Sunday, August 30, 2015

BUBBLES ON THE BEAUFORT SCALE

Our  latest  dispatch from  Judi and Peter Burleigh comes from famous  Champagne, is lightly effervescent, with a cheeky over-bite and  over-indulgent notes. It  is also signed Peter  de  Liver Damage.
Burleighs  parked their  cruiser, right, De Ulunder , Dutch  for  Butterfly , fluttered off  to vineyards on an extensive study  tour  like  politicians . French sign seems to  indicate that "fluvial " tourists , not the effluvium  type ,  are  welcome  to  come  ashore .   
The French town of Bouzy locates itself on tourist maps by insisting it lies smack in the middle of Champagne between Reims, Epernay and Chalon. In reality this would require a catastrophic upheaval of hills and slopes, the re-arrangement of grape-growing classifications and the forced re-directing of roads. What does this tell you? It tells you that Bouzy, while able to use the title ‘Champagne’ for its wine because it is in the area defined as ‘Champagne’, smarts under an inferiority complex.
 
One of the biggest producers in Bouzy is Herbert-Beaufort, run by three brothers. Beaufort offers the Champagne tourist a tasting room made up to look like a wine cave cut into chalk. It feels like you are inside a cake looking out at the icing, which is plastered all over the walls and ceiling, with fake excavation marks and genuine recessed downlights. Incongruously there are several windows and doors in the wall of icing which lead to the outside world.
Disguised as Croatians , tasting  begins inside  iced  cupcake .
Monsieur Beaufort is packed with goodwill and he talks a lot. It’s a surprise he can breathe and talk at the same time. His grand-daughter, who fetches him as soon as we ask a difficult question like “If Champagne is made from Pinot Noir grapes, which are dark red, how come Champagne is not at least pink?” sits mesmerized by repetition as we receive the benefit of his knowledge. We want to know why Bouzy markets a rough Pinot Noir called ‘Bouzy Red’, unless it’s simply a product of the local sense of humour (apparently no pun is intended in the name of the village). Surely it can only weaken the reputation of Bouzy’s Champagne?
Monsieur  H-B
‘No, no,’ says the Monsieur. ‘It has been made for centuries. You try it.’ We do. No finesse can be found in its thin astringency and it's characteristic of his Champagnes too. ‘The Celts made it,’ he claims with a straight face. ‘Wine has been made in Bouzy since 8000 B.C.’ Skipping a few thousand years, he continues: ‘When the Romans came – we have found many relics – the water supplies were polluted. Their soldiers got sick. So they sterilised the water with local wine.’
 
I am prepared to believe this claim, but the Roman soldiers were more likely vulnerable to low-flying aircraft. Statistically, you’re more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider. He charges on: ‘This kept the soldiers’ bowels under control and the Roman Army outlasted the Gauls, who had to drink the unsound water.’ He doesn’t use the English word ‘squitters’ but we know what he means. ‘In bad seasons they also gave their horses and animals water mixed with wine…so Bouzy helped the Romans to victory. After that the Romans nearly always mixed their wine with water.’ He didn’t want to acknowledge that the water may have softened  the taste of  the wine.

DRUNKEN  STUDENTS,MARIE ANTOINETTE'S  BREAST  

 
As Monsieur Herbert’s fountain of questionable wine-associated knowledge continues to spout, I wonder if any of it has reached the internet. Later I find an anecdote about Dublin’s Trinity College, where any student has the right to demand a glass of wine during an exam. To qualify they must be wearing a sword. Under this arcane law, armed, stressed-out, sleep-deprived students can get their alcohol fixes during an exam. Herbert doesn’t claim this story, or any of the others I found on Google. 
 
Perhaps the most famous law that haunts the world of wine is a 1954 decree stating that no flying saucers may fly over, take off from, or land on the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This is designed to repel the fleets of grenache-loving Martians who have screaming kids in their saucer’s backseat and who need a calming taste of  the grape. It seems to work.
 
 
‘…ten thousand years ago,” says Monsieur Herbert, increasing his volume to stop our attention wandering, “a glacier filled the Manche (the English Channel). It prevented the wine trade between England and France. So England began to import wine from Portugal. It was rough and unpalatable so the English added Spirits to it - and liked it. So it was the English invented Port.”
 
There is no hint of a pause before he goes on at top speed: “Also in England, the King needed all the oak wood to build ships for Le Navy Royale which was fighting against Napoleon. The King forbade the use of timber to melt silica to make glass, so the English began to use coal, which burns at a higher temperature, for bottle-making. They brought in glass-blowers from Venice. This glass had a higher resistance to pressure and in this way the Champagne bottle was invented.” This may have been true. There is about 90 pounds per square inch of pressure in a bottle of Champagne - more than triple the pressure in a car tyre. 
 
Far more interesting, the classic Champagne coupe was adapted from a wax mould of the breast of Marie Antoinette and until 1850, all Champagne was sweet and contained up to 30 grams of sugar; today it’s between 8 and 11 grams.
  
But my reverie is disturbed by a change in the drone of Monsieur’s voice. Those of us who are not yet cross-eyed with ennui perk up when he appears to enter the last straight. “In the 1800’s Champagne became really popular in Germany and England. Local families in Bouzy and all over Champagne became rich overnight.” He sighs as if remembering something one of the earlier Beaufort generations had done wrong. “They made unwise decisions.” Presumably they invested in the Edsel, ‘sure things’ at Longchamps or several Brooklyn Bridges. He seems to shrink under the weight of insufficient riches and his eyes wander over the line-up of his wines on the counter. But it’s too late – we have tasted them and they reflect his style: a little sad, a little overblown and a little bitter. We wonder which of the Herbert Brothers he is, Henry, Hugues, or Ludovic.
Burleigh  suggests vats  are  eagerly  cleaned out by  tongue.
The French sell more than 300 million bottles of Champagne every year. The Beauforts have been in Bouzy since 1820 and now produce 140,000 bottles annually, or .00000033% of the national total. They operate independently from the great Houses like Moet, Perrier-Jouet, Mumm and the others. There are many like them, and all are passionately involved in the exacting work of making good champagne. Like the Beauforts they are friendly and welcoming, and their wine is not expensive bought at the cellar door. In any search for perfection, success is elusive.