Champagne Friday: Champagne in All Sizes!

By: Gary Westby | K&L Champagne Buyer

One of the most frequent requests I get from customers here at K&L is for Champagne in non-standard sizes. This month in the newsletter, I wrote about the virtues of magnums, especially during the holidays when there are plenty of friends and family to share a glass with together. I thought it was time to do a feature on bottle sizes, and have a good presentation for you today, including all the crazy names and (much more importantly) the rules regarding whether they are fermented in the bottle or not.

Additionally, I have made a chart for you here on the various sizes:

Name	Capacity	Equivalent (in bottles)	Notes
Split	187ml	1/4 bottle	Can be decanted
Half-Bottle	375ml	1/2 bottle	Must be bottle fermented
Bottle	750ml	1	Must be bottle fermented
Magnum	1.5 l	2	Must be bottle fermented
Jeroboam	3 l	4	Must be bottle fermented
Rehoboam	4.5 l	6	Can be decanted
Methuselah	6 l	8	Can be decanted
Salmanazar	9 l	12	Can be decanted
Balthazar	12 l	16	Can be decanted
Nebuchadnezzar	15 l	20	Can be decanted

Here is a smattering of bottles we have in-stock in the various sizes:

 Pommery "Pop" Rosé Champagne (187ml) at $12.99 makes a great stocking stuffer!In split, we have the Pommery "Pop" Rosé Champagne (187ml) at $12.99. This was designed to be drunk from a straw in nightclubs, and is all the rage with Parisian models. I have been trying to get more of them to shop here, but so far I have been happy that our regular customers have been buying them.

Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Brut Champagne is available in 750ml, 1.5 L (Magnum), 6L (Methuselah), and 9L (Salmanazar)! In half bottles, the Fleury Brut Rosé Champagne (375ml) $27.99 is just the right size for a glass each before dinner. It is composed of 100% pinot noir, is made by maceration, with all of the skins in contact with all of the juice. Most rosés made in this style are very big, but this one is the exception; it is very elegant.

For a regular bottle, it is hard to beat the great value of the Ariston Aspasie "Carte Blanche" Brut Champagne at $27.99. It is all estate fruit and aged for five years on the lees! If you have never had this, try it!

When it comes to magnums, I recommend them all. This is the way to drink Champagne and there is something truly magical about this particular size. I love the new 2007 Franck Bonville "Millesime" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne 1.5L at $84.99 for its fantastic Chablis like tension between richness and minerality. This could go with crab tonight, or be buried for decades in your cellar.

For Jeroboam, the Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne (3L) at $369 will make quite an impression at your next party. It is the benchmark big house rose for a reason and four bottles in one goes around more than once at a holiday party!

For bigger sizes, we have very few as we prefer just to deal with bottle fermented Champagne. Luckily, Pierre Paillard bottle ferments their big bottles and we have both methuselah (Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Brut Champagne 6L at $599) and salmanazar (Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Brut Champagne 9L at $899) available in very small quantities.

A toast to you!

-Gary

Champagne Friday: French 75

By: Gary Westby | K&L Champagne Buyer

Friday, September 12, 2012

French 75

With summer drawing to a close, the citrus zip and aged cognac depth of the French 75 cocktail has a lot of appeal. This drink, which legend says was named after a French canon that shot 75 millimeter shells, is a powerful one, and should be treated with respect.

Louis Roederer "Brut Premier" Champagne My wife Cinnamon is the real family mixoligist, and she prepared everything in the short demonstration video above. Unfortunately, I could not convince her to get in front of the camera and make the drink! We discovered this cocktail together at Coco 500 in San Francisco, where they make it with Louis Roederer "Brut Premier" Champagne. This cocktail is a great one to riff off of, and we have made many tasty variations on the theme at home. For a long time I was a partisan to making it with gin, while Cinnamon preferred Cognac.

Franck Bonville "Prestige" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne One thing that has remained constant is the Champagne- we always use the tail end of a bottle that has been sitting in the fridge door with a stopper in it. I find that Blanc de Blancs tend to balance the Cognac’s aged savor, and the Pinot Noir styles add depth to the gin variation. For the video piece, we used the Franck Bonville "Prestige" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne which worked perfectly with the new Ferrand 1840 Formula 90 proof Cognac. This Ferrand is a great ingredient, and works far better than much more expensive (and far more subtle) Cognacs. The 1840 Formula is made in the three star style from the 19^th century, and is a full 5% higher in alcohol than standard Cognac. It is also oilier and weightier with lots of flavor- it won’t get lost in a mixed drink.

 I hope you’ll try this out the next time you would like a stiff cocktail. It is a great one!

Ferrand 1840 Formula 90 proof CognacFrench 75

2 parts Ferrand 1840 Formula 90 proof Cognac

1 Part Fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 Part simple syrup

2 parts Champagne (Blanc de Blancs if you have one open)

Lots of fresh ice

Lemon rind for garnish

We use an ounce per part for ours- and that makes a pretty big aperitif.

