Drinking at the Hampton Classic Horse Show: from beer in the tack room to Champagne in the Grand Prix tent, with a little rosé along the way.
Classic Drinking
Spending all week at the Hampton Classic and its satellite social events gave me a good opportunity to see what people are currently drinking in such venues. The variety was striking, limited at the Classic itself only by the size of the wine list, since alcohol cannot be brought in from outside. It went literally from beer to champagne. A good thing too, since there were decidedly moments for both.
On a hot afternoon, after walking around the barn tents, looking at the horses in their stalls or outside being groomed, I sat in a tack room chatting with a few riders and trainers and enjoyed sipping a cold, snappy beer. There were also moments when only a refreshing bottle of water would do. Fiji is the official water at the show, and with its very pure clean taste, really seemed to hit the spot.
Wolffer Estate is the wine generally poured at the show. Their rosé has become one of the standard drinks of summer in the Hamptons, both at home and at parties, and I observed it being consumed at many tables under the tents. Their La Ferme Martin chardonnay and merlot also seemed to be popular, but in my admittedly unscientific survey, the rosé had taken the lead.
Champagne is the drink I most associate with the Classic—and Champagne Louis Roederer—the official champagne of the show—is the one we drink. Even though I think all the major French champagne companies produce excellent products, Champagne Louis Roederer, because of its long association with the Classic, has become my personal favorite. Each time I taste it, at the show or on other occasions during the year, the thrill of familiarity blends with the cool, dry, bubbly taste, to produce a lovely sensation in the mouth and a sense of well being in the mind. In the winter, it evokes memories of previous summers, and in the summer it helps create memorable times.
While this week’s column is by no means a serious review of any wine, I tried, to the extent you are able at a big sports event and social gathering, to record the sensations of sipping a top quality nonvintage champagne. The fresh, sparkling taste and refined fruit notes seem have a buoyant effect. The sensation is light and clear, and your spirits seem to rise with the bubbles. I don’t know if this if why champagne is considered the ultimate celebratory drink, but it makes some sense to me.
Prices for Roederer champagnes vary from about $33 for a nonvintage brut (at Sherry Lehmann in New York) to many hundreds of dollars for certain bottles of vintage Cristal, their prestige cuvée.
Roederer Estate, the California arm of the renown champagne house, produces several excellent labels. L’Ermitage 1997, which sells for around $35, has been cited by Wine Spectator as the best California sparkling wine. Roederer Estate Brut, a good everyday sparkler, sells for $16.
