Valentine's Day: wine for the cynical and jaded

Saying pink champagne is romantic is as delusional as saying Paris is feminine when one look at a map shows the city is a continuous paean to military conquests. The best Rose Champagne is not hearts and fluffy toys, it usually has a strong Pinot Noir constitution that can withstand many different food assaults. So if you must buy into the most commercial of days etc etc…

Champagne, darkly: Blanc de Noirs

(Or, How to Have a Good Divorce Party. Advice to a Friend.)

"Dry your eyes, my friend. It's over. The white wedding may have been nice, the dress nice, all that money you spent on champagne on the day, sure, nice.

The Complete Wish List 2010

2010 WISH LIST TOP FIVE

• 5. Inflorescence Champagne
• 4. Krug Rose (Half Bottles)
• 3. Screaming Eagle, Napa Valley
• 2. Cheval des Andes, Argentina
• 1. Essencia, Tokaji Hungary

(or click on the images above)

Vote for Champagne!

Remember gentlemen, it is not just France we are fighting for, it is Champagne. - Winston Churchill

Amazing! My little article on Krug Rose Champagne is a finalist in Bibendum's Argento Competition. Thank you.

best wishes

x jmd

ps Are you on twitter? follow me here

2010 Wish List #4: Krug Rosé (half bottle)

Yes, it must be a half-bottle. Of course, it would be more practical, economical and sensible to buy a full bottle. But don't be ridiculous. This is my wish list, and it really is not the moment to consider such prosaic things.

It's the time to dream extravagantly. So it must be a half bottle of Krug Rose and it must be in its lavender box.

When it's a half bottle, Krug Rose becomes more than just Champagne. It joins the modern consumer pantheon: objects such as the smooth black packaging of an iPod or the pale blue egg-shell expectation of a Tiffany's box; things coveted for how they are presented as for much as what's inside.

Once you get past the pale lavender packaging - a colour that seems only to be found in very expensive cashmere - marveling how it is the same shape as the full-size version and squeal at how everything is so much smaller, you take the bottle out of its box, hold its swan-like neck and wonder: how is it possible to make this bottleneck even more slender? You want to hold it like a new-born animal.

I heard Madonna ordered all the Krug Rose available in London and New York for her 50th birthday at the Volstead Club in London two years ago. Every wine merchant on both sides of the Atlantic had emptied their stock for her party. It's quite obvious to see why Madonna would want it for her 50th.

This is all about power. It's a Rose Champagne, but in the Krug style. It blushes deeply in lavender, it is not fainting in pink. It looks bruised, almost shocking. This is not about giggly bubbles, this is serious fun. But, it wasn't Madonna drinking it that put this Champagne on my Wish List for 2010.

The wish was born from meeting a woman who bought cases of it once a week. To drink every day. From half bottles.

Every evening she opened a bottle with, or without, her husband, and found that a glass or two was just enough. At the time, I thought this must be the most decadent way to drink Champagne I have ever seen. Why not buy full bottles and use a stopper? You'd save and then you could....

Oh, silly girl.

It's supposed to be extravagant. And if this wish list is about dreams, then might as well dream extravagantly. That's why wish number 4 is: a half-bottle of Krug Rose, every day.

2010 Wish List #5: Inflorescence Champagne

Coming in at number five on my wish list of cool curiosities I'd love to try this year is Cedric Bouchard's Champagne, Inflorescence.

"The explosive, kaleidoscopic Champagnes of Cedric Bouchard are some of the most compelling wines coming out of the region today... Readers should do whatever they can to experience these magnificent wines." - Antonio Galloni, Wine Advocate

When I read this review in Wine Advocate last April, I immediately started to look for stockists. There's something appealing about a single-grower in Champagne in a place where every vineyard is held by multiple, usually corporate, interests. It's the heroic story of the little guy winning against the big guys. There's also hardly any of it around, and what was available had been snapped up, which, as you can imagine, drove me even more crazy...

Also, the word, Inflorescence - it sounds like it blossoms with marvelous bubbles. Does it live up to the name? I definitely want try a glass or two this year and find out whether it lives up to the hype.

Benefizio (or, is that the champagne talking?)

"I really love you," She said

"Is that the Champagne talking?" he asked.

"No," she laughed,

"That's me talking to the Champagne."

Another year, another birthday. Apart from the regulatory Champagne (Veuve Clicquot and Billecart Salmon Brut), the wine that astounded everyone who joined us for lunch was the Marchesi de' Frescobaldi 2006 Pomino Benefizio Reserva.