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add the cognac, lemon juice and simple syrup. Shake thoroughly and pour into a rocks glass filled with more fresh ice. Top with Champagne, and stir if you like (I do!) finally garnishing with lemon rind.

A toast to you!

-Gary

 Check out more educational wine & spirits videos from the experts at K&L on YouTube!

Champagne Friday: Pairing Champagne and Fish

By: Gary Westby | K&L Champagne Buyer

Champagne Dinner at the Fish Market

Nothing is more fun for a Champagne fan than to create a whole menu to pair with our favorite bubbles. I have enjoyed dinners like this with many of you, sometimes even at your homes! Last week I dreamed up a salmon-themed menu at home to go with older Champagne for the K&L Champagne team of Scotty, Mari & Kyle. This week, I put together a paired dinner with my friend Henry Hiatt at the Palo Alto Fish Market and it was a great success. I hope that next week I can encourage all of you Champagne fans to do the same on a big or small scale, and share a picture or two with me.

There are a few guiding principles to pairing Champagne, but that being said, it is one of the best wines on the planet for its ease of pairing, and there are very few pitfalls when combining Champagne with food. This is in stark contrast to the two most popular categories of still wine at K&L: rich Cabernet (which only really goes with steak) and rich, oaky Chardonnay (which I am still looking for a pairing for- my old colleague used to joke that cigarettes were the pairing).

Bruno Michel Premier Cru Brut Blanc de Blancs ($39.99) Champagne was at the bottom of the ocean 300 million years ago, and the chalk soil that makes the wine so great is littered with shellfish fossils. This connection to the ocean makes Champagne a natural with seafood, and shellfish in particular. Shellfish has a tendency to make whatever wine that is paired with it taste sweeter than it is, so often Champagnes that might seem austere on their own really shine when paired with them. I love drinking extra bruts and very dry blanc de blancs with oysters, scallops & crab in particular. On Wednesday we did two pairings like this that you can see in the video segment: the Bruno Michel Premier Cru Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne ($39.99) with Kumamoto oyster’s from Humboldt and the Franck Bonville "Belles Voyes" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne ($67.99) with a crab and avocado salad. The Bruno Michel comes from a very cold site in Pierry, and although not an extra brut, it is still one of the driest blanc de blancs that we have. It went fantastically well with the oysters, cutting the richness and highlighting their saline, savory quality. The Belles Voyes richer side was brought out by the crab, and showed how much weight palate weight that wine hides over its long impression on the mouth.

2002 Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Brut Vintage Champagne ($59.99) Spicier foods show better with more open knit Champagne. I love to pair Pinot Noir based Champagne with dishes that pop with spice and tang. At the Fish Market we had saffron prawns in a tomato based sauce with the 2002 Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Brut Vintage Champagne ($59.99). This richer wine has time on its side at 10 years old, and really opened to show the black cherry chalk that only the village of Bouzy has to offer. A few of the staff commented on how much brighter this bottle shined than the one in the staff tasting… Nothing beats a great dish as a foil. We were then treated to a bottle of 1995 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses Brut Champagne from Keith, our Burgundy buyers cellar, which also had the Pinot punch for the savory sauce. What a treat!

For the main course, Dijon crusted tilapia, we went with an older Champagne from the cellar. Although tilapia itself is quite delicate, the panko and mustard crust offered up quite a bit of flavor. The 1996 Leclerc Briant "Cuvée Divine" Brut Champagne is a blend of half and half Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Pascal Leclerc’s entirely bio-dynamic vineyards that are now owned by Roederer. This wine showed a touch of the truffle and butter flavors that really seemed to baste and add richness to the dish. It was the favorite pairing of the night for a few of my colleagues.

2006 Michel Loriot "Pinot Meunier Vieilles Vignes" Brut Champagne ($49.99) One category of Champagne that we did not pair on this occasion is the Meunier based wines of the Western Valley of the Marne. I love the ripe pear fruit and often mushroom-like flavors of these wines with pates of all sorts, especially then now illegal in California Foie Gras. These Champagnes also go very well with savory tarts, caramelized onion and of course mushroom. The 2006 Michel Loriot "Pinot Meunier Vieilles Vignes" Brut Champagne ($49.99) is unbelievable with Parmigiano-Reggiano and trying that pairing with the Loriot family is only the second time that I have ever had a non-French cheese in France.

Another category that is often overlooked is sweeter styles of Champagne. These have fallen out of favor with most Champagne producers and because of that are very difficult to buy. Demi-Sec is often a clearing house for the worst of what producers make, so buy with care. The best of them, which are blended specially ahead of time to make good sweeter Champagne like the Michel Loriot "Marie-Leopold" Sec Champagne ($34.99) go very well with all manner of lighter desserts, especially strawberry shortcake!

I hope that I can inspire a few Champagne fans to play with some pairings. Like I said, please send me a picture or recipe if you find something that works!

A toast to you!

-Gary

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Check out more educational wine and spirits videos from Gary and the experts at K&L on YouTube!