FOREVER SIPPING BUBBLES
May 31st 2008
By Mrs Moneypenny
In 2002 I embarked on a love affair that has continued ever since. No, not with a man (or a woman!) but with a champagne. On a summer’s evening that year someone handed me a glass of champagne. As I drank it, I could taste why it cost so much. From that moment, I was hooked.
I only happened to drink that champagne because I was a contributor to FT Weekend, and so it was entirely appropriate that when I recently embarked on a 24-hour champagne tasting, I should have started at an FT Weekend party. This had all the hallmarks of class that you would expect of a publication such as this one (including an elegant and never-before used Christopher Wren interior, complete with a Henry Moore sculpture) and, of course, copious quantities of champagne. And not just any champagne – Bollinger’s recently released La Grande Année Rosée 1999, which is the same colour as the FT’s paper.
Notwithstanding my main champagne love affair, I am partial to the odd glass of pink. It is made by blending a little red wine with champagne and is totally unrelated to the glasses of pink bubbly that I am occasionally handed on game shoots, which are made up of sloe gin (a shooting staple) and champagne. This is apparently known as a “slogasm” but is to be avoided not only for its awful name but also because it is ruinous to my shooting. The Bollinger, by contrast, was very pleasant and entirely fitting for the occasion.
And so, when I continued my 24-hour tasting the following morning, at England’s first Test match against New Zealand, it had set a high standard.
Being in a box at Lord’s on a day when the first few hours of play are rained off is a networking opportunity par excellence, and champagne helps. I was being entertained in the Mound Stand, which is in a prime position to watch play, and also a prime position (as the Mound Stand curves – well designed, Sir Michael Hopkins) to see who is in all the other boxes. As the rain continued I was able to spot key people, go and knock on the door of the box, champagne (MCC’s Gardet) in hand, to show that I was a guest in another box – and say: “I see so and so is in here and just wanted to say ‘hello’.” If you were at the first day’s play and saw a random, slightly overweight middle-aged woman march into your box and embrace a man over 50, that was me.
Being married to an MCC playing member, I know that the MCC champagne sells for less per six-bottle case than a single bottle of my much-loved favourite, so in search of a slightly better drinking experience I moved on, during a break in the afternoon’s play, to the Grand Stand. This was designed by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, who clearly didn’t understand the need to network at cricket matches (it doesn’t curve at all). Thus, from the ECB box I could only peer into the two boxes immediately adjacent (BSkyB and the MCC box itself) to see if there was anyone I should be saying hello to.
The Deutsche Bank box was also nearby, but as I was not born with a giraffe-like neck I could not manage to lean out and see if Anshu Jain was sitting in it – an even more important fact to ascertain before storming it than if it merely served quality champagne.
The ECB has a relatively new chairman which might or might not account for the excellent quality both of guests and of champagne. On the guest front, I spent some time chatting to Bill Emmott, my favourite ex-editor of The Economist, who has just published Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade.
This is a better name for a book than slogasm is for a drink, but, even so, it could perhaps have been a little catchier, shall we say. Notwithstanding its name, the book is a good read and we discussed it while sipping Veuve Clicquot, a champagne that I have remained almost entirely faithful to since drinking it as an undergraduate. Until, that is, I fell in love.
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Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2008
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