So the long Thanksgiving weekend is coming to an end, and the reality of working full days is fast approaching. It was a good holiday for the Mr. and Mrs. Sylvia, as we spent time with the requisite family members, did little to no cooking or dishes, napped a lot and play an abundance of video games.
We spent some time with Bianca and her family yesterday, partaking in their goodies and enjoying my homemade cranberry/blueberry/orange sauce which I am craving now and regretting leaving it all at Bianca’s house. Here’s a picture as proof:
Cranberry Blueberry Orange Sauce - Let me know if you want the recipe!
And some other items from our feast on Saturday:
Smithfield Ham with Paula Deen Blessed Glaze, y'all
Salad....by Mr. Sylvia
Peppermint Meringue Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting...
...and what it was supposed to look like (it was still good)
The green bean casserole that tested Bianca's marriage
I feel compelled to write this down in some central location where I can refer to it again and again. Because people keep asking, “Why does everyone hate Beaujolais Nouveau?”
And I have my answer. But eventually one gets tired of writing the same diatribe over and over again. So in the future, when somebody asks the question—and it may not happen again until around this time next year—I’ll just be able to point them to this post.
I’m going to lay it down right here, right now.
People shouldn’t hate Beaujolais Nouveau categorically.
There is some good Nouveau.
The original idea was that bottling the wine in its infancy serves as a good indication for the quality of the grapes from that past year. Here is the rough timeline.
1) 2009 grapes harvested and pressed: September 2009
2) 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau available: November 2009
3) 2009 Beaujolais Cru* available: November 2010
If you are a wine geek, doing stuff like this is a lot of fun. And even if you are not a wine geek, there is still joy to be found in select bottles of Nouveau.
However, serious wine drinkers have for a long time looked down their long noses at this bottling. Beaujolais Nouveau is technically wine, but just barely. It is the fermented juice of the Gamay grape from the Beaujolais region that has been vinified for the minimum amount of time to qualify as wine.
It is not a wine of depth and complexity that these self-described serious wine drinkers prize. Instead, at its best (in the words of John & Dottie) the wine is, “So fresh, so lively, so utterly unpretentious, [it’s] like popping a ripe grape right into our mouths.”
The problem of course is finding the wine at its best. John and Dottie wrote extensively about Beaujolais Nouveau yesterday, and they chronicled the fall in quality of the wine over the past several years. According to my favorite duo, things started to change for the better with the 2007 vintage. But by then, the damage to its reputation had been done. Now it is difficult to find a wide selection of producers on store shelves.
But a big part of the appeal of the wine isn’t actually what is in the bottle, but what it represents. As winter is fast approaching, and the leaves are falling off the trees, Nouveau offers a taste of new life. For some it has become part of the celebratory atmosphere of the season. And that’s fine too.
I think the below sentiment from Kermit Lynch in his 2008 newsletter sums it up nicely:
I don’t love Beaujolais Nouveau, but I love the idea behind it and I love our Beaujolais Nouveau and living it up at our annual parking lot feast. With you we make a party of it, a Dionysian tribute to the year’s harvest and newborn wine.
Why does almost everybody filter and otherwise technologically massacre their Nouveaux with tones of SO2, cold stabilization, even pasteurization, and so on? A Nouveau should be alive and kicking, and even if you are the type who fears a deposit, our Nouveau is bottled and drunk up in a couple of weeks – there’s no time for it to throw a deposit. Here you will enjoy the real thing, raw, au naturel, life-affirming.
But it pays to keep an open mind. Just recently I was critical of the restaurant Provence for hosting a wine dinner celebrating the 2009 Nouveau by pouring guests the mass-produced Georges Duboeuf bottling.
In yesterday’s column, John & Dottie ranked it Good/Very Good. This is what they had to say:
We first called this “a little too made,” which made us figure, although its label was concealed in a brown bag, that it was the Duboeuf. It seems less rustic, more like a finished wine than the others. But as it warmed and opened, it became earthy, with richer fruit than most, and we became increasingly charmed. It’s the most interesting Duboeuf Nouveau we can remember. This is a good thing since it’s so widely distributed.
