Archive for the ‘Looking Back’ Category

The Name of the Rose

15 of Mar 2010, filed under Looking Back

After the series of Silk Road dinners in Japan, Italy, the United States and the United Kingdom in the last couple of months, one dish generated significant enthusiasm among our guests: the rose Turkish delight (loukhoum) ice cream, created by Pascal Tingaud. There is a story behind this delicacy.

I first collaborated with perfumer (and wine lover) Thierry Wasser in 2003 at the occasion of an atelier held in Japan with Georg Riedel on the theme of the Dom Pérignon nose. The correspondences between our two universes — we are both devoted to the art of assemblage — strengthened our friendship in the following years. This paved the way for a closer relationship between Dom Pérignon and the prestigious perfume house Guerlain (the oldest in France) when Thierry became the successor to Jean-Paul Guerlain in 2008. As Thierry was preparing the launch of his latest creation, Idylle, in the spring of 2009, we discovered troubling similarities between the Bulgarian roses featured by the perfume and the bouquet of 1996 Dom Pérignon Rosé. We asked Pascal to design a recipe to complement both 1996 Dom Pérignon Rosé and Idylle, at the launches in Tokyo and Hong Kong. He came up with the idea of this ice cream, selecting a specific, high quality variety of loukhoum, sourced directly from Istambul: smaller and harder than usual, it provides a singular texture and unctuousness to the dessert. The sensuous pairing with Dom Pérignon Rosé turned out to be so spectacular that we decided to include it in our Silk Road dinners.

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Back to the Fifties

20 of Feb 2010, filed under Looking Back

“Champagne Jayne” was recently mentioning in a comment a trilogy of outstanding vintages: 1953, 1955 and 1959. I have the opportunity (or rather, the privilege!) to taste all the Dom Pérignon vintages regularly, which allows me to follow their evolution for the OEnothèque programme. I decided to browse through my notes to offer you these impressions.

1953 Dom Pérignon
(tasted in 2009, no dosage)

1953 was a generous vintage, very expressive right at release (about as totally opposed to 1952 as possible). Rich and full, mellow and luscious, this wine reveals notes of butter, honey and dried apricot. As the wine breathes the toasted character stands out to evolve in the end towards iodine and oyster shells.

1955 Dom Pérignon
(tasted in 2009, no dosage)

1955 was the archetype of the classical vintage that defines harmony in Champagne—maybe the greatest of the decade. Very energetic and racy, remarkably thorough, this wine is at the same time intense and profound. These qualities express the typical, intriguing paradox of youth versus maturity, combining to create a feeling of completeness. Right in the center, the fruit (sultana) is still very vibrant, with notes of vanilla, smoke and praline (sugar-coated almond).

1959 Dom Pérignon OEnothèque
(tasted in 2010, disgorged in 1999, one of the five vintages selected in 2000 for the launch of Dom Pérignon OEnothèque with 1964, 1973, 1980 and 1985)

1959 was an atypical vintage with exceptional ripeness (comparable to 1893 or 1947). I feel this wine managed to accomodate the excesses of the vintage, sublimating it with a very personal interpretation. This wine displays restrained power and opulence, avoiding the pitfalls of oxydation or inordinate heaviness. Remarkably persistent and complex, it exhibits a captivating bouquet of earthy notes: black and white truffle, peat and chocolate with hints of dried fig and even red fruit (!)

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Nostalgia

04 of Feb 2010, filed under Looking Back

Kyoto is a very special place and I am always struck by how vibrant this city feels. It offers unparalleled opportunities for empathy and emotion to one who comes with an open and available state of mind.

This story starts in 1996 when I first met Chef Murata (of restaurant Kikunoi). One year later, we decided to organise a series of dinners in the heart of Champagne (at Château Saran), around the theme of Kaiseki—the traditional culinary art form originating in Kyoto. Kaiseki considers the meal in its globality: covering all the fundamentals of Japanese cuisine, strongly committing to the season, carefully balancing all the elements (taste, texture, colors…) and stimulating all of our senses. When trying to pair Kaiseki cuisine with Dom Pérignon, it was important for me to leave behind my westerner bias for the perfect food-wine pairing. Our ambition then was very different: the same wine would be served over the whole dinner, with the aim to reach unity, not on a dish by dish basis, but for the entirety of the event. The integrity and purity of the meal were paramount values to be respected, which meant the wine had to find its supportive role. Dom Pérignon was a vector underlying the whole meal, concluding with rice and green tea (ocha).

Even years later it is still complex for me to assess the extraordinary influence that these dinners had on my vision of Dom Pérignon. Their inspiration ranges from the specific (e.g. a better understanding of the tactile properties of Dom Pérignon) to the generic and fundamental (my personal quest for harmony and aesthetic). They imbued subsequent events with a sense of the theatrical. Even more importantly, it offered me a privileged contact with Japan, a memory of intimacy and complicity that I cherish to this day. I was delighted to visit Kyoto again recently to discuss a future creative project…


With Chef Murata in cellar, Hautvillers.

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