the power of champagne

I went to visit a very good friend I had known a long time who had suffered. In the past year, she had undergone bad luck that had shaken her to the core. Her apartment, never flashy, had begun to feel squalid. My elegant friend, without her usual deep sardonic humour, seemed almost defeated by life.

We talked over cigarettes and milky tea; kicking around old remains from the dusty ruins of her life for an hour or two. She barely smiled. She let her phone ring through. The sun had gone down, but we continued talking as we sat in near darkness.

OK, let’s have a drink

I turned on the light, the sun had finally gone down and it was cool enough to think again. “I’ll get some Champagne.” She smiled wanly; grief had drained the blood from her face, and she perfunctorily lit a cigarette. She loved good wines, and in better times we had often talked about the idea of drinking Champagne and only Champagne; of course, neither of us could afford this dream, and always ended up buying the house wine (but it was a nice dream).

However, I had recently won a bottle of Veuve Clicquot 1999 and had it outside in the car. I came in and lodged it in the freezer for a minute while I cleaned the glasses, breaking one in the sink.

I poured. The Champagne rushed to the top of the glass like absurd snow. It did not fail us. This style, developed in the early 19th century by the widow Madame Clicquot, was a classic bone dry champagne. And yet, nothing about it tasted linear: apples, honeysuckle, grapefruit, marzipan, nougat…

swirls of gold calligraphy in the mouth

We kept talking; we ate some cheese, apple and some cheap cracker biscuits. We stopped our conversation to admire it; the Champagne developed as we talked, spinning into the finest wire of gold. We became hypnotised by its layers and complexity.

Like the Walt Whitman of wine, this Champagne gleefully said, “Do I contradict myself? I contain multitudes!”

My friend’s spirits were raised, she even smiled. We climbed the stairs on to the roof top and looked down into the lit windows of people cooling down for the night. Our spirits had risen as high as the deep blue summer night sky. We remembered our favourite songs. We sang. On the last glass, we even admitted - not everything in life was totally bad.

As the bottle emptied, I said good night. Walking home I thought, would any other wine have done the job? How many other wines can reach out and grab the gold lining from stormy clouds? Our spirits were raised to outrageous levels, our hopes latched onto the promise of each silly bubble.

I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad...

Any other wine could have made us even more depressed, but something about Champagne that gives hope, as Lily Bollinger said about the stuff…

"I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad.
Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone.
When I have company I consider it obligatory.
I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and I drink it when I am.
Otherwise I never touch it, unless I'm thirsty."

xj