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Champagne
On top of the immensity of the Olympic Winter Games, it appears the Canadians are planning an after party of equally biblical proportions. Thanks to Andre Saint-Jacques, owner of the Bearfoot Bistro and its extravagant underground
wine cellar of more than 20,000 bottles (a perennial winner of the Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence), the Champagne will flow freely for gold medal winners. And to make things even more thrilling, the Champagne bottles will be ceremoniously decapitated by Saint-Jacques himself - the Guinness World Record holder for most Champagne bottles sabred in a single minute (21).
Opening a Champagne bottle with a sword or saber by hitting the lip of the bottle (its weak point) with the blade, thereby severing the collar from the neck is called "Sabrage" and dates back to the Napoleonic Era. Napoleon was quite the lover of Champagne and is credited with saying, "Champagne! In victory one deserves it; in defeat one needs it." Saint-Jacques, also an effusive lover of the bubbly is Canada's No. 1 importer of Moet & Chandon.
Winter Games 2010, Sabrage and Salmanazars Continued
TagsAndre Saint-Jacques, Bearfoot Bistro, biblical kings, biblical proportions, Canada, Champagne, champagne bottle, champagne bottles, gold medal winners, gold medalists, guinness world record, guinness world record holder, jeroboam, jeroboams, large-format wine bottles, magnums, Moet and Chandon, Moët et Chandon, Napoleon, Napoleon Bonaparte, olympic games, olympic medalists, olympic winter games, sabrage, salmanazar, Whistler B.C., Wine Cellar, wine spectator, Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence, winter games 2010
Posted in Champagne, Moet and Chandon, Wine Cellar
Bordeaux wine lovers may credit the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris and Emperor Napoleon III's "Official Classification" with putting Bordeaux wine on the map. But, it turns out that his grandmother the Empress Josephine, first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte may have ignited French passion for the wine.
Prior to Josephine raising the status of Bordeaux to an elixer fit for nobility, it was seen as an inferior product suitable only for the English who had been stubborn lovers of claret, or red Bordeaux wine, for four centuries. At the time of the French Revolution, Burgundy and Champagne reigned supreme, in fact, not a single bottle of Bordeaux is known to have been kept in the
wine cellars of King Louis XVI.
Empress Josephine's Wine Cellar Continued
TagsBordeaux, Bordeaux Wine, Burgundy, Cape Town, celebrated hostess, Champagne, Château Laville Haut-Brion, Chateaux de Malmaison, Cyprus, Emperor Napoleon III, Empress Josephine, exposition universelle de paris, France, French Revolution, french wine, Germany, great drinker, Greece, Hungary, Italy, king louis xvi, Margaux, Martinique, medoc wine, Napoleon Bonaparte, Paris, Portugal, premiers cru, red bordeaux wine, saint helena, social historians, South Africa, south african wines, South Atlantic island, Spain, sweet wines, Wine Cellar, wine cellars, wine lovers
Posted in Bordeaux Wine, Champagne, Wine Cellar
1. The longest recorded Champagne cork flight was 177 feet and 9 inches, 4 feet from level ground at Woodbury Vineyards in New York state, on June 5, 1988.
2. Marilyn Monroe was said to have once taken a bath in 350 bottles of Champagne. Vintage not confirmed.
3. The largest cork tree in the world is known as The Whistler Tree. This tree is located in the Alentejo region of Portugal and averages more than 1 ton of raw cork per harvest, which is enough to cork 100,000 bottles of wine. Or one really big keg of beer.
4. Demi Moore tried to seduce Michael Douglas in the 1994 movie Disclosure with a bottle of the limited edition Pahlmeyer 1991 Chardonnay (Napa Valley, California). She seduced Ashton Kutcher in real life with a case of Red Bull.
5. A jar of red wine was found in Tutankhamen's tomb, inscribed with the winemaker name, Khaa, and the vintage, "Year 5." Those who tasted it remarked that it was "kinda funky."
TagsAshton Kutcher, Champagne, chardonnay wine, Demi Moore, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Douglas, Tutankhamen, wine facts
Posted in Champagne
Is the
wine cellar passe? Some French wine buffs believe there's a better place for storing wine, at the bottom of the sea (OMG!). A couple years ago, French winemakers began submerging hundreds of bottles of wine at a depth of 30ft in Saint-Malo Bay off the coast of Normandy. After being "massaged by the sea" for a year, it is said that "underwater whites" have more obvious wood aromas, and "submerged reds" evolve more slowly than cellared wine. Recently, Champagne house, Louis Roederer, sent divers to place several dozen bottles of its
Brut Premier at a depth of 50ft in Saint-Malo bay (hidden of course). In a year's time experts will assess if they have matured with a different or better taste than in the traditional cellars of the Champagne region. The sea may be the ideal wine cellar (i.e. constant temperatures, high humidity, no UV light), but it seems more like bored winemakers playing "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Click here for more information on
wine bottle storage.
