Some bottles sit down at my table and offer up a serendipitous story of stumbled upon food and fun. For example, last night Lisa and I stopped by one of our favorite little spots on Dallas’ lower Greenville Avenue, The Grape. I picked a Helen Turley (a California winemaker whose name on a bottle nearly always guarantees success) Zinfandel from the Reserve List. When the waiter first opened the bottle and poured an initial sample, I found the wine to be quite constrained on the nose and palate and was afraid it would be a little too austere. However, after I had him decant the bottle and we gave it a little while to open up, and especially after we paired it with a braised lamb shank, it approached spectacular. You know how it is when you first meet a stranger . . . the conversation can be a bit muted and awkward. But by the time you’re sharing food together, you both really open up and the conversation becomes much more complex and fulfilling.
Other bottles have a story that is inextricably linked with a well known place like the bottles I’ve found in France and Italy . . . and whose stories are yet to come. I love the way that Old World wines are named not by their varietals, but by their regions . . . Burgundy, Bordeaux, Cote du Rhone . . . and even by their villages . . . Montrachet, Sancerre, Gigondas, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile de Montepulciano.
Still other bottles are (at least to me) like books on a shelf that are waiting to be read . . . when I get the time (or money). There are several bottles like that floating around some of the local wine shops that I’m hoping to open soon . . . a Gevrey Chambertin from Burgundy . . . a Condrieu from the upper Rhone . . . a Gaja or Sassicaia.
But perhaps my favorite category of “bottle stories” are those which revolve around people with whom I’ve shared wine. Since I never drink alcohol when I’m apart from Lisa (except by special dispensation on rare occasions), she’s always in those stories . . . which makes them better, of course. But there are also a large (and growing) number of people whose faces I see and whose laughter I hear whenever I look at particular bottles in my collection.
On the northern edge of the swampy north San Francisco Bay area, sort of at the junction between the southern ends of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys is the Carneros appellation in which sits a chateau that looks like it could be just as much at home in the Loire Valley in France. It is Domaine Carneros, and is part of the Taittinger family (a worldwide producer of Champagne and other sparkling wines.
Of course you know that (at least in France) the name “Champagne” is very closely restricted to sparkling wine produced in a specific region northeast of Paris (there are many posts yet to come relating our experiences in Epernay and Reims in that beautiful region) from specific varietals in a very traditional method. All other sparkling wine produced elsewhere is just . . . well . . . sparkling wine. Since the United States failed to sign the international agreement in 1930 which limited the use of the word, “Champagne,” some U.S. wineries that produce sparkling wine call it “Champagne.” Domaine Carneros, however, chooses to focus on the name of the house and the region in the product name, simply indicating that it was produced in the traditional “methode champinoise.”
Domaine Carneros produces three sparkling wines (all of which have been in my collection, but alas . . . I’m down to a single bottle of Le Reve). Their Brut Cuvee is a beautiful blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (white of course, with no contact with the skins) which is delightfully dry (the meaning of the Brut designation). The Brut Rose Cuvee de la Pompadour is a lovely pink (the pinot is left on the skins just briefly) and is a little more fruity and floral than the other two. Le Reve Blanc de Blancs (100% Chardonnay) is my favorite. Rich and buttery with fine streams of bubbles which do, indeed, tickle the nose as you sip.
The grapes traditionally used in Champagne are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. The Carneros region produces Chardonnay and (due to the cooling breezes blowing up from the Bay) Pinot Noir. In fact, the domaine often produces more Pinot Noir grapes than needed for their sparkling wines and so bottles a very good Pinot Noir still wine.
The whole process of making Champagne is amazing and far too involved and complex for me to relate here . . . you’ll get bits and pieces of it as I talk about our wonderful time in the Champagne region . . . but legend has it that Dom Perignon (the monk who supposedly invented the method) ran to tell his brothers of his discovery calling, “Brothers . . . come quickly . . . I am drinking stars!”
But that’s not the story. The story is in the sharing. I have spent a few beautiful hours on that wonderful terrace of the chateau at Domaine Carneros tasting their sparkling liquid sunshine. Lisa and I discovered it together alone, at first. Then we had the joy of sharing it with some of our great friends, Todd and Dena and Greg and Tammy.
And then, a couple of years ago we spent a weekend in Napa with our beautiful (one of our three) daughter, Hope, and her friend (and ours), Sara. It was an incredible weekend complete with hot air balloons, champagne brunches, and grape stomping at harvest parties.
Sara had to leave a couple of days before the rest of us, so she missed Domaine Carneros, but Hope was able to be there with us. It was unforgettable for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the book Hope chose to read on the terrace (that girl is ALWAYS reading something . . . wonder where she gets that?). Charles Dickens’ “Hard Times.” Note the picture below.
And hence the title for this bottle-told story. You’ll find I love literary references and movie quotes. In fact, the title of the previous post (walking the parapet) was a quote from the movie Blazing Saddles. Extra points if you caught that. Wine culture doesn’t HAVE to be stuffy.
So . . . this New Year’s eve, whether I’m enjoying my bottle of Le Reve, or the 2000 Dom Perignon that was a gift from my great wine buddy Terry, or one of the bottles of “real” Champagne I brought back from Epernay, France, what’s in the glass will only be part of the story. The REAL story will be the people I’ll be sharing it with. Don’t know who that will be yet (Lisa will be there, of course), but I know that the combination of good sparkling wine, great friends, and the advent of another year (my fifty-first) will yield yet another incredible memory.
Bottoms up!
What a beautiful girl Hope has turned into.