Ubekræftede rygter fortæller, at druerne anno 2001 simpelthen ikke var gode nok til at sende Dom Perignon 2001 på gaden. Derfor kommer vi nok desværre til at ‘nøjes’ med den ganske udemærkede årgang 2000 eller til særlige lejligheder årgang 1996.

Jeg vil understrege, at dette er ubekræftede rygter, så indtil videre afventer jeg fortsat situationen…

I have decided to add a new section to my blog. Wine forums or “boards” as they are called are great places to learn about all aspects of wine. The two most popular Wine Boards are those found at  Mark Squires Bulletin Board at erobertparker.com and wine spectator.com. There are many others but these two are far and away the Chairmen of the Boards. I read these boards often. I don’t post very much myself but I have made both of these websites a big part of my wine education.

From time to time I will post here topics on wine that may be of interest to you. It’s fun to see the diverse viewpoints offered by members of these boards. Here are a couple of topics being discussed in the past few days on these boards.

FREEZING WINE: Rob Liss of California started this thread and this experiment in preserving wine. I have always believed, and many wine lovers share this belief, that almost any wine begins to lose its flavor characteristics pretty quickly after opening and that 24 to 48 hours is about as much time as you can get in truly preserving a wine once it is uncorked. Rob claims that over the past year he has frozen almost all of the top varietals; cabernets, chardonnays, shiraz, pinot noir, and found that even months later they retain almost all of their flavor. Some others were amazed at the results while some agreed that they had found the same success in using that method. Rob claims that only about 10% of the frozen wines fell apart completely. He sounds like he knows what he is talking about and I am certainly up for trying his method with future bottles. Rob says he simply sticks the cork back into the bottle before freezing. When he is ready to drink the frozen wine, a few hours on the kitchen table is all it needs to thaw. He does note that wine lying on its side will thaw faster than a bottle standing upright. See, you learn something new every day!!

Another hot thread is one titled “What Is The Best Marketed Wine In The World?” initiated by John Glas of Minneapolis.  

The majority of votes were divided between Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio and Dom Perignon Champagne. My favorite quote of the many replies on the thread came from Michael Koth of San Pedro, California while speaking of just how bad Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio really is ( a belief I totally share with him) “it’s simply amazing how good people will think a wine is when you tell them it is.”

Lots of talk on all the boards on recent articles in, not just the wine publications but even major newspapers, concerning the recession-driven decline in sales of higher priced wines. It seems like everyone is trying to dump there $50 plus wines. Some of the newer producers may even be forced out of business. This bad news for the winemakers is good news to all of us who might be looking to pick up some better juice for lower prices. Most estimates are that it will be a few years before the market returns to normal. Drink up now!

Parce que le coup de la mallette Vuitton contenant 1 million de dollars, c’est déjà fait, Baby “Birdman” de Cash Money Millionaire a réfléchi au moins 1min30 pour trouver ce qu’il allait offrir cette année à son fils / amant / poule aux oeufs d’or Lil Wayne, qui fêtait ce weekend ses 27 ans avec des bouteilles de Dom Perignon en guise de verre.

Et comme la crise et les contrôles fiscaux ne touchent toujours pas le crew de MCs le plus tatoué de l’histoire du rap, Weezy a reçu en cadeau une montre Chopard en platine / diamant / pierre lunaire / os de dinosaure / dent du Christ, d’une valeur… d’1 million de dollars.

Sans parler du fait que Baby étant un fan de Coco, il ne s’est pas arrêté en si bon chemin et a fait faire un gâteau d’anniversaire tellement imposant qu’il fallait le maintenir droit avec des chaînes en platine et diamant (logique).

Et donc forcément, face à tant de débauche et de luxe, une question se pose: est ce que Baby a renvoyé Omarion de Cash Money pour pouvoir payer cette montre à Lil Wayne et faire des cadeaux à ses petits enfants de coeur, plus nombreux qu’une équipe de foot?

Pour voir plus de photos de l’anniversaire de Lil Wayne, vous pouvez cliquer pour

Karl Lagerfeld shot a striking campaign for Dom Pérignon Oenothèque (back in 1993?).  Lagerfeld published the entire shoot in Visions and a Decision. The shoot (and accompanying book) features Claudia Schiffer, Brad Kroenig and Sebastien Jondeau and spins a grand take of old money seduction:

Telling the Wildean tale of an old money Dom Pérignon heir on the hunt for the perfect woman (played perfectly by American model Brad Koenig), Schiffer takes on the role of the book’s femme fatale, dressing up in numerous guises – ranging from Oriental temptress and libertine Ingenue to disco queen and dominatrix – all in the space of a few perfectly formed, achromatic pages.