The Benefizio glitters and spins like one of those disco lights programmed to move to music. Thrilling pineapple character is mellowed by a sudden acacia and honey character. Depth and light at the same time. It charms but does not dominate.

It's a slight shock to learn this is a Chardonnay.

From the Pomino Valley in Tuscany, this area was already considered one of the four best wine-making areas in Tuscany during Medici times.

It helps to have brilliant food and company, too. Simple, good Italian food such as real pasta Carbonara (ie no cream, based on eggs). Perfect for long Sunday lunches, this is the ultimate dinner party wine.

Bravo.

Yes, that's me talking to the wine!

Link: Marchesi di Frescobaldi

New Years Eve champagne

Still recovering.

I know - a week after New Years' Eve. 

Drank some very good champagne - and it is worthy to note, because it happens so rarely - one after another. 

Ruinart Rose NV followed by 1999 Dom Perignon, 1995 Krug with a chaser of NV Krug. 

I've never tasted Dom Perignon beside Krug. Either it's one or the other. The two champagnes don't often mix in the same circles. 

Yin and yang. 

Dom Perignon is delicate, lacy and feminine. Krug is biscuity and masculine - although still very elegant and refined.  

At least now I know why Dom Perignon is Marlene Dietreich's favourite champagne.

Let 2009 sparkle on! 

what to drink during a financial crisis

"My clients' enquiries: "Which wine is best to numb the pain and transport you most effectively from your woes?" What, for example, might the chief executive of the world's fourth-largest investment bank pull up from his cellar, dizzy, reeling and nauseous, knowing that the jobs of 24,000 employees, a proud 158-year commercial history, over $600 billion and the reputation of an entire profession were about to go up in smoke?"

I'd recommend a white wine from the south of France. A Picpoul de Pinet around £4 a bottle.

Or better yet, crunch the credit card and buy a serious Champagne. One that asks questions and gives pause to reflect.



Link: What to drink during a financial crisis

champagne and real pain

"Captains of industry, great generals, artists of genius, even politicians, are often just people who have discovered that alcohol can enable them to make economic, tactical, creative, or political decisions whose implications would paralyze a sober individual." – John More, in sub-TERRAIN

Finest example: Winston Churchill.

Pol Roger released Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill Pol Roger Vintage Champagne in 1984 to recognise Churchill's attachment to Pol Roger, who "insisted on enjoying the wine at the most dangerous and dark periods of wartime".

My observation is Pol Roger is not as well-known the LVMH (Moet, etc) champagnes; Vintage Pol Roger, even less so, but preferred by people who have drunk too much Veuve Clicquot in their life.


Link: Sir Winston Churchill and Pol Roger

Fate is great: flirtations with pink champagne

"Fate is Great"

As fate would have it, the man who told me the story about the Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigars (previous post) was from Verona.

As we stood beside a display of Champagne, I asked him which was his favourite Champagne.

"Billecart-Salmon".

"Me too! (FATE!) I love the Billecart-Salmon Rosé."

"You must drink a lot of pink champagne..."

Why (insecurely checking my lipstick)??

And he moved very close and said, "Because your lips are so pink."

Ah!

And how does this star-crossed tale end?

Let's just say, as they do in Romeo and Juliet, that I was the very pink of courtesy.

Of course.

Link: Billecart-Salmon House site

breakfast of champions

"Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne."

– from Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday, Kurt Vonnegut

get your fizz on

Courtney Love gets her fizz on

A new book on the history of hooch: Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol, By Iain Gately. Gotham Books.

"Real French Champagne was sweet but still. When the English imported it to their warm cellars in the 1660s, it went through a second fermentation and turned bubbly—sacrilege to the French, but soon de rigueur overseas....

One of Drink’s most fascinating subplots, as it turns out, is humanity’s apparently universal contempt for water. In ancient Greece, water drinkers “were believed not only to lack passion but also to exude a noxious odor”"

Link: A History of Hooch - New York Magazine

Cinematic Wines - Pt 5: Champagne and Casablanca

As everyone is waiting, stuck in Casablanca, what else is there to do? Might as well drink more Champagne.

Good idea.

Casablanca is soaked in Champagne. Champagne features in nearly more scenes than the film's star, Humphrey Bogart. I'm amazed Champagne isn't featured in the credits as a character.

