Champagne's deeper register- burnt amber, russet, and the brown-red of a bottle held against a lamp. Natural body color formed in the crystal, untreated and unaltered. Saturation this deep changes what the cut has to do: facets that would read as brilliance in a colorless stone read as movement here.

The most engineered cut in the trade, fifty-seven facets arranged to return as much light as the rough allows. Optimized over a century for maximum brilliance, which is why so much of what is sold today looks alike. We select for the ones that do not: proportions cut for the stone rather than for yield.