And as I read that, I think back to Kermit’s words. Certainly the Duboeuf sounds like an interesting wine. I trust John & Dottie. But it does not sound very much like a Nouveau.
* There are three levels of Beaujolais after the novelty of the Nouveau bottling fades.
1) Beaujolais – Wine sourced mostly from the southern part of the region.
2) Beaujolais-Villages – Wine from thirty-nine northern villages.
3) Beaujolais Cru – 10 specific high quality villages: Brouilly, Chenas, Chiroubles, Cote de Brouilly, Fleurie, Julienas, Morgon, Moulin-a-Vent, Regnie and Saint-Amour.
Sitting here watching UGA/Tech on the TV. I felt that having a computer in front of me was perfectly acceptable considering the season thus far. This way, if I get angry, I won’t throw anything.
Brennan and I had our year Anniversary date today. We headed to Athens around 12:00 and arrived about an hour later. We parked at the IM fields and headed out for the run I planned. Starting from the IM fields parking lot we hit River Rd, East Campus Rd, Baldwin towards Broad with the detour onto North Campus. We took that around Hardy field, down to the Fine Arts building to the new (huge) Tate Center. Despite the pain in my legs from the 1/2, we headed up the stairs (a lot of them) in between Chemistry and Geography towards the Pharmacy/Forestry b Stegman uildings. Hung a right towards Stegman and swung back towards the residential area near Foley Field before a loop around the IM fields to close the run. My legs hated me. Nevertheless, the weather was idyllic and I think the route proved to be enjoyable as well. With that, they have built a new parking deck at the IM fields.
Flag football teams will benefit from this. Although, the lack of parking encouraged carpooling.
After the run we made a trip over to Jittery Joe’s for the aforementioned coffee stop.
We had no trouble finding a few to purchase. (The photo is large for coffee can detail.)
Grabbed a picture of the Five and Ten sign and outdoor decor before we left Jittery Joe’s.
Our dinner at Five and Ten was exceptional. First, let me state that I am no wine connoisseur and will not offend anyone by trying to describe the wine in too much depth. With that, we split a bottle of French red wine from the Cotes du Rhone region. We started with an appetizer of their tuna tartare. I had their collard greens risotto while Brennan had catfish with asparagus. Dessert was a sharing of an amazing cheesecake with green tomato marmalade topper and basil whip cream, as well as a banana chocolate mousse. We took a short walk around 5 points and headed home in time to sit down for the remainder of the UGA/Tech game. Time to finish watching!
First things first–the winner of my Thankful Tee Giveaway! Using the Random Integer Generator, the winner is (strangely enough) comment #1, which was made by Gwen! Gwen, check your e-mail for details!
If you didn’t win, don’t fret! Inkbox Design has been generous enough to offer 10% off any order to Fit Bride readers–just use the coupon code cake at checkout. Thanks, Inkbox!
Anyway, brace yourselves. This is going to be a long post!
My boss was kind enough to let us leave work at 3:00 on Wednesday, so we got on the road earlier than predicted. We were traveling to T’s parents’ house for the holiday, and they live 4-5 hours away, so we had quite a long journey, which was only made longer when we saw a very scary accident on the road ahead of us. We were delayed for about 45 minutes while tow trucks were brought in and they landed a helicopter to Medi-Vac someone to a hospital. I was pretty freaked out–we were on pitch black, windy country roads and not a minute before we saw the accident I told T to be careful because it was so scary!
Luckily, we all made it in one piece and went to bed pretty immediately after arrival. T’s parents have the most beautiful home. It’s actually built into the side of a hill! They’re pretty far out in the country (at least by my standards), so everything is beautiful and rustic and PEACEFUL. I slept like I haven’t slept in months there because everything is so quiet and pitch black! Here is the part of this post where I assault you with a million pictures of how gorgeous this place is:
On Thursday morning, I went to walk Milhouse in the front yard, and what did I find?
Oh hai.
Not to be outdone, we went and peeked over the backyard fence…llamas!
Did you know that llamas make a noise that sounds exactly like a dog barking? Well, they do.
