I want to be reasonable about this – there is such a huge
demand for French wines these days that manufacturers are forced to extract
every drop of commercial liquid out of the limited absolute supply. This is the
same kind of thing that the producers of Chanel No 5 face – when it was first
made and sold to the world, certainly much less than a hundred thousand litres
per annum was manufactured; today, the total amount is in the millions of
litres. There is no possibility that the same kinds of ingredients or the same
process is used today to make what is sold as Chanel No 5 – as if it were
really anything like the original. And that is to be unkind to the great
success of the whole thing as an idea, as a brand, as, even – an ideology,
really. At least an ideology of style anyway.
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A French actress has been chosen
as the Bond 24 bond girl...
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Champagne is authentic if it comes from Champagne and
carries the required appellation stamp.
But if you want to know the truth, dosage is the secret of
much of modern Champagnes. Most of the wines are not too old, are mostly just
the de-stemmed flesh without the skins, and they get dosed with a Champagne syrup
that has a great concentration of sugars and also, of flavours too.
And that again, is to be a touch unfair to the modern world.
We spend our days differently to the mi’lords and mi’ladies of the original
days of the Follies Begeres, who would gather around the outer vestibule of the
Crazy Shepherdess’s, and drink Champagne. Today, we spend much of the day at a
keyboard or keypad, drinking in a tide of electrons and digital meaning.
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A hint of pencil shavings! |
The other day, someone wandered around my own house looking for
a pencil sharpener for a disgruntled child, and, thinking only about a pencil’s
association to kids, I entirely forgot about my own collection of silver Faber-Castell
sets...
And it was somewhat of a shock, when at last a sharpener was
found and all of the adults suddenly noticed the charming redolent scent of
pencil shavings!! So quickly we forget
what was once the commonplace.
Authenticity has its place and often it is decried as merely
nostalgia – nostalgia being something to be criticised, apparently.
But let me say this, if you want to experience what a truly
great Champagne once was really like, may I suggest something like a very
modestly priced Australian, Red Label Wolf Blass Chardonnay Pinot Noir Sparkling Wine. You
will not easily find a more elegant, refined, seamless, indeed quite stunning wine anywhere in today’s world,
and not for any kinds of money. Wolf Blass makes a lot of wine, and of many
styles. But not for nothing has this maker managed to take off second prize in
the whole world against all comers in a blind Paris tasting several times in
recent years. Not for nothing.