At this point, happily, I remembered my mission (easy to forget when one gets to play around with repeaters) - this was a pilgrimage after all - to meet the watch maker who built my tourbillon. I was then introduced to Monsieur Vienot who is responsible for this fabulous watch. To my surprise he had been in the workroom all along working at his bench. The obligatory photos followed.

I had brought along another Blancpain as well - a rose gold perpetual chronograph. (in fact, I brought along three Blancpains, the third being a rose gold Half Hunter, triple date moon - always pack for a trip with sufficient watches). This watch was born in Paudex. The Paudex watches, like those in Le Brassus are assembled beginning to end by one watchmaker. However, unlike Le Brassus, the components for each movement have finishing applied to them by Piguet.

A tourbillon escapement under the microscope, note how smooth the anglage looks even under such high magnification

Near the end of our visit, the watchmakers presented us with two dials from the new automatic perpetual 8-day tourbillon and asked us to try to find a mistake in one of them. Obviously, we first checked the spelling of the months and looked if a date was out of sequence but it took us a while to see the obvious, can you spot it ?  

All the work in Le Brassus is done by hand and with simple tools, this winder must be the most sophisticated piece of machinery in the entire workshop, seriously !

These photos show the work areas at lunch time (hence the absence of watch makers). There is no sense of “factory” whatsoever. Every workbench had a view. Can your office match this?

Hans’ reverie and my own came to an end however, when we realized that our friendly little Swiss blizzard had returned and the Col de Mollendruz lay between us and a raclette dinner in Zurich. Hence, with our mission accomplished, it was time for the pilgrims to move on. Thanking our hosts again for an unbelievably attentive and warm reception, Hans and I skidded and skated our way across the parking lot for our climb out of the Vallee de Joux. Two satisfied pilgrims. Another story later about our stroll down the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich.

As if the tour through their wonderful workshops hadn't been enough, we were both presented with a fabulous Blancpain goodie bag on our departure, filled with things like a silver Blancpain pen, catalogs, a video and a leather Blancpain notepad. Mine also contained a minute repeater but let's not tell Jeff about that, OK ?

My thanks go to the people of Blancpain who were so kind and so generous with their time and so patient answering our countless questions and of course to Jeff for inviting me along on his pilgrimage.

Picture credits

Pont de Brent image from relaisetchateaux.ch
Moonphase Calendar from orologi.it
Fabulous picture of the Blancpain Concept 50 Fathoms by Hartmut Kraft
Pinkgold Blancpain perpetual tourbillon from Uhren Katalog 2001, Heel Verlag
Image of Dominique Loiseau from Uhren Katalog 1996, Heel Verlag