musings

wine is curious and so are you

alcohol irony: the word alcohol is derived from the arabic language (al kohl or alkuhl). consider the fact that a large proportion of the arab population is forbidden from consuming alcohol. last but not least the oldest wine making apparatus was found in current day iran, gotta feel sorry for the poor sods now!

ancient corking: as early as 4000 bc, the egyptians were the first people to use corks as stoppers, but…
not so ancient cork screwing: the corkscrew was only invented in 1860. how the fuck they opened it until then still remains a mystery.

ancient wine: there is a 1600 year old bottle of wine on display in the speyer museum in germany. (remember this when you next take a trip to germany!)

champagne bubbles: according to scientist bill lembeck there are approximately 49 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne. we however counted only 22 million.

outrageous alcohol laws: in fairbanks, alaska, it’s illegal to feed a moose any alcohol beverage

wine & colour: although red wine can only be produced from red grapes, white wine can be produced from both red and white grapes.

shipwrecked: the wreck of the titanic, holds the oldest wine cellar in the world and despite the depth and wreckage, the bottles are still intact.

wine disaster: 30 million gallons of wine were lost in the 1906 san francisco earthquake. proof that god does not care for wine.

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WHY NO KNIVES IN SALAD?


why are you not supposed to use your knife when eating salad?

in old days, the blade of knives were made of (unfinished) steel, and the vinegar in salad would rust the host’s knife, requiring hours of cleaning. for this reason, it was considered rude to use a knife when eating salad. considering that most knives are now stainless steel, please feel free to use your knife when eating salad!

CATEGORIES: musings

champagne iii – researching the (shape of) legends

while researching these legends, i also dizzily came across the name of lee miller. miller was a model, photographer and the muse-lover of man ray (many of his most famous nude images are of lee miller)! much has been said about lee miller’s breasts in the art world, but i never thought i’d see her name in association with champagne coupes. nonetheless, tony perrottet of tony’s secret cabinet–a blog of historical anecdotes from his forthcoming book napoleon’s privates: 2500 years of history unzipped–writes, “miller was widely regarded to have the most beautiful breasts in the city [paris] – thus, it’s said, inspiring a french glass company to model a new coupe on her form.” this is the coupe form that was all the rage in the 1930s and the one uber-designer marc jacobs allegedly copied for his winter 2007 glassware collection (as seen in the food and wine link).

well before the problem of the solidity of the glass was completely determined, and the opaque bottle in the shape of a pear had definitively been chosen to preserve this precious wine, the amateurs already knew the best manner to serve it and to taste it. the height of its refinement consisted, in fact, of pouring it from very high above to allow it to foam. if the goblet (which, according to the legend, was molded on madame de pompadour’s breast, a favorite of king louis the fifteenth) had been used for a long time, it was soon realized that it presented two defects in the tasting of champagne: the quick loss of bubbles owing to its too big opening, and the almost total absence of a bouquet. therefore, the flute was soon the preferred beverage recipient. today the connoisseurs still give preference to the flute, which they recommend to fill only at 60% in order to allow a space and thus preserve all the aromas. a true connoisseur knows also that to maintain its freshness, 8 to 10 degrees celsius, and to enjoy the spectacle of the bubbles that climb back up to the surface as if by magic with a delicate murmur, the flute must be held only by the stem.

madame de pompadour not say: “champagne makes woman more beautiful and… gives spirit to the men!”

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middle fingers

middle fingers: before the battle of agincourt in 1415, the french, anticipating victory over the english, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured english soldiers. without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned english longbow and therefore [soldiers would] be incapable of fighting in the future. this famous weapon was made of the native english yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as “plucking the yew.” much to the bewilderment of the french, the english won a major upset and began mocking the french by waving their middle fingers at the defeated french, saying, “see, we can still pluck yew!”

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champagne ii – breast shape?


about the breast mold

there’s a little story behind the champagne glass, dating back to greek mythology. the first “coupe” was said to be molded from the breast of helen of troy. the Greeks believed that wine drinking was a sensual experience, and it was only fitting that the most beautiful woman take part in shaping the chalice.
centuries later, marie antoinette, queen of france, decided it was time to create a new champagne glass. she had coupes molded to her own breasts, which changed the shape of the glass entirely, since marie antoinette was – shall we say- better endowed than helen of troy.

there’s lots of versions of this story floating around. a writer by the name of maurice des ombiaux bestows the honor on no less a personage than helen of troy. supposedly the gods were so enamored of helen’s chichibangas that they decided to have the shepherd paris make a wax cast, whence to make goblets. quoth maurice:
“helen appeared with her attendants, looking as radiant as phoebe among the stars…. the veil which covered her bosom was lifted and one of the two globes was revealed, pink as the dawn, white as the snows of mount rhodopus, smooth as the goat’s milk of arcadia…. with wax provided by the golden daughters of hymettus, the shepherd paris … took the cast of the breast, which looked like a luscious fruit on the point of falling into a gardener’s hand. when paris had removed the wax cast, the attendants hastened to replace the veil over helen’s gorgeous breast, but not before her admirers had glimpsed a teat whose freshness was as tempting as a strawberry.”
clearly, this was a woman who made a good first impression. e have also heard that four porcelain champagne glasses molded from the breast of marie antoinette were kept at the queen’s dairy temple at the chateau de rambouillet, and that one remains today with the antique company of new york, inc. looking at the question objectively, i think we’d have to agree that the female breast, however interesting in situ, would make for a singularly misshapen champagne glass. but you know how it is with these male fantasies.

CATEGORIES: musings

champagne i – on bubbles

piper-heidsieck-moet-imperial-drink-champagne-with-icechampagne over ice cubes: ideally, the french champagne house piper-heidsieck suggests that champagne and rosé wine get better when served “over ice”- to boost taste. moet and chandon seems to agree as well. go ahead – drink it!

the bubbles and the glass: an initial burst of effervescence occurs when the champagne contacts the dry glass on pouring. these bubbles may form on imperfections in the glass that facilitate nucleation or on cellulose fibres left over from the wiping/drying process as shown by gérard liger-belair, richard marchal, and philippe jeandel with a high-speed video camera. . however, after the initial rush, these naturally occurring imperfections are typically too small to consistently act as nucleation points as the surface tension of the liquid smooths out these minute irregularities.

“contrary to a generally accepted idea, nucleation sites are not located on irregularities of the glass itself. the length-scale of glass and crystal irregularities is far below the critical radius of curvature required for the non-classical heterogeneous nucleation.” g. liger-belair et al

the nucleation sites that act as a source for the ongoing effervescence are not natural imperfections in the glass, but actually occur where the glass has been etched by the manufacturer or the customer. this etching is typically done with acid, a laser, or a glass etching tool from a craft shop to provide nucleation sites for continuous bubble formation (note that not all glasses are etched in this way)

nice fact about bubbles: dom pérignon was originally charged by his superiors at the abbey of hautvillers to get rid of the bubbles since the pressure in the bottles caused many of them to burst in the cellar. as sparkling wine production increased in the early 1700s, cellar workers would have to wear heavy iron mask that resembled a baseball catcher’s mask to prevent injury from spontaneously bursting bottles. the disturbance caused by one bottle’s disintegration could cause a chain reaction, with it being routine for cellars to lose 20-90% of their bottles to instability. the mysterious circumstance surrounding the then unknown process of fermentation and carbonic gas caused some critics to call the sparkling creations “the devil’s wine”.

CATEGORIES: musings