TagsChampagne, Louis Roederer, Pirates of the Caribbean, Saint-Malo Bay, Wine Cellar, wine storage
Posted in Champagne, Wine Cellar
Bollinger is a major Champagne house in France. They produce several labels of Champagne under the Bollinger name, including the vintage Vieille Vignes Francaises, Grand Annee and R.D. as well as the
non-vintage Special Cuvee. Ever a favorite of the British, Bollinger became the official supplier to the British court in 1884, receiving a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. It's even the choice of James Bond (i.e. Bollinger Grand Annee Champagne 1988, in "Golden Eye"). Well, it’s not often that a major Champagne house releases a new champagne but Bollinger has done just that with the release in London of Bollinger Rose. The creation of this non-vintage rose has been long in the making and a dream of the House for almost a decade. This Special Cuvee is 60% Pinot Noir, 25% Chardonnay, 15% Pinot Meunier, and will be widely available May 1st.
TagsBollinger Rose, Champagne, non-vintage special cuvee, Rose Champagne
Posted in Champagne
There was a time when excess Champagne was dumped into French rivers. As a matter of fact, wine-growers from Bordeaux and Burgundy used to say that the reason Champagne had bubbles was because the wine was no good. This may have been true at one time, but today, Champagne sales are experiencing significant growth. Recent figures show that worldwide sales hit a record high in 2007 with 338.7 million bottles sold, up 5.3 percent. Demand is outstripping supply to the point that 40 new towns will be added to Champagne's AOC (Appellation d'Origine Controlee) in an effort to keep up with the world's thirst for the legendary tipple. Sales of Bordeaux on the other hand are hampered by overproduction, overpricing and what's anticipated to be a disappointing 2007 vintage.
Tags2007 vintage, Bordeaux Wine, Champagne, Champagne AOC, Champagne Appellation, wine price, wine sales
Posted in Bordeaux Wine, Champagne, Wine Price and Sales
Recently, the French court fined Moet and Chandon 30,000 Euros for its "La Nuit est Rose" campaign which shows a bottle of rose Champagne on a black background surrounded by pink petals. The court ruled that the ad created an association between drinking rose Champagne and leading a wonderful life ( a reference to the iconic Edith Piaf song La Vie en Rose). This ruling is the result of the 1991 Evin Law which states that all publicity for alcohol must consist of objective information only. It is also considered by French winemakers to be a major factor in the decline of domestic wine sales. French wine consumption dropped by 20 percent in the 1990s making exports extremely important to winemakers. However, the Australians seem to have beaten them to the party.
TagsEvin Law, french wine, Moet and Chandon, Rose Champagne, wine price, wine sales
Posted in Champagne, Moet and Chandon, Wine Price and Sales
OK, let's turn Don Ho off (great New Years Eve party tune by the way). Tiny bubbles may make Don happy, but they make oenophiles pretty giddy too. An old adage about Champagne is, the smaller the bubbles, the finer the wine. The tiniest bubbles are the result of long aging, as well as the temperature of the aging cellar. The cooler the wine, the smaller the bubbles. Generally, really tiny bubbles are found in Champagnes known as prestige cuvees. A prestige cuvee is a wine manufacturer's best wine, and it is always given a special name.
Dom Perignon, for example, is the prestige cuvee of Moet and Chandon.
Click here for
further discussion of wine temperature.
TagsChampagne, Champagne bubbles, Dom Perignon, Moet and Chandon, prestige cuvee, sparkling wine, wine temperature
Posted in Champagne, Moet and Chandon
It usually starts right before Thanksgiving, there's a huge increase in demand for Champagne, not just in stores but in restaurants and bars. This increase in demand puts incredible pressure on Champagne prices. Avoid the price hike. If in December you're thirsting for a popular brand like
Veuve Clicquot, choose a high-volume, warehouse-style store. Distributors try to get a premium in December, but larger stores that have the space and the buying power buy in September or October, when they can take advantage of the lower cost. Smaller stores that don't have room to store the stuff and may not have the budget to buy in advance have to pay more and therefore charge more.
TagsChampagne, holiday wine, Veuve Clicquot, wine price, wine sales
Posted in Champagne, Wine Price and Sales