However, my favorite animals of the weekend were inside the house–T’s parents have three doggies that were fast friends with Milhouse! (Well, mostly.)
A big yellow lab:
A medium-sized scruffy terrier:
And the teeniest bundle of energy I’ve ever seen (I couldn’t keep her still enough for long enough to take a good picture!)
She weighs probably four pounds. Please note that she is barely larger than a kitchen tile!
T and I have been discussing guns a lot lately, and since I’d never shot one (or, really, seen one in person) he took me out in their back acreage to do a little target shooting. I sampled four different guns (after receiving proper safety lessons from T and his father): a 12 gauge shotgun, a .40 caliber Glock, a .38 special, and a .22 pistol. My favorite was the Glock. Here are a few re-enactment photos, taken AFTER the gun was safely unloaded and the safety was on (we did this twice, so that’s why my outfits are different):
Shooting a gun was an interesting experience for me. I was a little nervous at first, but as my aim got better it melted away and I felt very empowered. T and his father are very knowledgeable about guns and hunting and I felt as though I learned from great teachers. I am still uncertain as to my stance on guns politically speaking, but I feel much better know knowing that I can operate one and use it safely and relatively accurately. But anyway, on to Thanksgiving dinner! T’s mom set the table:
And then…the food!
Sorry, using my phone again. I had:
lots of turkey
lots of mashed potatoes
a side salad
mac and cheese
stuffing
cranberry sauce
And a lot of this:
We brought the Chateau Ste. Michelle riesling, which we liked, and the Monogamy cabernet, which T didn’t have but I didn’t like. (And there’s not many cabernets I don’t like!) We finished dinner off with pumpkin pie (for everyone else) and chocolate crumb bars (for me!). After dinner we collapsed and watched Into the Wild on TV.
On Friday, we did a little more shooting, and lounged around the house. T helped his dad cut down a tree and cleaned out a closet, but I mostly sat around and read and took a nice long afternoon nap. We ordered pizza for dinner, watched Casino Royale, and then played Scrabble! (I won.) After Scrabble, we watched Burn After Reading and eventually drifted off to bed. All in all, I had a nice, quiet, relaxing Thanksgiving!
We got going around 9 this morning. Milhouse pooped out in the car:
And, as soon as we got home, I decided the weather was too gorgeous to stay inside (it’s 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky today!). Since I didn’t work out at all Tuesday-Friday this week (oops), I wanted to do something, so I changed into my running clothes and ran 3.0 glorious miles in 29:00 around my neighborhood. (And I reviewed a cool new product which I’ll tell you about tomorrow, most likely!)
Anyway, I hope you all had great Thanksgivings like I did!
I’m so sorry I have been MIA for two days! Thursday was nuts and the Hilton we stayed at didn’t have free Internet. I’m back in Alexandria now and can’t wait to tell you about the last couple of days! So let’s get to it!
Thursday morning came quickly and I woke up really excited to run. An unmentioned brother woke up a little late, so it was a scramble to get ready fast so we could pick him up. I threw together a quick pre-run breakfast with some hard-boiled eggs that I had packed.
1/2 English muffin with Promise, 1 egg and 1 egg white, and 1/2 banana. I ate breakfast in the car.
We got downtown about a half hour before registration closed and you wouldn’t BELIEVE the crowds! OMG! I heard people saying there were 7,000 people running! That many people is great, but not when the event is extremely disorganized. The line for registration was soooo long and inefficient, we waited at least a half hour.
And they ran out of t-shirts! Apparently they’ll send them in the mail…
The runners took off at 8:20 and we ended up departing with the walkers around 8:40, which really wasn’t a problem. It was a great morning for a run and the route took us all through downtown and by the river. The brothers took off ahead of me early on, but I felt like I maintained a good pace.
Pillgrams!
The Turkey Day 5k was very much a “fun run.” I was dodging walkers, dogs and strollers the entire three miles; up on curbs and into the grass. I’m lucky I didn’t sprain an ankle!
The run wasn’t chipped, but according to my watch, I ran the race in 28 minutes. Not my personal best, but I”m not worried about it because I ‘m really not sure that time is accurate (or at least I’ll tell myself it wasn’t!).