Like a butterfly from a chrysalis, Schiffer’s various transformations have been throughout up by Lagerfeld as a manifestation of the Oenotheque’s unique aging concept. Like the best of Dom Pérignon’s wines, Schiffer morphs seamlessly from 18th century heroin to 21st century woman, retaining her own innate personality.

See more pictures after the jump…

See even more pictures at Highsnobiety.com, who found them on Wallpaper.com.

Test Dom Perignon

Nova campanha fotográfica do estilista Karl Lagerfeld em collab com a marca de vinho Dom Pérignon estrelando Cláudia Schiffer e Brad Koenig que na narrativa das fotos é herdeiro dos Dom Pérignon e está a caça de uma mulher perfeita.Dá um check nas outras fotos que ficaram muito lindas aí em baixo…

This is a story of wealth, of decadence and most important of all-style. With supermodel Claudia Schiffer dressed up as a femme fatale with looks to kill, fashion maestro Karl Lagerfeld pitted Schiffer against Brad Koenig in a photography narrative of a Dom Perignon heir on the hunt for the perfect woman.

More after the jump. Via.Freshness.

The transformation and progression of Schiffer’s character from an 18th century lady to the 21st century woman is meant to parallel Oenotheque’s aging concept– transformed and different, but always retaining the same coveted innate personality. The Oenotheque goes through a weathering production process– all vintages has to age at least seven years but can take up to at least another extra decade to perfect, achieving new heights of complexity.

For the past four years, Lagerfeld had been producing one-off campaigns to mark the launch of several vintages of his favored drink. This time, the photography campaign named “Visions and A Decision” with a deep film noir meets aristocracy look will be released as a book penned by Amanda Harlech. Wallpaper will be giving away 100 copies to lucky readers, so check with Wallpaper for details to enter.via: Wallpaper

Quem de nós não gostaria de beber champagne num barzinho nas calçadas de Paris? nada mais elegante, charmoso e duas vezes chique; o champagne e Paris.
Champagne, o rei dos vinhos, pela excepcional qualidade, e o vinho dos reis, porque era servido na coroação dos reis da França.
Paris, cidade luz, com referência ao movimento do iluminismo ( luz das idéias), que tirou a França das trevas após a Idade Média).
A origem do Champagne é atribuída aos monges beneditinos Dom Pérignon e Dom Ruinard que dominaram a técnica de controlar a fermentação em garrafas, mas foi Nicole Ponsardin, viúva de Felippe Clicquot, quem desenvolveu o método de produção que revolucionou o mercado do deste vinho. Assumiu assim a sua viuvez, no nome do champagne: Veuve Chicquot, apurado também, não concordam?
O champagne é elaborado essencialmente á base de uvas chardonnay, pinot noir e pinot meunier, e sua produção obedece a processo caro e demorado, que vai de dois a cinco anos, ou mais para os muito especiais. São classificados pelo teor de açúcar adicionado na segunda fermentação: doux, demi-sec, séc, extra-sec, brut e extra brut.
Para assegurar essa tradição e exclusividade o nome champagne é um dos mais protegidos do universo de produtos. Sua AOC ( Appellation d’origine contrôlée), que nunca aparece nos rótulos, é a mais rigorosa denominação de origem utilizada na França.
O cinema presta sua homenagem ao mais famoso vinho do mundo em filmes como: A festa de Babette, onde o Champagne Veuve Clicquot, safra 1860 é servido aos comensais. O mesmo acontece nos filmes, Interlúdio, Gilda, Hight Society e Casablanca onde Humphrey Bogart e Ingrid Bergman, brindam seu amor impossível com Veuve Clicquot, safra 1926. O sutil, O ano do Cometa, que narra a história da filha de um comerciante de vinhos ingleses, que encontra numa adega na Escócia uma garrafa de Jeroboan de Chateau Laffite, safra 1811, que teria pertencido a Napoleão Bonaparte. E ainda, nos doze filmes do Agente 007, James Bond, ele celebra suas façanhas com Bollinger Cuveé.
Relembrando, desde pequeno, meu filho queria visitar os lugares descritos nos livros que começava a conhecer; em um deles, escrevi: ainda que não possa levá-lo a conhecer o mundo, lhe darei livros.
Se não puder conhecer, in loco, os barzinhos de Paris, tome seu Champagne preferido na companhia do último livro de Danuza Leão, Fazendo as malas.
“ Com todas as agruras que é viajar hoje em dia, as filas, o check in, as revistas para ver se você não é terrorista, as malas desfeitas e refeitas, viajar ainda é das melhores coisas do mundo, e é bom provar agora, já, porque os chineses estão chegando… ( trecho transcrito do livro).
À votre Santé!!!
Fonte> Veuve Clicquot

