We used to party.
You know what I mean: Par-DEE.
The kind of party where it's not a party until someone requires a trip to the emergency room. The kind of party where it's not a party until someone asks someone else if they're wearing a wire. The kind of party that involves sparklers and shotguns and tow ropes and pledges crying because they trusted us. The kind of party that eventually involves quantum teleportation and memory wipes.
What?
Oh, like you've never drunk jungle juice made from Everclear and Kool-Aid out of a 55-gallon drum by a bonfire on a sandbar in the middle of the Mississippi River on a star-peppered August night before. Like you've never chugged the mysterious contents of a Heinz vinegar bottle offered to you by the ghost of Jim Morrison in an alley behind the Viper Club on the Sunset Strip. Like you've never awakened in Mexico feeling like Gram Parsons and Johnny Thunders had camped out in your mouth overnight. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, child. I know my audience: Y'all used to party.
Now when you go to a party, you stand around in nice shoes holding stemware. You compliment your host and hostess on their tasteful taupe and ecru decor. If you're lucky, somewhere far off, a member of the Marsalis family is gingerly coaxing a vibraphone arrangement of "Christmas Time Is Here" out of the Sonos. You're probably business casual. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Oh gawd, your boss is probably there.
This is the way the world works. By the time you have the wherewithal to actually buy the Yngwie Malmsteen-esque Marshall stack of your dreams, you're more interested in noise-canceling headphones so you can enjoy NPR podcasts while you're riding your lawn mower.
Still, growing up has its advantages. As far as I'm concerned, people don't drink enough champagne. It is a magical drink. Hilaire Belloc recognized its health-giving properties. Anton Chekhov regretted on his deathbed that he hadn't drunk champagne for a long time. John Maynard Keynes had the same final thought. Gore Vidal told us no one should ever turn down the chance to go on TV, have sex or drink champagne. Or something like that.
Anyway, every time I sip the pinging stuff I know exactly what the cellarmaster of the Abbey of Hautvillers, a monk named Dom Perignon, meant when he called out to his brother monks that he was "drinking stars." (Actually not the greatest analogy given what we've learned about stars in the interval. Thank you, Stephen Hawking et. al, for ruining poetry.)
Now I have been writing this column long enough to know that there are some of you who sat up and said "aha!" a minute ago when I wrote "champagne" with a lowercase "c." But before you scribble or type your gotcha message demanding my resignation from the Drinkies Desk on account of me being ignorant of the proper terminologies, let me say this in my defense: Don't be that guy. Don't be Slimy Rob Lowe in Wayne's World sneering, "Actually all Champagne is French."
Don't get your education from Mike Myers movies, OK? ("Party time excellent.")
I use "champagne" as a synonym for "sparkling wine." I know French Champagne, like Italian Prosecco, is named for the region in which it is produced.
But if you follow this column you know I'm no stickler for observing arbitrary rules of nomenclature designed to protect illusory brand characteristics, so while I've really no reason to want to annoy the French (who take terminology so seriously that they used the leverage they gained in World War I to forbid the Germans from calling their sparkling wine "Champagne"), the truth is there are plenty of sparkling wines produced in the United States, Australia and Canada that are made according to the methode champenoise and can legally call themselves "champagne" (with a lowercase "c").
While there are tangible differences among Spanish Cava, Italian Prosecco and French Champagne (Italians insist Prosecco be consumed only in the spring, and it's more of a chill-it-and-kill-it item, while the best Champagnes improve with age), I'll admit that I'm hard pressed to tell the difference when it's in a glass. And I sure don't correct whoever's popping the cork on a bottle of Freixenet (around $12). I'm for more casual use of sparkling wine, which means buying more of the less expensive bottles and relaxing expectations. I expect my party bubbly to be cold, fizzy and lightly acidic.
Not that price is always a true indicator of quality. While I've had the big-boy stuff on occasion, the truth is I prefer moderately priced J Cuvee 20 (about $30) to Krug Grande Cuvee (about $175), a "real Champagne" that I have, out of habit, cited as my favorite in the past. Similarly, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Cupcake Prosecco you can find around the state for about $12 a bottle. It's not soda poppy -- the citrus is present but mannerly, and there's a hint of brioche in the finish.
I'm also a big fan of Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs (about $35) -- the California product that Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai raised in their 1972 "Toast to Peace" in Beijing. It's a complex, crisp and dry sip that more than holds its own against the French premium brands.
My latest fave is the charming and balanced Veuve Clicquot Rose ($72) I was served at a party the other night. It's a bit quieter and drier than you might expect, with an unmistakable strawberry nose that gives way to delicate fruit and almond flavors. It's a lot like regular yellow label Veuve Clicquot -- it's based on the same traditional blend of grapes (50 percent to 55 percent Pinot Noir, 15 percent to 20 percent Pinot Meunier, and 28 percent to 33 percent Chardonnay) as its paler brother.
It's interesting that we feel we need an excuse to drink sparkling wine -- perhaps because it's so delightful that we feel guilty consuming it absent some defined occasion. Which is odd, given that we don't feel the least bit guilty about cracking the bond on a single barrel bourbon on a slow Tuesday night. (Which, dadburnit, you're allowed to do, because it's your house and your money and your slow Tuesday night.)
It's OK, Chief; it's inevitable. Sooner or later we all move up a set of tees -- it's unseemly to be slugging from the tips when you no longer have the game for it. Time to relax and tell everyone what a big hitter you were in your youth. So smile at the hostess, sip your Prosecco and smile that enigmatic little smile, and you might find out that there are real pleasures available in lucid adult conversation, and that the pop-rocks tingle provided by your fizzy fluted drink induces a different quality of mind alteration than the congener-laden mash bill you used to present your poor brain.
Congratulations, you is sophisticated now.
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Style on 12/21/2014