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Showing posts with label wine labels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine labels. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Last Friday afternoon I got to attend a special event...
It only comes round once a year - the Grand Crus de Bordeaux tasting - time for the new 2007 vintage.
I admit I made a bee line to the back wall to my favorite, the Sauternes - they have a tendency to run out quickly from past experience...
First look at the wine's color in the glass before tasting - it should be a golden yellow that will become progressively darker as it ages...
Then the all important "nosing" of the wine to enhale it's aromas - dried pineapple, apricot, caramel, vanilla, honey, peach - miam
Then the sip and swill it around inside your mouth so it hits all areas...
Ah...very important. Take down thoughtful notes in the little book provided.
Then you spit into the sipttoons, so you can go on tasting unfettered, but I have a hard time spitting Sauternes...
After each taste/ slug of wine you rinse your glass with water and cleanse your palete with a plain cracker and a bite of fromage. This taster is well armed.
You are given one glass to taste all the wines as you enter - always an Austrian Riedel glass, only the best at the Bordeaux tastings.
The Marriott ballroom was jammed packed with serious trade wine tasters dashing about to get their slug of Bordeaux best wines served up by the chateau owners - a rare treat.
After 2 hours all that's left are the empties. I was ready to say, au revoir till next year's Grand Crus tasting.
Which brings me to a book I'm waiting for, by cutting edge winewriter Michael Steinberger, Au Revoir To All That. Have you heard? Steinberger thinks French food has gone downhill in the past 25 years. French cuisine is in a rut, ruined by the invasion of le fast food (France is McDo's second biggest market), stringently high VAT charges, strict labor laws, the stifling dominance of the Michelin guides etc.
I passed Chateau Beaumont's table at the tasting, and remembered my stay at there toute seule for a few very hot July days while on a painting jaunt. I wasn't really alone - thousands of Bordelaise buzzing bugs kept me company at night - no AC or screens in a medieval turret. I was happy to bid au revoir Ch. Beaumont a few days early.
I spent last weekend recovering from too many sips of Sauternes...
Which brings me to a book I'm waiting for, by cutting edge winewriter Michael Steinberger, Au Revoir To All That. Have you heard? Steinberger thinks French food has gone downhill in the past 25 years. French cuisine is in a rut, ruined by the invasion of le fast food (France is McDo's second biggest market), stringently high VAT charges, strict labor laws, the stifling dominance of the Michelin guides etc."The result is a sharp and funny book that will give Francophiles everywhere an entirely new perspective—political, economic, personal, and cultural—on the crisis in the country and food they love."
You can catch Michael Steinberger's wine columns at Slate.
You can catch Michael Steinberger's wine columns at Slate.
I passed Chateau Beaumont's table at the tasting, and remembered my stay at there toute seule for a few very hot July days while on a painting jaunt. I wasn't really alone - thousands of Bordelaise buzzing bugs kept me company at night - no AC or screens in a medieval turret. I was happy to bid au revoir Ch. Beaumont a few days early. I spent last weekend recovering from too many sips of Sauternes...BONJOUR BORDEAUX!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Today is the first day of school.Kids will be learning handwritting.
I ignored that early training to my own detriment.
I was too busy drawing pictures on the paper to pay attention.
Now I can't read my own handwriting nor can anyone else.
I fell back in love with handwriting when I discovered French wine labels.
British Copperplate calligraphy or what the French call "Anglais"is used everywhere and has such a classy look to it.
5 years ago I took myself off to calligraphy classes with Elinor Holland.
It's not too late to run and sign up if you have a few free Sundays!
You practice and practice like scales on the piano, the same letters over and over.
It's a lot like meditation, but your hand is moving constantly. And you're making these lovely swoops and swirls.
It's a lot like drawing...
You also have a good excuse to buy lovely bits of pen paraphrenalia!Last trip I fell victim to the Marie Antoinette inkpot here
and I don't even practice anymore...
I wish all the new kids on their first day in school the best of luck.I hope they pay better attention than I did in handwriting class...
"If only Carol would just pay attention"
Bet you never heard that one?
The French still love fancy handwriting
And so do I.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Yesterday K & S said...you've had the coolest jobs! You ain't seen nothin' Sweetie Darling :)
Paul Bocuse, Champagne Mumm's spokes person, suggested I do some artwork for them and made introductions.
They gave me a test assignment: Come up with a big group drawing of tons of celebrities drinking Mumm that they could gift to all their employees.
Can you spot Kate Moss? And there's one of the Seagrams brothers embracing the big bottle. Please note everyone is holding their glass by the STEM. Never hold a champagne glass by the "bowl". You must not warm up the bubbles.
That group drawing led to a portrait promotion program. They thought I should paint the portraits directly onto the Mumm bottles?I foresaw a sea of Mumm jeroboams in my living room. The last minute I dreamed up the idea to print their label design on my watercolor paper and I ended up with just stacks of nice neatly printed Champagne labels.
One of the perks of this career was I got to stay at the Mumm mansion in Reims... 
The countryside in Champagne is magnificent and there's a new fast trainfrom Paris that gets you there in an hour. Don't miss it!
I got to stay a week in Verzy at Veuve Clicquot's country estate.
It was just me and a refrigerator full of jeroboams.
They said, "Help yourself" Right! :)
Someone did pop in to deliver petit dejeuner in the morning and the rest of the time I communed with the grapevines. They still use straw baskets to pick the grapes in Champagne.
There's a lot of partying in the Champagne Biz. These pourers are dressed up as old fashioned "cellar men". They used to turn the resting bottles.
They're fun to sketch...
This is not me embracing the big bottle, that's my French boss at Mumm...
This is me partying at the Chelsea Arts Club Belle Epoche Ball held at London's Albert Hall... Well there is a Champagne bottle in the picture. We had to come as characters from Degas and Lautrec paintings. I chose a Degas dancer. I remember Roger Terry, the club concierge, telling me,
"If you add one more satin bow to that outfit, you'll look like a dog's dinner."
Don't you just love the Brits!
I got to stay a week in Verzy at Veuve Clicquot's country estate.It was just me and a refrigerator full of jeroboams.
They said, "Help yourself" Right! :)
Someone did pop in to deliver petit dejeuner in the morning and the rest of the time I communed with the grapevines. They still use straw baskets to pick the grapes in Champagne.
There's a lot of partying in the Champagne Biz. These pourers are dressed up as old fashioned "cellar men". They used to turn the resting bottles.They're fun to sketch...
This is not me embracing the big bottle, that's my French boss at Mumm...This is me partying at the Chelsea Arts Club Belle Epoche Ball held at London's Albert Hall... Well there is a Champagne bottle in the picture. We had to come as characters from Degas and Lautrec paintings. I chose a Degas dancer. I remember Roger Terry, the club concierge, telling me,"If you add one more satin bow to that outfit, you'll look like a dog's dinner."
Don't you just love the Brits!
Pass the Bolly Sweetie Darling!
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