2015 Dom Perignon
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
Enjoying a very special Champagne
If you've been tuning in to these episodes the last month or so, you're probably aware that in early September I had an amazing fit to the Napa Valley. One of the highlights of my trip to the Napa Valley happened the first night Saturday night. I don't want to identify the chef, but a very, very important chef in the Napa Valley, an owner of one of the best restaurants in the world arranged for me to stay at Turley Silver's guest house for my week that I was in the Napa Valley, which obviously saved me a lot of money, and not only in hotel fees, but also I could cook dinner instead of going out to eat all the time, and it also made, you know, it's nicer staying in the guest house at Turley Silver's than it is staying in a hotel. By the way, this guest house at Turley Silver is just a fabulous place to stay. But anyway, I wanted to do something to thank my friend. I took two signed copies of books that friends of mine here in the Twin Cities have published recently. One by Steve Hoffman is called The Season for That. It's an amazing book, and the other is by his wife is called Still. It's also amazing. Steve's book is a bestseller on Amazon. Anyway, I took signed copies of those two books to thank this chef for arranging me for me to stay at Turley Silver's night, so I went by his restaurant on Saturday night with the intention of just leaving them with the hostess because Saturday night in the Napa Valley at arguably the best restaurant in the country, I assumed he would be way too busy to come out, even come out and say hello, even though we're pretty good friends. Surprise, surprise, not only did he come out and say hello, but he invited me to join him in his incredibly beautiful courtyard for a glass of champagne. He had some kind of green drink, some kind of kombucha kind of thing or something, but he didn't drink champagne, but anyway, he stole me a glass of 2015 Del Perignon. I must admit I had a second glass of 2015 Del Perignon, it's kind of hard to turn down, and we chatted for about an hour or so, which was incredibly generous of him with this time at a very busy time in his restaurant, but as I said, we're pretty good friends. We talked about a lot of things, we talked about his mentors, the chefs, about how he accomplished the success of winning the gold medal in the book he's door for the first time from the American Color Olympics thing, I actually asked him, well, I won't get into that. Anyway, I don't want to identify who he is because I don't want everybody to see us be calling him up saying hey, I want a free glass of Del Perignon in your courtyard, something you can probably figure out who it is. Anyway, it was a special moment, and maybe my perception of the champagne was clouded by the fact that I was sitting in this very, very beautiful spot with this very famous good friend, but let me tell you, 2015 Del Perignon is a very, very special wine. It's their current release. I've tasted 2012 and 2013 in the last year or so, I'd say they're all about equivalent quality wines, they're perfect, close to 100 point wines, obviously Del Perignon has the reputation it has, which is kind of staggering how great a wine is considering how much of it they make, but it is, let me say, the 2015 Del Perignon is an extraordinary wine. The mousse is so fine and so persistent, and it's so present on the palate, it is a beautiful, beautiful aroma of roasted hazelnuts, almonds, and this persistent, very, very fine mousse. Honestly, without going to sell on a mayneal or fruit, do mayneal or codominate champagne, which are enormously more expensive, champagne in my experience doesn't really get that much better than this than 2015 Del Perignon, very, very special. If you have a chance to buy some, you should, you have a chance to drink some, you should, they're in my, somewhere in my episodes here on Adventures of a Bightwell Semine, there's a recipe for googiers, which would be the perfect thing to eat with this very, very special champagne. Thanks for tuning in to Adventures of a Bightwell Semine, as always, we appreciate your interest. [BLANK_AUDIO]