Archive for the ‘Reaching Out’ Category

Todd French, who is running the Wine Berserkers forum, has offered me to be their very first wine guest. Wine Berserkers is currently considered to be one of the most prominent wine discussion boards on the internet. This event is a great opportunity for me to connect with Dom Pérignon fans from all over the world, but also to discuss with participants who might not be as familiar with Dom Pérignon. All questions are therefore welcome and I will do my best to answer as many as I can! For more information please visit the announcement thread on Wine Berserkers, where everything is explained in more detail. I hope to see you there!

Last time I was in Japan a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet the authors of Kami no Shizuku / Les Gouttes de Dieu (literally: The Drops of God). Better known under their pseudonym of Tadashi Agi, Mr & Ms Kibayashi (brother and sister) have an enthusiasm for wine that is simply fascinating. Our encounter, rahter solemn at first, soon turned into a lively conversation about their works, now famous the world over. I understand they are on a mission to introduce the Japanese public to a world of fine wine, while respecting the traditional aspects of Japanese culture—during our conversation they even compared the vintages of Dom Pérignon we were tasting with various kinds of kimono belts!

I was under the impression they wanted to learn more about Champagne—while it appears there have been few references to this region in their writings so far, I can only hope this will change… With their manga Yuko and Shin Kibayashi have succeeded in putting wine at the center of attention, and delivering arcane considerations about wine into the mainstream. They have been acclaimed by Decanter magazine and others as creating one of the most influential wine publications ever, distributed internationally with over 6 million copies sold. Bravo!

I’ve known Master Tseng for quite a few years. Mrs Yu Hui Tseng is a Master of Tea, following the Chinese tradition, and of the Gongfu tea ceremony (Gongfu Cha). She is also famous for being the first (and only) woman to become a Master of Tea. I had the opportunity to work with her on the Seven Sensualities series of dinners to accompany Dom Pérignon vintages 1998, 1999 and 2000—dinners which deserve their own entries, by the way. I am grateful to her for bringing me into her world: the world of teas and especially the highly sought-after pu ers. Master Tseng comes from Taiwan, which became during the 20th century the sanctuary for the age-old tradition of Chinese tea ceremony, but she regularly explores all the terroirs of mainland China. She was the first Master of Tea to settle in Europe, and more specifically in Paris, where she established her tea cellar and store (La Maison des trois Thés). She explained to me that she chose Paris because of the French culture of gastronomy and appreciation of delicacies—including fine wine! La Maison des trois Thés is also a tea library, offering very rare teas (e.g. from the 19th century, from single trees or extremely old trees, some of them more than a thousand years old) to connoisseurs, willing to pay a premium for this exclusivity.

Coming back to the Seven Sensualities dinner for the launch of 2000 Dom Pérignon, we selected three teas, all of them magnifiying different facets of the wine: the first one called Ba Da Chun (from the pu er sheng cha family), from the 2007 vintage, young and vibrant; the second one called Chen Yin, vintage 1992, from the Guang Dong province, a very rare tea, intense and complex; and finally another pu er sheng cha from the 1990 vintage, mature and tactile. Talking with Master Tseng, I have come to understand that there is so much in common between wine and tea, all the way from the terroir to the appreciation: indeed for the ancient Chinese, tea was a drink supposed to satisfy the senses as well as the soul. She follows tea from the plantation to the cultivation and harvest, followed by the selection, production (including sometimes fermentation!) and the aging process. She also pointed out that pu ers, much like wines, are categorized by vintage and region of production—and also sometimes counterfeit! The quality of storage is as crucial as for wine: strict control of temperature, humidity or air flow is necessary. Tea and wine have been consecrated by their respective culture; tradition is key, and Master Tseng and I embrace it as well as modernity. As China is increasingly opening its doors to a world of fine wine, I hope that the rest of the world will be eager to discover the amazing depth and quality of Chinese tea.