Esther

Readers, why is it that the handle of a teaspoon placed in the neck of a bottle of champagne stops the bubbles from going flat?  Also, did you know that tuberculosis can be treated with tablespoons of iced champagne?  Or, while we’re on the topic of champagne, that the pretty story about Dom Perignon accidentally discovering it & shouting to his fellow monks “Come quickly, I’m drinking stars!” is really just a fairytale invented by an advertising company?  I was sad when I found out the latter.  But also impressed.

Anyway, I’m not drinking champagne to lift my spirits.  I’m drinking a local Brut.  It probably won’t cure my tuberculosis, but sparkling 1. wine is a small consolation for the bureaucratic nightmares I’ve suffered today!

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start).

I woke up at 8:15.  Unfortunately, since I went to bed at 2:20am (catching up on my extracurricular reading), I was required to 2. lie in bed until 10:20 at the earliest.  I’m good at sleeping in, but not when I’m forced to.  Dozed fitfully on & off until 11:00, then rose.  Then spent about half an hour gazing at myself in the mirror, as per usual.

Then I set about preparing my breakfast: 3. oatmeal, cooked the old-fashioned way.  As it cooked, I 4. added some blueberries & then (surprise, surprise!) 5. sweetened it with honey.  Then a glass of lemon 6. water saw my meal complete.

Food for the birds / strictly from hunger.

Ate it.  Mission accomplished.

Then I set about 7. Watching Death of a Cyclist. Fortunately, some wonderful person (not Fernando, of course) has posted the complete film in eight parts on YouTube.  It took me awhile to watch the whole thing, what with the stolen wireless & all, but I was absolutely engrossed.  It’s a very good film– in marked contrast to yesterday’s mess.  I find you can tell if most movies are worth your time within the first two minutes.  & I generally walk out if I don’t like the first ten.  Anyway, with this one I knew right away it was a very good movie.

It’s a smart psychological drama with a complicated premise & a beautiful leading lady.  I don’t want to give anything away, so you better just watch it for yourselves.  I was thinking a lot as I was watching the movie that most really good art does not simply reflect reality (something which is hard enough, I might add! art which manages that is totally adequate)– but creates a convincing state of hyper-reality.  When it comes to hyper-reality, this movie succeeded admirably. (At this point in the project, I recognize true hyper-reality a mile away.  I’m living it, after all.)

There were a few scenes where I felt as if realism was sacrificed for symbolism in rather unfortunate (sometimes unintentionally comical) ways (Darling! Not here! We’re the only two adults in a circus tent full of clowns & children!), & of course the moralistic ending of the film was clearly tacked on by fascists, but even moments of occasional melodrama were not enough to mar this incredible film for me! Everything was tight & perfect, character development superb, & almost every shot was a pleasure to view.  I’ll happily discuss the film in more detail in the comments section– only with people who have actually watched it, however.  A plot summary would do no justice, & if you have time to hang out reading this blog I’m sure you have an hour & a half to spare sometime for a movie!

Then I was supposed to 8. take a 45 minute walk & also 9. Write about what I just saw, whatever comes to mind, in any format, in a public space.

I multitasked admirably.  Disguised as a teenager in a hoodie & braids I made my way contemplatively along the sea wall with my iPod on shuffle.  “Fly Me to the Moon” came on first.  After the movie, everything seemed hyper-real.  The world took on a renewed sense of meaning.  Every dog & seagull was in crisper focus.  The people too, unfortunately for them.  Partway through my walk I sat down to write:

Whatever comes to mind.

Oh, look, I just 11. Posted what I wrote.  I was trying to make my writing legible, apparently it’s usually il-”".

Poked a hole with a pen & stuck a dandelion through for good measure.

Left it under a rock

Beside a park bench where it will never be found.

My well-intentioned note will likely molder beside a piece of used chewing gum until the end of days (soon).  But what do I care?

On my way back I stopped at the store & bought supplies for my next two meals.

Upon returning home, I began to prepare 12. My lunch! It was 5:00 o’clock, after all.  Well, I wasn’t allowed carbs so I decided I’d have some fun with it.

I'd say about 9"x 3"x 1.5" of fun, all told

I broiled an enormous steak.  What’s that on top of it, you ask?  I slathered it with butter.

