Category Archives: Champagne

Champagne, Sommelier, Valentines Day, Wine

St. Valentine’s Day (How to Flip it On Its Head)

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What is Valentine’s Day?  Traditionally, Saint Valentine’s Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated each year on February 14.  Originally, it was a minor Western Christian feast day to honor at least one, if not two, early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine. It has since evolved, through folk traditions, into a significant cultural and religious celebration of romance and love throughout the world.

In these modern times, St. Valentine’s Day has turned into a commercial tidal wave in which restaurants, retail outlets, florists, greeting card manufacturers, and chocolatiers benefit from a marketing campaign designed to make you believe that your love for your significant other can only be measured by spending as much money as you possibly can in order to profess your undying feelings for them.  It’s pretty ingenious. This time of year, many find themselves with a new-found windfall as their Federal tax returns have just arrived.  Marketing firms know this and are ruthless in their attempts to relieve you of as much of that newly acquired wealth as possible. 

But, what if you’re single? Maybe you recently broke up with your significant other.  Maybe you’re newly divorced or maybe you enjoy being single because you’ve discovered that this is the lifestyle for you.  The marketing campaigns designed for couples tend to alienate those who are not in a relationship.  The odds of you finding that special someone, if you’re looking, are exceedingly small. There is an undocumented dating moratorium that goes into effect sometime after Halloween.  This is the time of year when finding a new someone traditionally ceases.  Apparently, the pressure of gift giving associated with a newly acquired significant other is too extreme.  Not to mention, holiday events that necessitate meeting the families of your new person are frequently awkward at best.  The moratorium ends sometime after the new year, leaving you with just a few weeks to find someone new before Valentine’s Day.  The sense of awkwardness doesn’t subside and the pressure to find the perfect person is quite daunting.  So, what do you do?

I’ve discovered over the years that happiness comes from within.  Loving yourself is paramount to the happiness that you desire.  On Valentine’s Day, do the things that couples do by yourself.  You’ll find that if you’re comfortable in your own skin, you can have just as much fun as those commercials suggest—there will just be one less person to please.

I’ve sent myself roses at work on Valentine’s Day. I like flowers, so why not?  I love the expressions on co-worker’s faces when the roses arrive.  They don’t have to know that I sent them to myself.  The stories that they make up in their minds are probably better than the stories I could come up with.  Take yourself out to dinner.  Eating alone isn’t a bad thing.  What’s better than enjoying an amazing meal with the person you love?  Good food is good food.  And it’s even better when you’re with the person who you love the most—yourself. My favorite Valentine’s Day dinner took place in the late 1990’s.  I was on a business trip in a city that was thousands of miles from home.  I decided to take myself out for dinner because I hate room service.  Because it was Valentine’s Day, the only seats available were at the bar.  I took a seat and ordered my meal: Tuna Tartare as an appetizer and the Surf and Turf special for dinner.  I ordered a glass of Champagne to pair with the first course and a bottle of Rioja to pair with my main course.  I was enjoying my appetizer when a couple sat next to me while they waited for a table to clear.  While they sat near me talking about their day, my entrée and the bottle of wine arrived.  The woman looked at my meal and blurted out, “…he got the special!” This immediately led to an argument between the two and the woman stormed out before they even got seated.  I continued to have a great time, but they clearly did not.  The expectations of the day always seem to overshadow the reality of the moment. 

I don’t always go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day, however.  I usually end up working, so over the years I began the custom of getting a really nice bottle of sparkling wine to drink whenever that horrible shift ended.  Since I’m technically a Sommelier now and this is a wine related post, below is a list of my five favorite sparkling wines to enjoy on Valentine’s Day.

  • 2007 Billecart-Salmon “Cuvée Elisabeth” Brut Rosé Champagne

On the nose, there is a refreshing expression of citrus peel and red berry jelly with a rich and complex aromatic note of roses, cherries, and white peaches. There are soft hints of wild strawberries and spices can also be detected. The palate displays delicate flavors of mandarin, blood orange, and apple tart.

  • NV A.R. LENOBLE BRUT NATURE

This wine is bone-dry with layers of complexity.  Stone fruits, fresh baked pie crust, and toasted hazelnuts appear on the nose with a mineral driven, mouthwatering palate. The salinity of the wine lends itself equally as well to oysters and pomme frite with aioli.

  • NV Taittinger “La Française” Brut Champagne

This wine has a subtle, pale gold color with fine, persistent bubbles. It is delicate, with aromas of peach, white flowers, vanilla pod, and brioche on the nose and flavors of fresh fruit and honey on the palate.

