Champagne Dreams by Rosanna Mignacca

I’ve sipped it in the morning, I’ve savored it late at night. At rooftop parties, I’ve slipped away and enjoyed a glass alone. I’ve shared it with a special someone at an intimate dinner for two. I’ve enjoyed Aruban sunrises with friends, and parties that began at sunset and kept going late into the night, with the help of our bubbly companion. I’ve come to realize, no matter where I am, Champagne is a wonderful way to start or end the day.

Champagne wasn’t a rite-of-passage drink for me. My mother would host huge Christmas parties for our large extended family, always serving Champagne punch, complete with gleaming globes of frozen fruit juice afloat in her dazzling crystal punch bowl.

Growing up in an Italian-American family, where spirits were simply part of the culinary festivities, that colorful Champagne in the crystal bowl was never off-limits to me, my siblings, cousins and other assorted children whose parents had dropped by. I remember one such party where I suggested that it would be a grand idea to put a football helmet on my cousin Danny, and send him down the laundry chute. One of the adults intervened before our plan was executed and a few hours later we were all sleeping amidst the coats in my parents’ room. I believe this was my first of many Champagne dreams... my bratty cousin Danny flying down three flights in the dark, wooden laundry chute. On my first visit to Boston, I stayed at the Eliot, an old apartment-style hotel in the Back Bay district. My husband and I toasted an anniversary with a bottle of Dom Pérignon as we watched a presidential debate (I can’t remember who was speaking, but they sure were hilarious). Politics never seemed so much fun or so romantic! E Top and bottom photos by Digital Vision. Facing page photo by Christine Balderas

“Why do I drink Champagne for breakfast? Doesn’t everyone?”

Drink it around the globe

— Noël Coward

with fascinating strangers; drink it with those you love.

In the seventies, I worked as a gopher girl at an ad agency where the owners, brilliant musicians who were trying their hand at advertising, would send me off every week to the corner liquor store for provisions for their Friday afternoon cocktail hour that would see local musicians popping in and out for informal jams and commiseration. After countless requests from me for a “receipt for my boss”, the clerk, a timid young man, finally asked pleadingly, “good god, where do you work?” My provisions usually consisted of a bottle of Rémy Martin cognac and a magnum of Champagne. Michel (the creative genius behind the music and the parties) showed me how to serve this wonderful concoction he called a “Montreal Winter Cham pagne Cocktail”. A small amount of cognac is swirled around the glass, then the glass is filled with Champagne. Michel’s favorite was Veuve Clicquot and the result was a heady mix of warming cognac and cool bubbly... a combination that saw many a couple getting “fizzical”.

In the excess of the eighties as a rising ad executive, I never went off to work on my birthday without a mimosa: three quarters of a flute filled with Moët & Chandon (my favorite) and a splash of fresh tangerine juice. Decadent, you say, and perhaps you’re right, but the subway ride was always much more enjoyable! I could go on, but I don’t want to give away all my secrets; so let’s uncork those of some others... Marilyn Monroe stated that she “drank and breathed Champagne… as if it were oxygen”. In fact, one biographer reported that Marilyn once took a bath in 350 bottles of Champagne. The French poet Voltaire declared: “The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people.” I wonder if Madame Curie would have agreed? Noël Coward is reported to have said, “Why do I drink Champagne for breakfast? Doesn’t everyone?” I’m with you Noël! Where are the most memorable places in the world to indulge your Champagne dreams? In front of a setting Mediterranean sun as you take in the international film set on the terrace of the Hotel Martinez, in Cannes. As you mingle with New York’s elite at the Carlyle Hotel, on East 76th Street, or Hollywood dealmakers at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. E

At Harry’s Bar, on Calle Vallaresso, in Venice, home of the celebrated Bellini, a cocktail made from fresh peach juice and Champagne. Harry’s is always lively and fun, with ghosts of Hemingway and Orson Welles filling the air as faded European royalty rub shoulders with Europe’s trendiest crowds. In London, pop by Kettners (one of the city’s first specialist Champagne bars) to enjoy the company of theater and media people as you delight in a huge range of bounteous bubbly.

Champagne, from its first bubbly fizzle at your nose to its lush dance down your throat, makes memories we never forget. One of my most memorable glasses of Champagne was on New Year’s Eve, 1999. I was at my mom’s to ring in Y2K. This time there was no big party. For years, her lovely Champagne punch bowl had lain idle in the attic. She’d been sick for some time and seemed so small as I curled up on the bed beside her. I turned on the television and we watched the year 2000 celebrations around the world. At five minutes to midnight, my husband came tiptoeing up the stairs. In his hand was one of my mom’s lovely silver trays with three tulip flutes, a bottle of Bollinger (James Bond’s choice) and various delicious little edibles. My mom’s face, pale but radiant, lit up even more. Forever the party girl! We popped the cork and poured the Champagne and toasted and kissed and drank... to love and family and a wonderful new year. My mother never toasted again, nor would she see the end of another year. Still, I like to think of her as now enjoying Champagne dreams every day; while those of us left behind must spend our time popping corks to find those rare moments of heaven on earth K

Marilyn Monroe and French actor and singer Yves Montand share a glass of Champagne in 1960 in Hollywood after the screening of the movie Let’s Make Love

Top photo by Joe Augustine. Bottom left photo by AFP/AFP/Getty Images. Top right photo by Tim Porter. Bottom right photo by Lise Gagné

Top photo by Phil Date. Bottom left photo by Ariadna de Raadt. Top right photo by BenoitPhoto. Bottom right photo by Krystyna Trojanowska