Total Time: 28 minutes
5k Run
Average heart rate: 185
Max heart rate: 216
Time in the zone: 25 mins
Total cals burned: 325
NOTE: HEART RATE, 216!!!!!
We left almost immediately after the run and dropped Eric off so he could get the oven heated. John and I headed to the grocery store to get Eric a couple things he needed for the turkey, and I needed ingredients for a salad I was assigned to bring. Lesson learned: there are hardly any grocery stores open on Thanksgiving Day. We drove around for almost an hour! BUT, we finally found a grocery store that was open….. WHOLE FOODS TO THE RESCUE!
I just love Whole Foods. I told John I was literally crying inside that our trip inside had to be so short. That place just makes me happy.
After finding what we needed at Whole Foods, we buzzed over to Caribou for some coffee. I ordered a dark roast coffee with steamed skim milk and two pumps of pumpkin. It was awesome! I’ll definitley be trying that again. Sorry no photo. It was a hectic morning!
Family started to show up around 1 p.m. on Thursday and it was so fun to see everyone! We didn’t end up eating dinner until 3:30ish, which gave me time to assemble my salad. Remember the article about Padma in my December Glamour? Besides sharing tips about getting her figure back after filming, she also shared some healthy holiday recipes. I made her healthy holiday salad, with a few modifications:
10 cups spinach
1 cup fresh basil, chopped
4 oranges, peeled and sliced
2 cups dried cranberries
1 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup EVOO
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbs lime juice
YUM!
While cooking, I munched on some oranges AND this…
Mmmmmmmm… Pinot Grigio. Plus a couple more cheese/cracker combos + fresh veggies from our appetizer tray.
Before we knew it, dinner was ready! My plate:
A little bit of everything! Turkey, carrot ring and peas, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy and my salad. Awesome!
Plus a glass of Zinfandel.
I tried to eat slowly and keep Tina’s Thanksgiving Fouls in mind. I did go back for seconds; small tastes of the sweet potato casserole and the green been casserole. Then I was perfectly full
Before dinner, we all wrote one thing we are thankful for and put our thanks into a bowl. After we finished eating, we passed the bowl around and each read a thanks. I feel thankful for so many things! It was neat to hear what others wrote!
Going to the movies is kind of Thanksgiving tradition in our family. After dinner and clean up, we all went to “The Blind Side.” WOW! What a great movie! Honestly, one of the best movies I’ve seen in a realllly long time. I didn’t cry during the movie, but just wanted to sob afterwards! I highly recommend it.
After the movie we went back to Eric’s for pie. No judging here, but I tried all three!
I swear, they weren’t as big as they looked! Very, very good.
Not too much later, we checked into our hotel and I totally crashed. Thanksgiving is hard work! I slept like a baby….Zzzzzzzz, oh how I love the holidays.
I hope you had a HAPPY and SAFE Thanksgiving with the people you love.
Ladies! Does a label on a bottle of wine that is overtly feminine focused to catch your attention insult you?
Recently, I read an article in the Times Colonist about women and wine. Apparently women are thought to have a fear of buying wine. I have to say that I have had a tingle of fear when I go wine shopping. I do not know a lot about wines, but I have started to learn what I like. Practice makes perfect.
Wineries around the globe are trying to corner the chick wine market by rebranding or creating new blends with names such as Strut, Bitch and Pink. The wine bottles have eye catching labels with things like sexy cocktail dresses, vamp red lips, stilettos or the “Pretty in Pink” theme to name but a few angles.
But what about appealing to women who aren’t into all the girly things and are more the athlete, the mother, or the business woman? Sure some of those things might appeal to them, but what about something like ringette sticks, basketballs, briefcases and a suit jacket, or baby bottles and soothers?
So, as good as an idea it may be to target one group of women, think about the ones that you have ignored. It’s great that they are not trying to tailor to everybody, but by being specific in a tight demographic have you attracted enough buyers to keep your company profitable?
Will you enjoy a glass of wine this weekend? If so what made you buy that particular bottle?
