The finest Champagnes are the equal of the world's best wines
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
Why champagne should be part of your enjoyment of fine wine
So I want to just say that I know sometimes I kind of jump around and be around more than I should during these podcasts. Unfortunately, I've had quite a few orthopedic surgeries in my life and sometimes sitting in one spot in one position for a long time can be very, very uncomfortable for me. So sometimes I have to adjust how I'm sitting, so I apologize for that. If it's distracting, sometimes I just can't help but I have to reposition myself. I wanted to talk about champagne and one of the things that I've been told many times, many times in my life, like people, customers, friends, whatever, is that I quote, "I don't like champagne." Generally a person that says that if it's queried, they've never actually tasted champagne. They're basing their opinion of champagne on Andre Tots Cook's Corbel, Low Quality Cabo, Low Quality Prosecco, etc. The truth is, I promise you, the finest champagne's from among the finest wines in the world. If you've ever tasted crude champagne, you know that there are no finer wines in the world than crude or so low in the male champagne. Part of the problem is we generalize champagne to be anything that has bubbles. Champagne is a specific thing from a specific place in France that is made in a very, very specific way that is extremely labor intensive and therefore it has to be expensive to be good. If you can imagine this, in the production of champagne, there's a guy called a Riddler or Rem watcher who, there are these riddling racks that are like A-frames and this guy comes along every day and he twists the bottles just a little bit, just a couple of degrees and then tilts the A-frames, racks like this, so that the sediment in the bottles ends up when the A-frames are like this and the bottles are vertical, all the sediment in the bottle ends up by the neck of the bottle, by what's a screw cap at that point. Think about that, that's a guy that all he does all day long is twist the bottles a little bit, that's required in the production of champagne, that's not cheap. So champagne has to be expensive to be high quality, it has to come from this very small place in France and it has to be made that way. Then the other thing is that people tend to drink champagne and flutes, which is not fair to the white. You don't drink anything else in a flute, why are you drinking champagne and flute? Champagne's a blend of shortening, well, bright Champagne's are a blend of generally chardonnay, peanut and iron, peanut and marinade. You wouldn't drink chardonnay or peanut or iron in a flute because it wouldn't taste good. Well, neither does champagne. It tastes good in a more regular wine glass like, like, bright Champagne's, that's sort of in a flute glass, rosé champagne, I sort of mean an iron glass because rosé champagne's are predominantly, generally predominantly, peanut and iron. And then we also serve them to coat. Champagne's not ideally served 35 degrees, champagne's not ideally served at 50 degrees, especially really high quality. The other thing about champagne is there is nothing better to hand your friends when people arrive at your house for a dinner party. The best thing to be handed as you walk in a door is a glass of, well, after you're hugged and your coats are taken and you're glad to see each other and all that happiness. A glass of champagne is the best thing, the best thing to start off an evening of good food and good wine. There's just nothing better. It's festive, it's, if it's high quality, it's really delicious. So stop, if you say occasionally in life that you don't like champagne, don't say that. Drink champagne, don't drink cheap sparkling wine. Don't serve it so cold, and don't serve it in a flute, and you'll find that the best champagne's, really fine champagne's, are the equal to any wines in the world. And if you want to know something to serve with champagne, as people arrive at your house for a dinner party, there's a dish called a goo-jare. It's a little cheese buff made with greer cheese, and the recipe's too complicated to really explain it verbally here, but you can google Barefoot Contessa goo-jares, and her recipe is excellent. They are, and there's just nothing better than a glass of really good champagne, and one of Barefoot Contessa's uni-garden scoo-jares, I promise you. So give champagne a chance, give good quality champagne a chance, or good quality California sparkling wine, or other, you know, sparkling wine from other places, like Shramsburg and Rotor, and Augustinum, really excellent wines. They're not maybe quite as excellent as the best champagne's, but they're excellent. And if you serve them in a tulip glass, and don't serve them so cold, I think you'll find that they are really, really wonderful, can be really, really wonderful wines. Once you're tuning in to Adventures of the Black Belt Summer Age, make champagne part of your wine routine. You'll be glad you do them. [BLANK_AUDIO]