  • NV CRÉMANT DU JURA ROSÉ, DOMAINE ROLET

A nice steady pink color, brilliant copper reflections, fine bubbles with good persistence. Delicate notes of morello cherry that is slightly vinous and fresh. The palate is intense with a touch of energy that is lively and pleasant.

  • 2016 Lambrusco di Sorbara Spumante DOC Metodo Classico ‘Brut Rosso’

The nose is very inviting with fragrances of raspberries and juicy wild strawberries mixed with subtle citrus notes.  This wine has incredible dark fruit flavors.  It has a nice dry finish, good persistence, excellent harmony and is balanced with acid and salty flavors. The finish is clean and leaves you wanting more.

I’m notorious for saying that sparkling wines pair well with life.  The five wines listed above are some of my favorites now that I’m living my best life.  If you’re single like me, don’t fall victim to all the Valentine’s Day hype.  Treat yourself.  You won’t regret it.

Champagne, Wine

Champagne

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France is an interesting and intriguing place. If I had to choose the one country that I’d like to explore from a bartenders point of view, I’d pick France without hesitation. The reason is because there are so many unique places that produce great wines and other alcoholic beverages and I think that it would be fun to explore all of those places.  They say that timing is everything so, since it’s almost Valentine’s Day and since Champagne is an ideal choice to celebrate the big day, I thought I’d start my tour of France with the Champagne region of France.

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, then you’ll remember that I talked about Champagne during New Years. However, I only scratched the surface. This time I want to dig a little deeper. To do so, I’ll start at the beginning. About 65 million years ago, northern France and Great Britain were covered by a vast sea. When the waters receded, what was left behind was a chalk, rich with minerals such as zircon and quartz and the fossils of prehistoric sea urchins and sea sponges. Now, fast forward 64,998,400 years or so and you find the perfect climate and soil conditions to grow the fruit that makes Champagne unique among sparkling wines.

The Champagne region is located 90 miles northeast of Paris. It covers 85,000 acres. Today, about 75,000 acres are now in production. By law, less than 80,000 may legally be used to grow Champagne grapes. The soft, porous chalk of the region encourages the roots of the vines to dig deep into the Earth in search of water. The chalk drains well yet stores enough water to allow the vines to prosper.

As we’ve discussed before, Champagne can only be made from three grape varietals: chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier. This usually surprises people, since two of the three grapes are red. The Champagne region is divided into five main vineyard areas: The Montagne de Reims, The Cote des Blancs, TheVallee de la Marne, Cotes de Sezanne, and The Aube. The Montagne de Reims and The Cote des Blancs are the most important because they produce grapes that are historically rated at 100 percent. This rating implies extraordinary and superior quality.

Champagne was first made toward the end of the seventeenth century. Legend dictates that a Benedictine monk by the name of Dom Perignon single handedly invented Champagne. The legend was perpetuated in part because of the irony associated with a man of the cloth discovering the world’s most notorious seduction wine. Although he was instrumental in its development, he was not alone. Many took part in creating Champagne, including nature.

The Champagne region is one of the coldest wine producing areas in the world. Because of this fact, wines that were made in the fall would be left to settle over the winter. The cooler temperatures would halt the fermentation process before all of the sugar had been turned to alcohol. When spring arrived, the wines would warm up and begin to re-ferment causing the wines to sparkle. This phenomenon was unique to Champagne. It occurred naturally and it only occurred in Champagne. The wine makers of this era tried painstakingly to develop techniques that would improve the taste and eliminate the effervescence. During this time, the fizzy quality was frowned upon. Their goal was to produce wines that would outclass those produced in areas like Burgundy and Bordeaux.

After years of frustration they began to give up hope of making significant progress. But, instead of just quitting, they took a different approach. Instead of looking at the bubbles as a menace needing to be eliminated, they began to look at them as a reason that the wine was special. They began to look at ways to make the wines more appealing to the eye and to the palate. Over time, this approach allowed the wine makers of Champagne to develop what we enjoy today. This approach also exemplifies the essence of Valentine’s Day — finding the good in the person you hold dearest to you. Wine making is a great tradition in France. The Champagne region presented challenges to be overcome. Persistence and hard work allowed the wine makers of Champagne to develop something unique to their home. Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate the hard work that you and your significant other put into your relationship, and what better way to celebrate than to propose a toast to your hard work using something as unique and special as Champagne.

So, there you have it, Champagne in a nutshell. Who else but a bartender could take Zircon, chalk, and fossilized Sea Urchins and wrap them up in a neat little Valentine’s Day package?