It’s the first steak I’ve ever cooked!  I’ve always left the meat to the men.  But there aren’t any here.

It came out perfectly regardless. I would have made a nice salad or something, but, well– carbs.

Thanks, cow. Sorry vegetarians.

Actually, I tend to like things a little more raw than that.  But I’m not complaining.

Bella enjoyed her snack of gristle & drippings greatly. & the Chancellor liked his cm of beef too.  I tried to take a picture but– horrors!– iPhone was broken!  I quickly 13. Read some Octavio Paz (good, I’m sure, but a little hot-blooded for me at present), 14. Learned something about him (who knows what it was, but thanks, book-jacket) & raced out into the night to try to get my phone fixed.  There went my 45 minute walk. In fact, I walked much longer, muscles aching as an effect of last week’s disuse.

I won’t bore you with the details of bureaucratic nightmares alluded to earlier in this post.  Suffice to say, Canada is a wholly uncivilized country in which it takes you a week to even make an appointment at the genius bar.  Fortunately, I used my wholly American sense of entitlement to get them to explain what was wrong with my phone.  Then fixed it myself. Problem solved.

Returned home to a notice from the Idaho courts saying my driver’s license will be suspended in five days if I don’t pay a speeding ticket I received on July 3.  For goodness’ sake.  I was going three miles over the speed limit. They only caught me because I was the slowest car down the hill!  In Canada, the post offices & banks seem to believe they need a two day weekend every week.  What an awful country.  I’m going to move out as soon as the project is done– but not to Idaho.  Of all the states I’ve ever visited (South Dakota included!) I liked Idaho least.  But I’ll pay that ticket on Monday, by hook or by crook.  I hope Idaho knows I have plans for it when I’m king.

Once home, I opened a bottle of “champagne” & 15. Wrote for an hour.  This entry.  It actually took me much longer than an hour.  I’d intended to write some smart philosophical ramblings in a private book but I simply didn’t have the energy.  & I don’t like to post my private thoughts here.  They’re all private for a reason.

Now I just have to 16. Have dinner & 17. Stop use of all electronic devices in the hour before 18. bed. So lights out is at 1:20am tonight.  As far as dinner goes– well, I picked up some salmon.  But after that steak?  I think I’ll make a dinner of cucumbers in rice wine vinegar & soy sauce instead.  I always knew the Atkins diet was a stupid idea, but now I can really FEEL it!

Nothing some quality time with The Chancellor can't fix!

Now for a glorious two day weekend!  During which I may sort out my credit cards & do laundry & panic about the coming week.

See you all on Monday!  & I will, of course, continue to tend to the comments section with the love any good gardener feels for his work.  So don’t feel too abandoned, flowers.

Since all the celebrity’s and glamorous people left me for the South of France this August I am putting myself in the music video for this song and setting it in Cannes or St. Tropez.

It opens on my yacht. It is the biggest yacht you have ever seen. It is pulling into port at Cannes or St. Tropez as the sun is setting. I step off the boat in slow motion as the camera pans around me. The average camera shot is about 2 seconds constantly shifting from profiles to me walking straight towards the camera to helicopter shots to me walking away from the camera. Why? Because it looks bad ass in a music video.

I am wearing white tie and smoking a cigar.

I get in my Bentley convertible that is waiting for me and get whisked off to an open air night club on the beach. At my table are Jamie Foxx, Sascha Baron Cohen, Jay-Z, some famous socialite heir that people would know, Ashton Kutcher,  and Vin Diesel. We sit there drinking Dom Perignon. There is a crazy party going on but it is important that we sit and look cool not interacting with each other besides the ocassional lean in comment. Then we all get up and roll to my yacht in a fleet of Bentleys.  As the yacht sails out of the harbor with a big party going the sun starts to rise.

In this entire video I only move in slow motion.

Friday Follies [n., pl.] postings on Fridays about fashion and food in film from guest bloggers with impeccable taste.

“Come Elwood, let us adjourn ourselves to the nearest table and overlook this establishment’s board of fare.”