According to recent research , British women choose and buy eight out of every 10 bottles of wine that are drunk at home. The study also found that a third of British women who enjoy wine as a treat at the end of the day admit that they prefer to drink it alone – in the bath.
The data, the result of industry research among more than 1,300 British women aged between 18 and 60, overturns common perceptions that men take the lead in wine buying, and reveals that in many cases women are far more influential.
Six out of 10 women in Britain said they drank wine at least once a week. And the same proportion said they preferred red wine to white or rosé.
Most women said they enjoyed drinking wine because they liked the taste (80%) and because it went well with food (70%). But despite appearing knowledgeable about wine, the majority choose to ignore its health risks. More than half see it as a “healthier” alternative to other alcoholic drinks such as beer and spirits, while the same proportion said they were not deterred by the government’s health warnings.
When it comes to choosing wines, women said they were driven mainly by price (74%), followed by the type of grape (64%), the country of origin (55%) and more superficial trappings such as the label (42%). Six out of 10 (61%) said they chose wine on their own, with women in the UK noticeably more independent in their choice than their peers elsewhere in the world.
These study results will probably be much the same for the South African market as grocers become more significant wine retailers .
My Swiss grandfather taught me the art of wine. For him the countryside, the vineyard side, the grapes and barrels, the talkativeness of the land, the dependency on the weather conditions, the picking and piling, the colors and aromas, the sitting around the table with crystal glasses and spittoons, the taking notes based on the year, the dust on old bottles…all of the above. My grandfather was the equivalent of Shakespeare, for wine.
He joined the eternal kingdom of the heavens not very long ago, but his wine spirit, is always -quite loudly- with us on the family table reminding us to ‘hold the wine glass properly’, to ‘let the wine breathe first’, to ‘always smell first’, to ‘ah, the strawberries in this one’ or ‘the vanilla scents on that’.
He and I have always had a special relationship, one that went beyond wine and feelings, but one that definitely revolved around them. On my 22nd birthday, his gift to me was a registration to an advanced Sommelier’s course in Bordeaux. I had to combine my regular Master’s courses with this intense series of mind-blowing, nose-experimenting, tongue-advancing courses on the wine-making, the wine-tasting and the wine-drinking.
It took all that I had not to hate him for all the excess hours on the train, the sleepless nights and weekends, the pressure, the sneezing, the hanging around snobbish wine masters, but all of that…would dissolve instantly, as soon as I’d find myself walking down the ‘aisles’ of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot.
Today is Thanksgiving – a very important celebration for every American around the world. Had I been back in New York, I would be probably joining my aunt and her family into tasting the turkey, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce etc. Here, in Greece, none of the above will occur today: today is just like any other Thursday. I somehow wish I was in New York -or Texas, that’s where Phillip, my aunt’s husband is from- and where I spent my first Thanksgiving a couple of years ago. I will never forget that day: not only because I, then, bought my first original cowboy hat (yeap, I was one of those kids that grew up watching the All-American movies, daydreaming of walking into a remote diner, sitting on the bar, and telling the fat lady who’ll be pouring me some black coffee by then ‘you know, scrambled eggs an’ all’) but mainly because of the mixture of antithetic tastes in my mouth: salty and sweet, sour and creamy, bitter and inexplicably desserty.
As my heart today will be with Phillip’s mum -who warned Phillip back then that I should have been her son, and that he should do everything within his powers to always feed me because I was too skinny for Texan standards- it will also be with my beloved grandparents and my memories of their home in Geneva.
My grandfather was the person who taught me how to properly sit on the table, how to cross the utensils as I continue my meal, how to hold the glass and set up the dinner table, how to greet a woman, how to get the door for her, how to pull the chair for her to sit, how to treat her like a delicate rose with occasional thorns that are “only there to remind you with occasional pains just how much you love her”, the ’savoir-vivre’ at its extreme.
I miss him terribly, but I sit bits and pieces of him in Natalie, my father, little Marie, even myself. Even with his passing, he’s brought me closer to my best friend. And the months that followed his death, there were a zillion times I wish I could spend just one more night in his study, with him, talking about my fears and concerns with him, while sipping a 1989 Merlot from his Eurocave cabinet.
