-winning, passionate team
Since its creation, the quality of the Flûte Alors team has certainly not gone unnoticed, as shown by the Sommeliers of the Year awards for the duo of Olivier Chocq and Amaury Brunstein-Laplace and the award for Best Bar with Food at the latest Luxembourg Nightlife Awards, which the establishment won a few weeks ago. For Sébastien and Agnès, the victory is above all a collective one: “Our team is our greatest pride. We’re not restaurateurs by trade. So, over time, we have built a team around our values and our passion. Our sommeliers, in particular, embody everything we want to pass on here. They know every bottle, every winemaker, and know how to thrill our customers through their stories.”
While the sommeliers play a key role, telling the story of each champagne’s journey from vine to glass, for Agnès, the customer experience must be both accessible and rich. “We want everyone to be able to taste champagnes from winemakers, even the rarest ones. Here, you can enjoy a glass without pressure, let yourself be guided by our team and lose yourself in the subtleties of a cuvée.” The list of champagnes changes with the seasons--because, yes, there are cooler summer champagnes and winter champagnes. Sébastien and Agnès make sure that each tasting is a moment of discovery, where champagne is used as an aperitif as well as throughout the meal, sublimating the dishes created by their chefs.
Far from the cliché of the elitist champagne bar, Flûte Alors is a place for sharing, where people come to be surprised, guided by a dedicated and passionate team.
This article was written in for the magazine, published on 20 November. The content of the magazine is produced exclusively for the magazine. It is published on the website as a contribution to the complete Paperjam archive. .
Is your company a member of the Paperjam Club? You can request a subscription in your name. Let us know via