Chefs & Champagne: the empyrean delights of sipping and nibbling in a foodie wonderland.
The Other Heidsieck
It wasn’t as if you had to drink champagne. Though the benefit is called “Chefs and Champagne” you didn’t have to take an oath not to drink anything else. I could easily have sipped the delectable, fizzy Charles Heidsieck all evening, especially since champagne suits the lighter dishes of summer so well. But there was so much to try. The food being dished out by thirty or so of the best chefs in the country covered so many bases, so many tastes, that I sometimes needed a slight change in my glass. This being the Hamptons, even such minor indulgences were provided for. Since the event, a benefit for the James Beard Foundation, took place at Wolffer Estate, we conveniently had a selection of their wines ready to pour.
Charles Heidsieck has an interesting company history. One of several champagne houses bearing the Heidsieck name, it is an entirely different company from the larger, more famous Piper-Heidsieck, although both are now under the Remy Cointreau umbrella of luxury brands. The Charles Heidsieck brand experienced a revival in the 1980s when in a departure from conventional methods, much of the production was held back for use in later blending. The late Daniel Thibault, a very skilled winemaker, then had a choice of eight or more vintages to choose from, as opposed to just a few. This resulted in more sophisticated blends and impressive quality non vintage (or really multi-vintage) Brut Reserve releases. The winery has continued this policy.
In another departure in 1997, Mr. Thibault created Brut Reserve Mis en Caves. For the first time the consumer was told the exact composition of non vintage champagne, so we can see the percentages of reserve wine and of the base vintage, as well as dates telling us how long the wine was aged. If you pay attention to vintage years, you can find bottles with high proportions of an important year for less money than a conventional vintage bottle. But even if you are not following vintages—something I usually leave to more technically minded people—you can depend on Charles Heidsieck for some of the best buys in authentic champagne.
The Charles Heidsieck in my glass was fairly full bodied, awash with flavor, totally harmonious, and matched well with the foods I sampled. A scallop cerviche prepared by Bill Yosses of Josephs Citarella restaurant in New York absolutely called out for champagne. The intense flavors of grilled shrimp with avocado mousse and tomato relish, prepared by Michael Rozzi of Della Femina, could have overwhelmed some flimsier white wines, but the Heidsieck only enhanced it. Even a couple of treats from Devi, the New York restaurant that takes Indian cuisine to new levels, worked well with the champagne, bringing out the underlying spice notes, and creating lovely contrasting tastes.
Most of the dishes in the sampling involved fish or shellfish, but I purposely steered myself to some meat selections so I could match them with the Wolffer 2001 Premier Cru merlot, winemaker Roman Roth’s extraordinary achievement.
It turned out to be one of the biggest favors I’ve done for myself in weeks. It’s a superb wine, a clear indication that Long Island is capable of playing in the big leagues of wine production. Deep, concentrated, and layered, this is an opulent wine in a classic European style. It sells for hefty $125, but it delivers an intense wine experience that you just don’t find very often.
