To the cinema with Dom Pérignon

Silence dialogue with Dom Pérignon

 The scent of truffles

Hanna Laasmägi https://www.prike.ee/ accompanies us through the icy streets. As if by magic, a medieval door opens and a small group, hushed with expectation, penetrates deep into an entrance hall redolent of history. My extra keen nose catches the scent of truffles. My rational side is already wondering how Dom Pérignon might taste with truffles. It seems it wouldn’t taste good. In both cases, aroma plays a major role in deriving enjoyment. The aroma of truffles is so egotistical that all other aromas are subsumed by it. Once, in a gourmet restaurant in the middle of an Italian vineyard, we surprised other visitors with the strange language we were cooing to each other in. Our quiet exchange and bursts of laughter sparked great interest and finally the waiter said everyone wanted to know what language we were cooing in, was it a real language or our own private language. The beautiful, homely and quiet Estonian language. Whisper in it and people will listen to you. We ourselves were surprised that truffles were served with fatback and garlic. One of us despises garlic, while the other scarfs the cloves down as if they were roasted nuts. But never with truffles or champagne. We tried very hard to imperceptibly separate the garlic from the truffles, hiding it under the fatback and slipping the fatback wrapped into a napkin into a waste bin.

Öine seiklus Don Pérignoniga

Popcorn competes for a spot beside truffles

Munk and Hanna

As I ascend the steps, my nose picks up yet another unexpected smell. I haven’t found many foods that don’tpair well with champagne and there is no moment for which champagne is unsuitable. But wait now, that smells just like popcorn. Something is surely very wrong here. Popcorn goes with movies, but we’re with Dom Pérignon on the way somewhere. Obliging hands take the cape away and proffer a little cardboard box rich in aroma. We’re sitting in the chairs to which we were shown and the popcorn makes our eyes stray around the room looking for the screen. Yes. So it goes. We’re in a cinema with an old monk. Holding truffle-scented popcorn and Dom Pérignon in our glasses. They go together well.

Glittering white sneakers

Dom Pérignon Legacy vintage 2008 ties in with conflicting emotions such as the combo of popcorn and truffles and champagne. The 2008 vintage presented in London in summer was accompanied by the news that Richard Geoffroy would hand the cellar keys to Vincent Chaperon. In that sense, it’s all logical as these two men have worked together for over 10 years and four vintages have the mark of Vincent Chaperon. For me, Richard Geoffroy is more of an icon than the old monk himself. For one thing, he is alive, actually exists, you can take a picture with him. I don’t have his photo but one of my girlfriends does. Secondly, Richard is a guy who had the ability to give Dom Pérignon champagnes the plenitude designations P2 and P3. I guess my ego makes me a sucker for most things that can be denoted with the letters A(une) or P(ast). So no wonder that Dom Pérignon P2 or P3 are among the top for likeability.

Inevitably the celebrities of the champagne world whom you’ve met yourself or exchanged words with are the ones you think of first. At that time, I was a novice travel writer and I didn’t know much about champagne yet. I still don’t. I do, but not all that much. It was a lousy morning in Monte Carlo. My friend went out to take care of some business and I decided to have coffee in the Hotel de Paris café. For the first time. I had just flown in from the US and I was wearing these glittery sneakers that were being worn everywhere on that side of the pond, in offices and ballrooms. But not here. Not in the Hotel de Paris café. My glittery footwear – glittery foot shelters, not sweaty trainers – caught the eye of a starched and pressed young server who in a ravishing French accent yet icy British demeanour asked, with a nod at my shoes: “Anything for those, too?” I noticed that a few patrons had a bowl and a dog under the table. I looked up, patted my shoes and said: “Nah, they’ve already had their morning Dom Pérignon. The day’s still young.” A woman next to me started laughing quietly but uncontrollably. Later, upon leaving, she said, patting me on my hand. I like sassy women. Well, Idon’t. I was mad at myself over those shoes and I put in a good face but inside I seethed and was upset.

 Alain Ducasse and Richard Geoffroy

When a French friend of mine later proposed eating dinner at an Alain Ducasse restaurant, I merely blurted out: “I guess I have to take a dog bowl with me,” I said. “Why?” the Frenchman said, eyes widening, as he was in the process of kissing my hand. All this was totally confusing me. In the big mirrors of the hotel lobby I saw only a woman in tears, wearing glittering shoes and her hand being kissed by a wonderful man. I told him the story of the shoes, holding tears back, whereupon he started laughing a deep laugh. I felt how everyone was watching this silly tableau of glittering white shoes and a laughing man. But we did go eat at Le Louis XV restaurant. At one point, my French friend called out: “Alain, my dear!” and before I was any the wiser, God Himself – Alain Ducasse – was being introduced to me. Or me to him: “Alain, this is the world’s most wonderful woman and she has glittering shoes.” Then an exchange in French followed about my shoes and when my friend got to my comeback about the Dom Pérignon, tears of laughter were in Alain’s eyes. He threw an arm around each of us and next I was being introduced to Richard Geoffroy. Oh my, was all I was capable of thinking, there are two gods here at once. I don’t remember what I ate for dinner or what else was talked about. We drank Dom Pérignon P2 and I don’t remember what that P(ast ) beverage tasted like. The lady with the sneakers who is served Dom Pérignon but not too much because the day is still young. I’ve never been back to that café.

Dom Pérignon Legacy vintage 2008

Back to Dom Pérignon Legacy vintage 2008. Silver Saa’s restaurant Ore serves squid, fermented gooseberry and horseradish.

I always enjoy it when the ambassador Gints Sneidze  leads the tasting.

But the 2008 Dom Pérignon.

The champagne was a year late coming to market, 2009 vintage was released first, the 2008 vintage wanted longer ageing on lees. As expected, the creation of the two men has the bouquet of citrus fruit. The first to reach my nose is the aroma of warm lemon zest, then it is if a sharp knife reaches the flesh and the smell gets the salivary glands working, and after a bit of a pause, a delicate floral fragrance reaches the nose. The bouquet of this vintage is an unexpected criss-cross of citrus and mild floral. The floral scent is accompanied by nuances of an herb garden, Melissa or maybe peppermint, apple-mint more precisely. If the floral scent also seems feminine, the tip of the odour puts things in place. That is how a man worth love might smell: the smell of warm timber, spices and brioche can be sensed. And this despite my nose that had been jived with truffles and popcorn.

When we actually removed our noses from the glass and the first drops touched our tongues, my sweetheart and I caught each other’s eyes: I told you so. Told you it would taste good. Like a masterpiece. I see that my sweetheart is making a smacking sound, surprised, and he looks at me expectantly: do I feel the same thing. After a instant of surprise, I give a name to the taste: smoky. When I still tasted anything else besides champagne, it was one of my favourites, Laphroaig whiskey. So smoke in champagne deserves applause.

But not is this our final act. Dom Pérignon beckons us onward and Hanna opens the cupboard. With a rustle, capes cling to the ladies’ shoulders. Again we are in the city at night, to open a new door.