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2006, May, the 1st Champagne with caviar – a “wrong” combination? On April 30th in CASA DEL VINO restaurant-enoteca there was an incident with so interesting and unexpected results that should make us seriously think about it, as well as any self-respected sommelier, chef or true gourmand. “… A deep doubt in ideal gastronomical combination of Champagne Brut and black caviar, shared by me and Vladimir Basov, firmed up after our participation in pre-taste, featured by “Winemania” magazine. Small excursion back in history: “Till certain moment champagne was exclusively sweet wine, which was served to dessert. The beauty of drier champagne for the first time was sensed by consumers when first vintage wines were produced in Champagne: vintages of 1842, 1846 and 1857 years became a history – they were so weighty and heady on their own and required only small supplement of sugar. Therefore, we can definitely conclude – in that time caviar and champagne combination was built on famous harmony of sweet and salty, like, for example, in case of Roquefort and Sauterne.
It always seemed to me that vodka, which is not at all my favorite drink, suits caviar much better than any wine, proposed by manuals and articles by wine gurus in Internet, and that really touched me. If caviar were combined with proposed brute champagne and a range of very dry wines it left a distinct feeling that caviar and wine are much more delicious separately than together, i.e. the combination does not work out. Wines that got completely “lost” against caviar or acquired unpleasant flavor notes were specifically unlucky. In order to do that I wrote letters with invitation to participate in “The Decadent Russia Caviar Dinner” to three gentlemen – Andreas Larsson, Marcus Del Monego and Dan Leestad. I met Dan and Andreas half a year ago at World Cup in Athenes, and made friends during my trip to Mainz Wine Market, organized by Deutsches Weininstitut, after which they invited me to participate in “The Nordic Magnum Dinner” – the event invented by Dan Leestad and held once a year in Oslo and Stokholm in turns. Its point is to drink in “right” and understanding company a magnum bottle of rare and interesting wine, which every participant discovered and put away within the past year especially for this case. Naturally, it is organized in one of the best restaurants of the city and has dress code “Black Tie”. All three gentlemen liked the idea and accepted my invitation. Therefore, the list of our little “jury” looked the following way (in alphabetical order):
We asked Marcus to be a president of jury and he agreed. We evaluated the combination of each wine sample (in blind test) with three kinds of pure caviar, by 20-points scale. The combinations that scored more than a half of all possible points were considered as constituted.
At the end, Marcus said: “It has already been a few decades no one comes back to the question of wine and caviar combination, and here is the result! I can imagine the reaction of a three-star restaurant’s client that hears from sommelier something like this: “You know, Monsieur, champagne will not suit your caviar in any way, because for equalizing its saltiness it is necessary to have enough sweetness in wine. Therefore, I will offer you Eiswein, and this will be the best choice!””
After that we had “light caviar dinner”, which was beautifully finished by 2000 Arvay & Co. Hetfurtos Tokaji Eszencia..." |
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And that gave the impulse to this event. That time, from my point of view, the ideal combination was never found. Nevertheless, not very dry sparkling wines approve themselves in the best way. Personally for me, that was not only establishment of truth, but also rectification of historical injustice – because no one can remember, nowadays, that in the time when caviar and champagne combination became classical, all produced champagne was more or less sweet.”
In 1856 – Mo¸t House produced wines marked dry and sec especially for British market as they noticed English tendency to serve very cool champagne to the meal. But the final point in the question of sweetness was put by wine-maker Victor Lambert from Rottery House: in 1874 he made the first vintage brut under ideological leadership of the very Madame Pommery ” (“Winemania”, 7/2003).
In 60s-70s there was made a final transition to production of mainly brutes, and today, champagne of sec and demi-sec kinds is perceived as exotic already. Not every producer in Champagne has it in its range of wines, and rare restaurant will offer you at least one of such kind of champagne. Moreover, in conscience of mass consumers sparkling wine of high quality, especially champagne, may be only brute (or even extra or ultra-brute). The rest is associated with, to put it mildly, inexpensive production of Moldova, or Italy at best. The real reasons for success of caviar and champagne combination were simply forgotten and consumers continued to drink altered wine with caviar, combining them due to “glamour” principle and tradition.
Not having found an ideal combination from the first attempt during that very pre-taste by “Winemania” (although, there were very interesting findings, like Sherry Manzanilla), we decided to try one more time.
In Stockholm, I met legendary Marcus Del Monego (without his help I would have gone to Magnum Dinner with untied “bow”). We offered each participant to take from one to three wine samples that, in his opinion, suit black caviar the best. And for extra purity of our experiment we purchased three sorts of caviar: starred sturgeon, sturgeon and beluga. It was difficult to refrain from temptation, and the dress code “Black Tie” was proposed, like in case with “The Nordic Magnum Dinner”.
Dan also invited his friend Ioakim Karlsson to join us. Unfortunately, Andreas underestimated the complexity of getting Russian visa and could not participate in our event due to technical reasons.
After two hours of strenuous work we summed up the results and announced the winning sample – you won’t believe it, but it was Eiswein from Reisling! It ‘s worth mentioning that the experts’ opinions on some wins remarkably varied, whereas the winning sample caused an amazing unanimity. The second place was also given to Eiswein, but yet not made of one sort of grapes, with higher content of alcohol and without that notable “sparkling” the previous sample had. From the tables below it is obvious that bubbles in wine are very favorable with caviar, as well as residual or added (as a result of dosing for champagne wines) sugar.