My guest this week is Susan Keevil, LIVE from the UK with her new book On Champagne: A tapestry of tales to celebrate the greatest sparkling wine of all. This great book is from the Academie du Vin Library, (https://academieduvinlibrary.com) a great source for exceptional wine writing!
In On Champagne the thoughts, opinions and conclusions of the world’s finest champagne writers gather to reveal this wine’s action-packed trajectory from the myth of its accidental discovery – not in France, we find, but in the cider cellars of England – to the development of a high-tech champagne fit for space travel. It’s a journey that starts and ends with capturing that sparkle in a bottle and along the way beguiles us with the nuances of its chalky terrain, the determination of rebels from Ambonnay to Avize, and the mystery of a champagne cellar under the sea. We meet the pioneers who created the great champagnes of the past and the personalities who are ‘greening’ this landscape, nurturing it through climate change to shape the exquisite champagnes of the future.
- Get set, go! The revolutionary growers who stood up to the grandes marques and won!
- A Menace to Society… the hazards of serving this most explosive of drinks
- With or without bubbles? Champagne physicist Gérard Liger-Belair explains how bubbles make this wine better
- Flutes or Coupes? Magnums or Jeroboams? The perfect glass and the best bottle size revealed
- Champagne and the future: which vintages and styles will we drink next?
- Homage to the Widow: we meet the women (past and present) who transform champagne
- Includes: Moët & Chandon, Krug, Bollinger’s ‘Vieilles Vignes Françaises’, Pol Roger, Dom Pérignon, Domaine Ruinart, Roederer, Veuve Clicquot and more…
- Contributions from top champagne writers: Tom Stevenson, Essi Avellan MW, Hugh Johnson, Serena Sutcliffe MW, Peter Liem, Tyson Stelzer and Robert Walters – with the ‘modern era’ welcomed in by Evelyn Waugh
Champagne is never a simple glass of fizz… As soon as the cork flies, the first sip reveals a wine of fascinating complexity. For even the most modest non-vintage cuvée, a bevy of blending decisions, multi layers of history and the incalculable climate of this northern corner of France all come into play.
Susan Keevil started her life in wine as a ‘cellar rat’ cooling Chardonnays in Australia’s Hunter Valley, none of which prepared her for the world of book publishing back in the UK where she honed her wine knowledge working with Hugh Johnson on six editions of his international best-seller, the Pocket Wine Book. Susan then landed her dream job as editor of Decanter magazine (the path to many worldwide wine adventures) and later became author of the Which? Guide to Wine as well as a regular magazine columnist and contributor. The launch of the Académie du Vin Library in 2019 saw a return to specialist wine books for which Susan is a writer and editor-in-chief.
Wine of the Week: NV Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut
Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut epitomizes the heritage of Maison Perrier-Jouët. Perpetuating the House’s tradition of brut champagnes, it is a vibrant, stylish cuvée in which the elegance of Chardonnay (20%) is perfectly complemented by Champagne’s two red grape varieties, Pinot Noir (40%) and Meunier (40%). Though crisp and light, it combines freshness with a lingeringly rich, generous finish, preserving its distinctive balance and harmony to the very end.
The Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut is delicate, elegant, and balanced. The striking freshness and vivacity of the floral and fruity fragrances (yellow fruits and fresh fruits) take root, before giving way to subtle notes of vanilla and butter, lending the wine a fruity and consistent character.
The notes of cherry plum, lemon, and bergamot orange emerge first, then make way for the flowers of fruit trees, such as lime and honeysuckle. These are followed by notes of butter, madeleine cakes, and vanilla sugar. Lingering notes of grapefruit, white peaches, green pears, apple trees, and green hazelnuts round off the taste. ABV12%