When Lenny Met Dom

A collaboration between Dom Pérignon and Lenny Kravitz sets up the mother of all parties. Sean Fitzpatrick travels to France to talk to the legendary rock star, raise his vibrations and get the selfie to prove it.

- Sean Fitzpatrick

I am at the old abbey in Hautvillers, France, where champagne was created by Dom Pierre Pérignon in the late 17th century. Some 300 years later, the brand that bears his name has become one of the world’s top champagne houses, with marketing budgets to match. I have been flown here to interview Dom Pérignon’s latest collaborator, the legendary, Grammy award-winning purveyor of the superfly, Lenny Kravitz. We are in a stone chalet ensconced in a small wood a short distance from the abbey. It is one of those defining moments in the annals of Cool Things I Have Done. Of course, in this picture-or-it-didn’thappen age, I must ask for the obligatory selfie. He happily agrees and, as I get up to move closer to him, he says smoothly, “No, stay there. I’ll come over to you.” He leans over my back and drapes his left arm on my shoulder, the same heavily tattooed left arm that is responsible for some of the most earth-shuddering guitar riffs in rock history. Just as I take the shot, he forms his hand into a fist of brotherhood, and I am pretty sure that means we are now bros. I am feeling very awesome and a little destabilised by this rock god’s common courtesy.