So much to drink, so little time.
I want to drink it all—well, sip in “feminine moderation.” As my friend the Master of Wine always says, “The more you drink, the more you know.” I’m getting to know a lot. Every week there’s a parade of handsome winemakers in town with their newly minted vintages, wine regions giving seminars, liquors are being debuted—in the past couple of weeks alone, I’ve tasted two new vodkas, Hermitage wines and Champagne at a Tea Royale.
Among the highlights of a busy week: Every year on the third Thursday of November, Beaujolais Nouveau is heralded in launch events all over the country and here in New York City, I was among a group of wine journalists invited to a Cirque du Soleil-inspired release party at a new Manhattan party space, District 36. At 11 a.m. I entered a dramatically lit room where stilt walkers, jugglers and contortionists were on display, and female acrobats dressed in lacy corsets and fishnets curled down from the ceiling on long red drapery. At 11:30 a.m. sharp the first bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau, freshly flown in from France, was unveiled. Franck Duboeuf, son of Georges Duboeuf, made the presentation with actress Molly Sims cooing at his side. She held up a magnum bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau that Duboeuf had given her years ago. “I’m still waiting to open it,” she said. (Beaujolais Nouveau is supposed to be consumed within months of its release date). The assembled journalists and wine merchants chuckled knowingly at the innocent, yet clear error. Well, how is the new vintage? Like every year…fresh, fruity, young, a perfect playful wine for Thanksgiving.
A few days earlier, I’d flown to Paris to celebrate a big birthday. A friend and I made the two-hour drive to Epernay—my favorite wine village in the Champagne region. Imagine! This birthday Baroness stayed overnight at Chateau de Saran, the Möet & Chandon mansion run by an official Mistress of the House assisted by La Fille Anglaise (a young English girl who follows the Mistress’s dictates). The English Girl is a tradition in great houses and this beautiful English girl immediately asked if I wanted my dress pressed for the evening’s dinner. My new BCBG bare-shouldered tomato-red dress indeed got the royal treatment. To my delight the famous winemaker of Dom Perignon, Richard Geoffroy, hosted the dinner. Richard is a dazzling personality. I could listen to his poetic descriptions of Dom Perignon for hours—all about how to feel the delicate tension between its pointed and rounded textures engaging your mouth. The gala dinner, prepared by two house chefs, unrolled in courses, from a lobster bisque soup sporting enormous lobster tails to sea bass prepared Asian-style to saffron sorbet. All meant to match with the vintage Dom Perignon and the newly released 2002 brut and rosé. After dinner Richard uncorked a bottle of 1975 Dom Perignon Oenotheque for my birthday toast. (I looked up the cost of the bottle and it approached $2,000.) It was a one-of-a-kind night.
I returned back to New York on Monday, and by Wednesday I was having lunch at Picholine on West 64th Street. The book writing duo, Karen Page and Andrew Dorenburg, (What to Drink with What You Eat, The Flavor Bible) invited me to a festive lunch, which would be filmed for UK television show equivalent of Top Chef. We feasted on a fall game menu, including pheasant, hare, grouse and partridge. They started off ordering Taittinger Prestige Rosé for another birthday toast. And with our game we had a bottle of the truly amazing Chateauneuf-du-Pape Domaine de la Solitude Cuvée Barberini 99. A wow wine.