From the first moment we meet Rick (Humphrey Bogart) playing chess against himself in his saloon, Rick's Cafe Americain, he is seen drinking Champagne in a Marie Antoinette glass.

But of course, he never accepts drinks from anyone else.

"Waiter, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot 1926, a very good wine," orders the Captain for the visiting Nazi Major.

Then there's the bottle of bourbon Rick drinks while he waits for an explanation from his ex-lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman).

"Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine."

Rick sits in the dark remembering happier times. With the arrival of the Nazis in Paris, Rick, Ilsa and Sam drink through their last three bottles of Mumm Cordon Rouge.

Ilsa would rather pour the Champagne in the garden than let the Nazis drink it.

"Here's looking at you kid," as they toast their last toast together. Ilsa knocks over the Champagne. An ominous sign!

Meanwhile, everybody at Rick's Cafe Americain is drinking non-stop Champagne cocktails, Hennessy Cognac and French 75s.

It doesn't stop until the plane leaves for Lisbon.

Here's looking at you, kid!


Previous Posts in Cinematic Wines Series:
Part 4: Mad Max reds
Part 3: Gerard Depardieu
Part 2: Francis Ford Coppola Director's Cut
Part 1: Bandol and Bardot



Link: Casablanca film review

Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie

"Dancing, music, champagne.

The best way to forget...

until you find something you want to remember."


– Marlene Dietrich, in Just A Gigolo, Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978).

Link: Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo (1978)

Cocorosie presents Loris Gréaud's Cellar Door

When people tell me that I know how this story is going to end I usually tell them: wait till the end and you will see yourself… From Loris Gréaud’s Cellar Door exhibition.

What is the sound of two galaxies colliding?


Something like this.


On Saturday night at the ICA in London, Cocorosie, will be interpreting the score for the Opera of Loris Gréaud's Cellar Door exhibition, "Once is Always Twice".


The Opera – scored by Thomas Roussel and with a libretto by Raimundas Malašauskas and Aaron Schuster – will be staged at the Paris Opera at the end of the year.


More black champagne, please!


Link: This Saturday, 8pm, at the ICA, London
Link: Wine, Woman & Song's take on Cellar Door and after-tremors.

My favourite wine is Champagne

"I have an old-fashioned, chorus-girl kind of taste in Champagne. Not Moët - I always get heartburn. My favourite is Taittinger."

– Thomas Adès, Composer in Time Out London, May 1 - 7, 2008

It's little wonder Moët gives Adès heartburn.


The wine writer, Peter Bourne, once told me - there's nothing wrong with Moët, but it's only really good at the racecourse.


A vintage Champagne from Taittinger is released ten years after bottling.


Suitable for a composer that has been described as if "the piano is waiting to make these sounds - for 200 years - to come out".


I'd recommend the Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc des Blancs 1998 - the latest available vintage blanc des blancs Taittinger Champagne. When I tried the 1986 vintage a year ago it danced for hours after tasting it.


The 1998 is still comparatively young.


But I'm sure it would make the most magnificent of chorus girls happy.


*wink*


Link: Roll over Beethoven: Thomas Adès by Alex Ross, NY Times music critic

Loris Greaud: Cellar Door (Once is Always Twice)

I took the artist Loris Greaud’s sweets called Celador: A Taste of Illusion from the vending machine at the ICA bar. With absolutely no taste, you could find this pack of brightly-coloured lollies slightly depressing...

But while I swirled the tasteless sweets on my tongue – I still searched for a taste, instinctively refusing to believe they had no taste at all - it was like lolling an actual idea in my mouth.

His three dark but strangely glamorous rooms released my imagination. While soaking in the dark atmosphere, I imagined my own flavours for these zero-taste lollies. Instead of the usual green means lime etc. I decided on cloudberries for green, why not? And I have a whole packet left of strange delights. It made me think what I automatically put in my mouth and consume, consume, consume.

Then there is the black Champagne... yes, black.

“What about black champagne bubbles on moon rocks as an aperitif? Don’t be afraid of them – the champagne bubbles are speechless, it’s you who will do the talking. Just be careful to drink them at room temperature, otherwise the room will start multiplying!”

The 29-year-old French artist continues from last year's Illusion is a Revolutionary Weapon to create more of his brilliant unattainable experiences. He delights, disturbs and makes you imagine. & want to imagine more.

NB: For Part Two of this post see Further tremors after Loris Greaud exhibition


Link: Loris Greaud at ICA, London 25 Apr - 22 Jun 2008

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