Yesterday my friends and I boarded a (I think Nazi-run) bright yellow tour bus and made our way to the northeastern corner of France blessed personally by God himself.
God decided to reach down his all-powerful pointer finger from the sky and say “I now dub these grapes as the most expensive grapes in the world, and they shall be called champagne grapes, and in a few thousand years the French people who shall inherit them –because the French are the most blessed and capable alcoholics of my creation--will charge $1,500,000 for a square hectare of land where these grapes grow and this will make Me, God, very happy. And yay, these grapes will rot in bottles for up to 50 years, and will make young married couples and rich people on their yachts very drunk and I will personally charge each person at least $50 a bottle to share in the joy of this, the most blessed of divine alcoholic nectar. And there will be much rejoicing. And I will be pleased. Amen to Me.”
And thus, the Champagne (shamp-on: champagne) region was born. And God saw that it was good.
God decided to reach down his all-powerful pointer finger from the sky and say “I now dub these grapes as the most expensive grapes in the world, and they shall be called champagne grapes, and in a few thousand years the French people who shall inherit them –because the French are the most blessed and capable alcoholics of my creation--will charge $1,500,000 for a square hectare of land where these grapes grow and this will make Me, God, very happy. And yay, these grapes will rot in bottles for up to 50 years, and will make young married couples and rich people on their yachts very drunk and I will personally charge each person at least $50 a bottle to share in the joy of this, the most blessed of divine alcoholic nectar. And there will be much rejoicing. And I will be pleased. Amen to Me.”
And thus, the Champagne (shamp-on: champagne) region was born. And God saw that it was good.
Yes, this really happened. Just look it up. It's in there, right above the chapter about Lady Gaga.
The French take champagne very seriously, and even copyrighted the term “Champagne” so that only sparkling vin (von: wine) of this region can be called “champagne”-- all other sparkling wines of every other less magical place on Earth must be referred to as “using the champagne method”. Champagne cellar tours start with very high budget promotionalpropaganda about how magical and divinely-inspired the fermentation of their grapes are, with Moët & Chandon (the creators of Dom Perignon) one-upping everyone else by having Scarlett Johannson herself narrate their five minute clip in her best smoky, post-coital seductive rendition of “drink me” possible.
The tours of the cellars take you 12 meters below ground into cold, dark, mold-invested cellars (but "expensive mold" the tour guide ensured us, "the mold they make Roquefort cheese with!"), where the labor and time-intensive details of champagne fabrication (re: rotting grapes in bottles) are explained—how the bottles have to be turned and held at varying 20 degree angles every day for three weeks. Ensuite (on-sweet: then) depending on the quality, these bottles must be stored between 3 and 20 years before they're ready to be labeled and sold. All in all an educational experience, especially when it came time for the tasting, my favorite part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMiCGOZVkgQ
Posts
"the night they invented champagne, it's plain as it can, they thought of you and me!" lucky you! i so look forward to your blogs every week! i feel like i've gotten to know france bit by bit through you-- thank you. i guess i'll be getting to know san francisco bit by bit soon-- looking forward to it! love you,
ReplyDeletemom