Eating out is a highly charged social activity, to say the least, with profound dramatic and comedic potential built into it. This is probably why so many superb cinematic moments involve the problem of eating with others. An example: Jake and Elwood Blues (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers, 1980) screech to a halt in front of a fancy French restaurant, Chez Paul. They walk inside, take a table, and spend some time behaving badly. Granted, they have a good reason for acting out, having come to pressure their old band mate, Mr. Fabulous, into quitting his job as maitre d’ of this fine establishment and rejoining the band. But their “mission from God” is only an excuse. The brothers relish the scene, eating up the stuffy atmosphere like the hungry low class wolves that they are. Having ordered a $120 bottle of Dom Pérignon ’71, five shrimp cocktails, and some bread (from waiter Paul Rubens, pre-Pee Wee Herman), they proceed to overstep as many bounds of good taste as possible. As a young Aykroyd slurps his champagne from a large goblet, Belushi puts on a sort of Spanish-Arab accent and offers to purchase the daughters of the disgusted gentleman at the next table. And most memorable, to me, is what the brothers do with the shrimp: inspired mock-snobbery at its finest.

The scene is straightforward snobs vs. slobs, and it draws the line between the two in great, multi-sensory detail. Not only do Jake and Elwood look out of place, wearing shades and eating with their overstuffed mouths open, but also, as the snob at the next table explains, “Frankly, they’re offensive. Smelling. I mean they smell bad.” Class lines are drawn on the soundtrack, too: the sound of snobbery is chamber music and a soft murmur of conversation, while the sound of slobbery is the loud whistle waiter-call and the noisy champagne slurps, more than loud enough to turn polite heads. So we see, hear, and smell the transgressions being perpetrated, and somewhere along the way, I think we can taste them, too (they taste something like a shrimp tail flung across the table into your mouth). Taste, after all, is the subject of this scene, a sharply performed encounter between the high and the low, good taste and bad, so to speak. The Blues Brothers pointedly upset the proper order of things, and they do so with great joy, pure style. As social commentary, it may be forced and heavily stereotyped, but this is excellent lowbrow comedy doing its thing, acting out.

Belushi had delighted us with his slobbery two years earlier, in the unforgettable Animal House cafeteria scene. As Bluto, he eats his way along the buffet, stuffing his face to capacity. [Note that the noisy slurp plays a role here, too: with a furtive glance around and a mischievous eyebrow-lift, Bluto vacuums up a Jell-O square without paying for it.] His tray piled high with everything, he sits down to eat with some bonafide snobs. More slurping. They express disgust, and he responds: “See if you can guess what I am now.” He inserts some sort of white food product (a hard boiled egg?) into his mouth and—pop!—splatters it all over them. “A zit! Get it?” The frat boys give chase and, as an escape strategy, Bluto gives that famous two-word cry: “Food fight!” Anarchy ensues. Order gives way, at least for the moment, to an uprising of mass slobbery. Bluto and the Blues Brothers are revolting in more than one sense.

Do these scenes amount to the comedic equivalent of a revolutionary manifesto, or just funny blue-collar trumpeting? Incisive social critique, or just heavy-handed class warfare stuff (i.e., classic comedy material)? Either way, it’s god damn good, and funny. Who can deny the recreational value of disorderly conduct? Comedy’s most noble pursuit, of course, is to take the stuffing out of us, to locate and release tensions, put things out of place. If these scenes are still funny, then their lesson remains relevant: the revolution will begin with bad table manners.—René Thoreau Bruckner, Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

For previous Friday Follies, click HERE.

August 4, 1693: Dom Perignon invents champagne sparkling wines. There were some sparkling wines available prior to this date, but they were not the same as what we know as “champagne” today.

Wines from the Champagne region of France were already being produced and were highly regarded. They were red wines and some of them “sparkled” after traveling across land in casks because of a second fermentation brought on by heat.

Pierre Perignon, a monk from the Abbey of Hautvillers, used this second fermentation, along with a special procedure for pressing the grapes that produced a white wine rather than a red. Frère Jean Oudart, another monk in a nearby monastery was also working with this process. Since they were only a few miles apart, it is assumed that they collaborated or at least shared helpful tips.

Perignon also improved the bottling procedure. Special stronger bottles were needed to contain the building pressure of the fermentation process along with special corks to hold the precious liquid. It took more than 150 years before any technical progress was added to the process – measuring the sweetness of the grapes to know how much additional sugar to add. Champagnes were not named for Dom Perignon until 1936.

“I see stars.” – Dom Perignon, upon his first drink of the sparkling beverage.

“I don’t have a sense of entitlement or that I deserve this. You’d be surprised at the lack of competition between nominees – I think a lot of it’s imposed from the outside. Can I have my champagne now?” – Cate Blanchett

“And now, I am dying beyond my means.” – Oscar Wilde sipping champagne on his deathbed

“I’ll stick with gin.  Champagne is just ginger ale that knows somebody.” – M*A*S*H, Hawkeye

Also on this day, in 1902 the Greenwich foot tunnel opens.