Champagne enhances flavor of food

By Micky Fenix

FOR SOMEONE QUITE SHY ABOUT appearing in the company’s brochure, Pierre Emmanuel Taittinger, when asked to pose, proved he knows how to sell his product. He said that it should be better if he had a champagne glass in his hand. But he also liked that he was asked to pose beside the poster that features his daughter, Vitalie, the communications head of the family company. It just so happened that a row of Taittinger champagne bottles were near the poster, which made the photo opportunity even better.

Taittinger Champagne could have been a company without anyone in the family as part of it. In 2005, all the family businesses that included banks, hotels and the champagne house were sold to an American investment company. When the businesses were all separated by the new owners, Pierre Emmanuel Taittinger, with the backing of a bank, bought back Taittinger champagne. There were several offers from different groups from many countries, but he said the bank knew that the Taittinger brand had to have a part of the family. And you could see on his face the pride at having won back what is said to be the third oldest champagne house.

After 10 years, the head of Taittinger was back for a visit. There was a party the night before when Taittinger Champagne must have flowed, but Pierre Emmanuel said that he had no hangover and he thought the guests were okay also. With that, he raised his glass and drank.

Celebrations and champagne go together. Championships have bottles poured or squirted on winning teams, certainly a waste—but it probably isn’t great champagne but cheaper sparkling wine. New boats are launched with it by breaking a bottle on its bow. Toasting partnerships, weddings and other milestones of one’s life all need a fluted glass with tiny bubbles rising to the top.

Food partner

But what Taittinger wanted to assure us that day was that champagne “doesn’t hide the flavors of food.” With that, he asked that lunch be served by the staff of I’m Angus Steakhouse on Yakal Street in Makati. It belongs to the slew of restaurants of Werner Berger, whose Santi’s Delicatessen distributes Taittinger champagnes.

A Brut Reserve nonvintage was served with the appetizers: Duck liver terrine selection, marinated seabass and Atlantic scallop. The soup of cappuccino of lobster bisque was accompanied by the Prestige Rosé nonvintage, which Taittinger said is made from still red wine blended with Chardonnay, which gives the champagne “a beautiful persistent color.” When the perfectly grilled Australian beef medallion was served, it came with the Comtes de Champagne ’99, the exceptional vintage wine made from 100 percent Chardonnay in a differently shaped bottle with the Comtes name more prominent than Taittinger. One connoisseur with us declared that the Comtes we were having was still “young” because it was still acidic in the mouth. We had the Comtes until the trio of sweets.

Throughout lunch historical footnotes were made. Taittinger stated how French king Louis XV liked to have his mistresses drink the bubbly champagne with him—never mind that it was born in monasteries.

He also declared that he drinks champagne daily, but added that he also enjoys pastis (anise-flavored liqueur) either with almond syrup or tomato juice.

Information flowed like his wine that day about the state of the Champagne region, and my pen couldn’t keep up. I had to consult the “Oxford Companion to Wine” edited by Jancis Robinson (Oxford Press, 1994) to make sense of my notes.

Taittinger mentioned how the Champagne region can’t increase the number of hectares (35,000) to produce more wine. The wine encyclopedia says that as a result, the region produces only one bottle in 12 of the total sparkling wines produced in the world. It is Australia and the western United States that have taken to producing sparkling wines. That’s probably why Taittinger went into partnership in California with Le Domaine Carneros, a vineyard between Sonoma and the Napa Valley.

While champagne is a welcome treat, it is more expensive than most of the non-sparkling counterparts. It is also Jancis Robinson who explains why beautifully in her book “Taking Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover” (Penguin Group, 1997): You pay more because of “the sheer depth of flavor that takes years to develop, the way each mouthful lingers in your throat like a comforting, slow-release capsule of explosive warmth, and the fact that it wafts rather than gets up your nose.”

E-mail pinoyfood04@yahoo.com.