Champagne
A Book, Blog and Bottle of Bubbles
I love a wine journal. It keeps wine memories front of mind.
The only thing better at making wine memories last longer is champagne. I can track and recall many of my favorite champagne moments effortlessly.
Here’s a few wine moments that bubble up into my consciousness at the mention of champagne:
Twirling bottles in ice baths to chill them down at a tasting event after a fridge malfunction
Reacquiring Dom after it was confiscated on my wedding day
Drinking a bottle of Moët at the Ritz-Carlton in Beaver Creek on our first family vacation and feeling like the luckiest guy alive
Enjoying a bottle of Krug on our first parents’ night out post-pandemic
Champagne makes wine moments stickier in your brain.
So, don’t consider this post an excuse to toast something special to end the year and ring in the next one.
This is permission to drink champagne more often and make more memorable moments all together.
Champagne by Peter Liem
To appreciate champagne, you need a reliable guide.
Peter Liem’s Champagne: The Essential Guide to the Wines, Producers, and Terroirs of the Iconic Region gives you everything you need to get started.
When you purchase the boxed set, you even get maps. You’ll be well-oriented.
There are plenty of champagne guide books, but this is by the far the most definitive (and beautiful to boot).
The Top Ten Champagnes in the U.S. by The Drunken Cyclist
I always like a great blind tasting post when the writer tackles drinking wine side-by-side.
Even better when someone leads said article by stating:
“[champagne] should be consumed at virtually any (and every) meal and all year long.”
- The Drunken Cyclist
This article is an absolute treat to anyone looking to pick up a bottle for New Years.
What impacted me more than the precision of the tasting notes and the methodology was that I learned something new: I’ve been writing champagne incorrectly as “Champagne” every time I sing the praises of the beverage.
2006 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs
On Christmas Day, my wife and I enjoyed what I believe is my last bottle of 2006 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne (but I’m hopeful there’s one squirreled away somewhere).
It’s a wine that will always remind me of our relationship.
The first time we tasted it, we were working together in the wine industry. It was pure pleasure, and she immediately said, “Oh, I like this.” There was togetherness in that sip, as we were finally reunited after living and working apart for 4 months.
We’d return to CdC on New Year’s Day 2020. At a long table in our apartment building rooftop, we were surrounded by Alaskan King Crab and our family, recently one person bigger because of our newborn daughter.
This year, we toasted quickly and quietly before venturing off to my aunt’s house for Christmas dinner. It was a marked by a sense of “well…it’s Christmas” and that we had been fortunate the entire year. We’d come back home and finish the bottle later staying up late.
More important than the wine—special in its own right—is the importance of drinking what you enjoy with regularity. Popping a bottle of the stuff you love at the right intervals can help you mark certain life events. Like I stated at the beginning, wine you love only enhances the best parts of life.
And what better to open than champagne for life’s milestones.