So the lesson is, if you’re going to invest in any of these fine and costly specimens, think very carefully about what to serve them with, lest you just throw your money away – or worse yet, decide that you just don’t understand Champagne and give up on the whole genre, which would be a terrible triumph for the Christmas Grinch.įor the sake of those who always ask such questions, I tried to come up with my five favorite Champagnes of the day, but I couldn’t do it. The light sweetness of the custard made all the Champagnes taste too big, too austere, even bordering on harsh whereas simple dry chocolate biscotti matched with most of the Champagnes quite decently, and certainly more pleasurably. For example: Our lunch ended with a lovely, light, refreshing dessert, an orange and Grand Marnier custard on pan di Spagna, with which not a single one of these fine Champagnes matched well – not even the lightest entry in the field, Pol Roger’s Valentine Leflaive NV Blanc de Blancs. “Buy on apples, sell on cheese” is a universal wine maxim. It is true of all wines, but, I think, especially of Champagnes, that the food pairing can make or break the wines. They may give you more later in their life, but then as now, whether they show their best or not will depend on what food you pair them with.
Yes, they will all get better, more complex, more nuanced, with more age, but none of them was in any way not enjoyable right now. Ditto for all the other “too young” wines in this lineup. That this Cristal can develop fascinatingly over the next 20 years, and then stay at a beautiful plateau for 20 more, I have no doubt – but I would certainly want to dispel any notion that it wasn’t pleasurable drinking any time before then. For example: of Champagne Collet’s 2006 Collection Privée, he said “it still needs time” of Boizel’s 2000 Joyau de France, he said it was “still quite young” at almost 20 years of age of Champagne Palmer & Co’s 2003, poured from magnum, he said it was “a bit young still – amazing” and of Louis Roederer’s 2008 Cristal, he said it was “a great Champagne that needs 20 years to develop.” Do you sense a theme?Įd likes his Champagne mature, and I can fully sympathize with that. The Champagne guru did have a reservation, however: Ed thought that almost all the wines were too young. It hardly counts as a spoiler alert to say at the outset that there wasn’t a single bottle of those 20 Champagnes that I would not happily drink for Christmas or New Year’s Eve or my birthday – or tomorrow’s breakfast, for that matter.
#Henriot hemera 2005 professional#
The chance to taste a battery of wines of this caliber (and cost!) happens only rarely, and for a wine professional the opportunity to taste so many such wines side by side, both by themselves and then with a good lunch, in congenial company and comfortable circumstances – that’s simply incomparable. Lists like that are what make Wine Media Guild events important. Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 2006 Pol Roger Valentine Leflaive NV Blanc de BlancsĬharles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires 2004 Ed, the author of Champagne for Dummies, has the finest Champagne palate and deepest store of Champagne knowledge of anyone I’ve met in wine journalism, and the lineup of wines he collected for this occasion exceeded impressive: 20 specimens of the best bubblies around.
Once again, as he has for the past 20-some-odd years, friend and colleague Ed McCarthy organized the Wine Media Guild’s annual Champagne luncheon, this year held in the special-event space at restaurant Il Gattopardo.
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