drink
A sparkling introduction A new book on the history of Champagne is easy to swallow, Chris Shanahan writes
W
e can’t all be like Marilyn Monroe and fill our bathtubs with 150 bottles of Champagne”, declares the press release that came with Great, grand and famous Champagnes. But neither the press release, nor the book, reveal the sequel to this intriguing romance: did the winemakers really fill 151 bottles from Miss Monroe’s tub? We’ll never know. The Monroe story sets the tone for a colourful, if uncritical, portrayal of the romance, glamour, mystique, history, hardnosed commerce and science underpinning the wine world’s greatest luxury brand. If, like me, you rate the best Champagnes among the world’s great wines – and feel that even Gruen Planet couldn’t improve the marketing proposition – then the book’s as easy to swallow as its topic. The third in Fritz Gubler’s series of ‘‘great, grand and famous’’ books (after hotels and chefs), Champagne appears, like its subject, to be a clever, even sparkling, blend (or assemblage) of information from a wide range of sources. After being drawn by the press release to the Marilyn Monroe snippet (page 168), we return to the cover. Here, Scott Cameron’s evocative close up of a crystal flute – teeming with the famous, tiny bubbles – reinforces brand Champagne and prepares us for the richly illustrated 240 pages that follow. We all look at the pictures first. And in Great, grand and famous Champagnes, it’s eye candy from cover to cover – starting with Champagnesipping Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, 1942) and finishing with a couple of art nouveau postcards of women drinking Champagne (circa 1900). Every spread in between illustrates Champagne across the ages, capturing its history, commerce, followers and strong brand marketing. The latter includes several reproductions of unique art deco posters, including a classic for Champagne Joseph Perrier, created by Jean d’Ylen in about 1920. The early part of the book, tracing Champagne’s intimate connections with French royalty
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Champagne-sipping Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.
and power brokers, portrays some of its great patrons, including luxuriously robed Pope Urban II, the Sun King, Louis XIV, and his mistress Madame de Pompadour. In the book Jane Powell writes that de Pompadour, “had strong family links to the Champagne region and already understood the difference between sparkling and ordinary champagne. She loved Moet’s wine and soon became one of his most valuable customers, ensuring that Moet’s champagne was served at every important function at Versailles”. A full-page image of Champagne’s famous wine priest,
Dom Pierre Perignon (1638-1715), from a relief at Hautvilliers Abbey, depicts the cellarmaster holding a bottle of the then new-fangled sparkling wine. Other famous Champagne tipplers portrayed in the book include Sir Winston Churchill (with Odette Pol Roger), Salvador Dali, Robert Redford with Mia Farrow, Elizabeth Taylor with Montgomery Clift, Sean Connery, and Ingrid Bergman with Cary Grant. Numerous vineyard and cellar photos give a feeling for Champagne’s landscape and production techniques. But I wonder why we still see shots of blokes hand-riddling bottles in wooden racks. Surely we’re grown-up enough to see the less romantic gyro pallets that took over from hand-riddling 30 years ago (the book actually describes the modern technique)? The book lists three authors – Jane Powell, Fritz Gubler and Dannielle Viera. Gubler appears to be the driving force behind the book, pulling together its many components. Powell wrote much of the content, including the early
chapters on Champagne’s history and commercial success. And Viera contributed to profiles on various Champagne houses and personalities. Powell begins her chapter, “Growing the market”, with this quote from British writer, Nicholas Faith, “Champagne is a luxury brand made and sold by a hard-headed, hard-working, rather cold-blooded bunch of people, fully aware that no one needs to drink Champagne”. Powell summarises the long winemaking history of Champagne, the region’s at-first tentative move away from table wine production to sparkling wines, the emergence of the first great Champagne houses in the early 18th century, their consolidation and growth in the 19th century and the emergence of dry Champagne in the late 19th century. She covers the at-times bitter tensions between growers and Champagne houses early in the 20th century, culminating in the statute of champagne in 1927 and the formation of a central body (the Comite Interprofessionel du vin de Champagne) representing the interests of the industry and regional as a whole. The region now produces more than 300 million bottles of Champagne annually and vigorously defends its brand at all levels – from the groundbreaking Perelada case that stopped “Spanish Champagne” in its tracks 50 years ago, to the more recent action by Veuve Clicquot to stop tiny Tasmanian producer Stefano Lubiana using an orange label. This is the hard-nosed phenomenon Nicholas Faith referred to. The book also has a terrific section on Champagne’s famous women, including Louise Pommery, Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin Clicquot and Lily Bollinger. It’s a good introduction to Champagne, blended from many sources, including the classic Champagne: The wine, the land the people (Patrick Forbes, 1967) and Christie’s world encyclopedia of Champagne and sparkling wine (Tom Stevenson, 2003). >> Great, grand and famous Champagnes, by Jane Powell, Fritz Gubler and Dannielle Viera (Arbon Publishing, November 2011, $80).
quaffers
Quality on the hill I
n 2005 Karen and David Golding established hops at Red Hill on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. This satisfied local regulations requiring would-be liquor licence-holders to be primary producers. They harvest the four varieties – Hallertau, Tettnanger, Golding and Willamette – around March each year for use in their Red Hill Brewery products. These include three beers produced year round (Golden Ale, Wheat Beer and Scotch Ale) and seasonal specialties like the upcoming releases, Bohemian Pilsner and Christmas Ale, reviewed below, and Temptation, a seriously good strong Belgian blonde style. Wheat Beer shows the classic fruity esters of this delicate style with a subtle, lovely tang of estate-grown Tettnanger hops. Golden Ale delivers complex, refreshing, full flavours, cut through with the delicate flavour and soft bitterness of Hallertau and Tettnanger hops. And big, bold, chocolaty Scotch Ale benefits from a lick of goldings and Willamette hops. Red Hill Brewery Bohemian Pilsner 330ml $5.50 Red Hill takes a distinctive approach to this classic, full-bodied, hoppy, Czech style. It’s a little stronger than normal at 5.9 per cent, it’s unfiltered (and therefore has a yeast haze) and utterly delicious. From nose to finish, pungent hops wrestle with opulent, sweet, malt flavours, finishing strong, bitter and alcoholic. ★★★★★ Red Hill Brewery Christmas Ale 330ml $7 This ale salutes Chimay Red, one of the great Belgian abbey beers. It combines full, malty body with high alcohol (7.5 per cent) and a strong aroma input from hallertau and tettnanger hops flowers. It’s a sip and savour style, its opulence and silky texture a good much for Christmas cake or pudding. ★★★★★ Chris Shanahan
FOOD AND WINE - THE CANBERRA TIMES, Wednesday, November 23, 2011