So this being the second Thursday of our Lists conquest, and this being Thanksgiving, when all Americans will be sitting around the table, enjoying their huge meal and being thankful for all they’ve been given, and all that they love, I cannot help but to want to dedicate my second list, to the man who’s taught me so much and still does.
List II: Let’s Talk About Wine. Don’t run away just yet: this is not a list that just addresses the experts. My grandfather’s golden rule was that Wine is for everyone- super nose, normal nose or no nose- wine is to be enjoyed by every single person on the planet. As a graduate student in Paris, I used to work to two different wine bars, as their wine expert- and although no French person can ever claim ignorance when it came to wine, often times people (especially women) would be very concerned with appearing too illiterate in its tasting. I would always tell them that wine is yours, just like your heart is yours. It tastes what you want it to taste. If you’re happy, it’s happy, if you’re sad, it’s sad and so on and so forth.
There are numerous fine wines around the world (I need to admit that with the years, the Italian wine became my favorite one in contrast to the French varieties) but what makes a wine bottle a masterpiece, is the moment in which you drink it: the person you share it with, the decision you just made about your job or your relationship, the landscape in which you are, the country you are traveling to, the mood on the table, the moment while you are writing your book, while talking to your lover on the phone, while staring into his eyes, while you’re about to propose, while you’re writing the longest letter you’ll never send, while you’re sitting vis-a-vis your grandfather, dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of navy pants and a bow-tie in your little neck pretending to be the waiter of your ‘La Maison De Junior” restaurant (that sadly only served potato chips, cheese, ice-cream and berries.)
If you had to make a list of the world’s finest beverages (wine or no wine, it’s up to you) of those moments you’ll never forget for reasons that are purely your own…what would it be? What year would your beverage have? What color? What would its origin be? What would be its quality? What glass would you drink it in? Would you decant it? Where would you be drinking it in an ideal scenario and with whom? And would it be accompanied by food or not? And most importantly…what would you three (you, him/her and the wine) be talking about?
Fabricate your own wine- just tell us why…
[This list shall run from today, Thursday November 26, 2009 for a week]
A wine website which encourages enthusiasts to connect and inspire each other to try something new has launched this month
Offering a twist on the online shopping experience, winegrapevine.co.uk combines online social networking with wine choosing.
Mike Denman, co-founder of winegrapevine.co.uk
“Research shows that the people who are most likely to value your opinion on wine are your family and friends, so we have made the sharing easier” commented co-founder, Mike Denman.
The concept is based around removing the traditional snobbery from consumer wine buying and winegrapevine.co.uk features around 200 award-winning or highly acclaimed bottles at the most competitive prices online*.
To make the choice even easier, a personal shopper facility provides specific recommendations to site visitors, according to their personal or gift-buying requirements. Complementing this, the designer dozen service allows customers the option of being sent regular mixed cases tailored to their wine preferences and budget.
Winegrapevine.co.uk is the brainchild of husband and wife team Mike and Jo Denman, who share a passion for trying and enjoying wine.
“Open-mindedness is key to food and wine appreciation, but without some form of credible advice, it’s all too easy to miss out on the good stuff” commented Mike.
After being inspired by a local wine merchant when living in London, Mike and Jo moved to the South Cotswolds to raise their young family and start their former business, Badminton Wines.
“We decided that it was again a time for a change. Wine Grapevine takes wine buying to a new level and I believe that engaging with social media is the way forward for wine buying and appreciation.
“By narrowing down the selection we offer to wines which have recently won an award or received critical acclaim makes it so much easier for consumers to buy with confidence.
“However, with social media shaping the way people behave and opinions are formed, both online and offline, we really felt that shoppers would benefit from the inclusion of our social network – the grapevine. After all, the enjoyment of wine is primarily a social activity, so it seemed a logical feature.”
Mike and Jo select wines based on the merit of their specific vintage, distinguishing them from many other wine merchants, who select according to brand.
Critics and influencers the winegrapevine.co.uk favours include Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, The Wine Spectator, Decanter Magazine, jancisrobinson.com, the International Wine Challenge, the Decanter World Wine Awards, the Sommelier Wine Awards.
