DORIS REYNOLDS

Let’s Talk Food: Toast France with Champagne this season

DORIS REYNOLDS

 

Editor's note: Doris Reynolds, who authored this column since 1986, died Nov. 17 at 92. Because she completed her columns in advance, we will continue to publish her columns through the month.

Moet et Chandon champagne is poured into glasses in Epernay, eastern France, on April 20, 2016.

It’s hard to imagine celebrating any occasion without Champagne. Weddings would not be as glittering. New Year’s Eve surely would be an uninspired occasion without it. Anniversaries would be just another day and sports victories mundane and ordinary. Yes, the night they invented Champagne the world became a happier, more effervescent planet.

The French deserve to be saluted this festive season. They have contributed much to the culinary enjoyment of the world. Along with such delights as pate de foie gras, coq au vin, Béarnaise sauce, cassoulet, quenelles, coquilles St.-Jacques and hundreds of other gastronomic treasures, they introduced the world to Champagne. This sparkling wine is now internationally acclaimed and treasured as one of the most delicious drinks enjoyed by millions.

The Champagne district of France is in the northeast section of the country, stretching from the Ardennes to Burgundy, from Meaux to Chatillion-sur-Seine. However, the actual wine country which produces Champagne is smaller than the size of Collier County. The area around Rheims, Epernay and Chalons-sur-Marne are the regions where France’s best Champagne is produced.

While I was on a visit to Paris, John Claude Reisel, author of several French guidebooks and Temple Fielding’s consultant in France invited me to accompany him to the Champagne country. Our hosts in Rheims were officials of the Ruinart Co., a part of the Moet-Chandon conglomerate.

Ruinart Champagne in a cellar in Reims, eastern France, on April 20, 2016.

We arrived about noon to find four American flags flying over the headquarters building. We were taken to the executive offices and were served their finest blanc de blanc as an aperitif. The luncheon that followed featured dishes which all contained Champagne. The fish course was a delicious pike in Champagne sauce. The main course was the incomparable chicken from Bresse, prepared in Champagne and tarragon. Dessert was equally as alcoholic. We partook of delicate crepes masked with a brandy and champagne sauce. As we consumed this feast, our hosts kept replenishing our Baccarat crystal goblets.

We were hardly fit to tour anything after such a meal but our hosts took us deep into the immense chalk cellars that contained the precious wine. The caves had been dug by the Romans and had been used over the centuries as a prison and also as a refuge during wars. The temperature remains at 52 degrees for the entire year. No air conditioning system could be as efficient in controlling the temperature and humidity.

After seeing the lengthy process and manpower involved in producing the wine I realized why it is so expensive. Later in the day, we visited Epernay, where the finest of the grapes are grown in a long, slow process to plant, cultivate, pick and press the grapes even before they are brought to the caves to age and ferment. There are only about 50,000 acres bearing vines, and the soil, climate and temperature must be just right to produce vintage Champagne.

Champagne may have been the invention of Dom Perignon, who was the cellar master of the Benedictine Abbey at Hautvillers, near Rheims. However, women have played an important role in the cultivation and development of the famed wine. At harvest time, the best grapes are carefully selected by a team of women, who go over each bunch and cut away those grapes that are broken or bruised, or otherwise imperfect.

In 1805, long before the term “women’s lib” came into the vernacular, Veuve (widow) Clicquot Ponsardin found herself at the head of her husband’s company. She was only 27 and, although she was not prepared to become a businesswoman who headed the firm for more than 50 years, she was the first French winemaker to penetrate the Russian market.

It’s hard to imagine celebrating any special occasion without Champagne.

On my visit to the caves of Epernay, I was shown the racks on which Champagne bottles are placed during the step, which rids them of the sediment created during the second fermentation in the bottle. It is painstaking work to manually turn the bottles. It was the widow Clicquot Ponsardin who invented the A-frame racks (putitres) along with other innovations that are still in use.

Women and Champagne have had a long and romantic association. Madame de Pompadour once remarked “Champagne is the only wine which leaves a woman more beautiful after drinking it.” In 1785, Florens-Louis Heidsieck presented Queen Marie Antoinette with a special cuvee. The painting in which the scene was reproduced now hangs at Versailles.

Queen Victoria may have appeared to be a teetotaling prude, but actually was an ardent fan of the bubbly. The mid-19th century Cora Pearl, the notorious mistress of some of the most illustrious figures of the time, bathed daily in a great bronze bathtub filled with Champagne. Many contemporary luminaries of the stage and screen have also indulged in such baths, including Marilyn Monroe. It is purported that she sank her gorgeous bod into 350 bottles of golden Grande Marque.

Although French Champagne is a luxury and expensive, there is no need to greet your holiday feast without indulging in a bit of the sparkling wine. There are a number of Champagnes produced here in the United States that are inexpensive and delicious. Champagne is best served chilled and as an aperitif and poured into slender flutes.

It is a wine for the best occasions: For when you laugh; for when you’re reunited with friends; when you fall in love; when you want to seduce someone; when you want to impress someone; when you want to show someone you love them; when you are happy; when you want to be happier and when you want the heart to be lighter, the laughter heartier and the world more beautiful.

Doris Reynolds is the author of “When Peacocks Were Roasted and Mullet was Fried” and a four-part DVD, “A Walk Down Memory Lane with Doris Reynolds.” They are for sale in the lobby of the Naples Daily News.