The UK website also offers mixed case options, gift purchases and a cork point loyalty scheme, enabling buyers to save further money on future site purchases.
- ENDS -
* winegrapevine.co.uk prices are set accordingly by carrying out regular price comparison checks on www.wine-searcher.com
For further information or high res photos, please contact Jennie Wood at Avalanche Media on 01373 300282 or info@avalanchemedia.org
“I refused to believe that champagne was a myth,” she said, pressing a beautiful Riedel ‘grand cru’ champagne stem, the kind that looks more like a fishbowl-cum-wine glass than one made for fizz, to her pouty and elegant lips. “For me it had to be, it [champagne] must always be… a wine.” She should know, her name is Beatrice Cointreau (yes that Cointreau) but more recently she heads up the boutique house of Champagne Gosset.
Champagne is as misunderstood as Michael Jackson, and rightly so. To begin with we’ve come to know champagne (and here I make the distinction between Champagne, the place, and champagne the wine) as a “conceptual” thing; a wine with bubbles. We know champagne as the wine to celebrate special occasions (New Year’s or a new dress), impress a hopeful mate (a.k.a. nail the deal), or coyly sip before the ‘real’ stuff comes out, because beer is too crass at the stuffy party you’re at. Occasionally, at some trendy apartment or café, one stumbles on classic ‘vintage’ posters that pictures a svelte woman, in what is surely a black Chanel dress, while above her floats the header: “l’Istance Taittinger.” For others, bubbly conjures the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe prancing around with a bottle of Moet & Chandon. This is what champagne is to most of us; glamorous, slightly dandy, yet always celebratory. This is what, I believe, Madame Cointreau meant by the ‘myth’ of champagne.
Ask most wine lovers to tell you a bit about champagne, the drink, after all comes complete with its own creation myth: Once upon a time there was a monk named Dom Perignon who worked and toiled at all hours of the day and night confined to a medieval monastery in the tiny and equally medieval village of Hautvillers. One glorious spring morning the brothers fetched monsieur Perignon, apparently every single bottle in their cellars had spontaneously exploded. Every single bottle… But one. Exasperated the Dom opened it and took his first sip of the now bubbly wine (the “first ever”) and is said to have exclaimed “Come, come brothers, I’m drinking stars!”
This legend was carefully crafted in the 20th century by the trade commission put together after World War II to promote the stuff, but like many other things, was taken as gospel. To this day a regal statue of the monk stands outside of Moet et Chandon’s headquarters in Epernay, and the former monastery where Dom Perignon resided in Hautvillers (where he, in fact, worked diligently to get the bubbles out of the red wine produced there during his time) is now a museum.
And yet few people, if any, talk about the real Champagne… as in the eponymous place which actually gave the stuff its name. Perhaps it is because the story of the real Champagne, the place, dotted with gothic hamlets and two-street villages is not fancy enough in this age of single origin coffees, minimalist-chic hotels, Karl Lagerfeld and impossibly named teas. In contrast Champagne, the place, is simple, serene, a utilitarian landscape of vines speckled with little villages, surrounded by vines. The monotony of green grape-leaves and dark brown trunks serve as a severe contrast to the ivory white of the region’s chalky soil that makes champagne and Champagne so unique. It is in fact this anomaly (the chalk) area’s chalky soil, which insulates the vines and protects them from wild swings in the climate. It also radiates the sun’s warmth and light back unto the grapes and keeping them cozy in this north most wine growing region which is, incidentally, very cold. In fact Champagne and northern Canada share the same latitude, if it wasn’t for the slopes which weave through the regions terrain, and the snow-white deep-seated chalk which makes up its foundations, Champagne would be much too cold to grow grapes at all.
To say “Champagne” is like referring to the “hill stations of India” a region with a myriad of towns and peoples. Irrefutably the capital of Champagne is Reims. Reims (pronounced Re-hsse), with the backdrop of the rest of the region in mind, is big and modern by comparison. Only a 45minute ride from Paris’ ghastly Garre du Nord put me in the thick of a city, whose entire preoccupation is bubbly wine. Underneath the city run infinite mazes of caves called crayères, cut-into a bedrock of chalk, where the wines gain their magical effervescent and age. On top, Reims is bustling, the streets wide and lined with ornate creamy limestone buildings, somewhat reminiscent of Paris with a little bit of Bordeaux functionality, glow a pastel amber in the soupy sunlight of dawn. The Rue Jean d’Arc is a particular popular location with cafes, brasseries, and boutiques which range from an épicerie to a Chanel. Around the corner on Rue Bourriet is the ultra modern Hotel de La Paix, whose chic rooms accented with warm dark woods and fine lines, is more evocative of Barcelona and Miami than of Champagne (the place).
All of champagne is made with only three grapes deemed ‘noble’ enough to make the stuff. The trio is made up of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir (yes, a red grape!) and the less revered Pinot Meunier (another red grape). Unless the champagne states clearly that it is either a Blanc de Blancs (and therefore entirely chardonnay) or a Blance de Noirs (entirely red grapes) then the wine, clear or otherwise is, traditionally, a blend of all three grapes. Chardonnay for elegance and grace, pinot noir for body and mystique and pinot meunier for bouquet and breadth, at least that’s the old adage.
In the sleepy Reims mornings, on the corner of the rues Bourriet and Jean d’Arc, a portly man with an omnipresent grimace sets up shop on a small metal and cement kiosk. There, in front of him, on shaved ice, is a glistening array of fresh oysters, mussels and fish. One of the best pairings with the area’s wines, and possibly the simplest in the universe, is a beautiful fresh oyster (skip the cocktail sauce) and a glass of Blanc de Blancs.
Blanc de Blancs is possibly the raciest and sexiest styles of champagne. Blanc de Blancs literally translates into white from whites and therefore purely made up of gorgeous chardonnay. Chardonnay in Champagne is different than the oaky buttery stuff from California and the New World, in fact it is closer to Chablis in style and weight. It’s cold in Champagne and the chardonnay, picked almost green, keeps all of its natural nervy acidity which is typically overran with oak and sun in the rest of the world. The resulting wine sings a high falsetto (as opposed to the tenor of Australian Chardonnay). Blanc de Blancs are complex with a nice light body yet very crisp and lacks any sort of “yeastiness” that turns some people off bubbly. This delicateness is what makes it ideal as an aperitif as well as making a perfect pairing with simpler foods such as briny oysters, even sushi, or anything fried.
Another very different style, which still verges on the exotic for most, is the venerable Blanc de Noirs, literally white from black. The color in a grape is only skin-deep; if the berries are squeezed and not allow to sit on their skins the resulting juice is pure white, while still retaining the grape’s signature deep aromas. Here one can go three ways: purely pinot noir, only or a blend of both. This style of champagne, deep and broody with aromas that can range from dried rose petals to figs in white chocolate, is one of the most intoxicating. They should not be drunk too cold, but closer c to ellar temperature (12-15C) and opened a few minutes before drinking. People freak out when they see me decanting a bottle of champagne. I have had many people look at me with that pitying face as they ask themselves “… what is that boy doing?” Yes, many are mystified and some outright horrified by my custom of decanting certain choice champagnes! I discovered the art of decanting champagnes in Champagne! Before the discovery of riddling, whereby the sediment of the second fermentation in the bottle is removed, champagne was decanted to separate it from the harmless but unsightly cloudy mass of yeast that would sink and stick to the bottom of the bottle. Back then, champagne (the wine) was much different that what it is now, most would not recognize it by tasting it. Before the onslaught of stainless steel fermenters and oceans of over-priced generic big-brand champagne the wines for champagne were aged in oak and heavy with Pinot Noir, yielding wines of great intensity which like any other white wine (like Grand Cru Burgundy, California Chardonnay and some white Riojas) needed to breathe a little and shake-off some of that bottle fatigue before it blossoms into the beautiful wine you paid for. Blanc de Noirs is good with richer foods; Lobster, Foie Gras, and even some kebabs to add an extra kick in.
My top five reccomendations that will redefine champagne:
Ladies! Does a label on a bottle of wine that is overtly feminine focused to catch your attention insult you?
