An Occasion for Champagne

As you leave the city on an asphalt path into the hills of Ledyard you are flanked by the old hardwood forests of Connecticut. At night they are thick and deep, and as I ride my motorcycle to Shane's house, I'm reminded of Joseph Conrad's description of the jungle. I too am traveling up river, borne on a well worn Harley whose churning engine under the late summer sky is positively hypnotic.

I arrive and six or seven people are barbecuing. I begin drinking immediately. I start with Francois Cazin Cour-Cheverny, a wine made from the local grape Romartin. It drinks something like a Sauvingnon Blanc or a Chenin Blanc, which makes sense hailing as it does from the Loire Valley in France. The fruit and texture of the wine are reminiscent of Vouvray, with a clean and focused finish you would expect from Touraine Sauvignon Blanc. There is also, thankfully, that herbal, slightly vegetal note that I've come to call Loire Garrigue, a slight greenish flavor that is present in all good Loire wines and serves as a signature or thumbprint left on the wine by it's origin. It's the smell of broken vines as you push through the brambles looking for more blackberries.

Then a very pleasant suprise as Loree breaks out two bottles of H. Billiot Rose Champagne. This is my favorite Rose Champagne. After years of drinking Billecart-Salmon with it's fine and delicate flavors, it's high toned aromas and ethereal fruit, I've come to love Billiot in it's place. Where Billecart is a summer breeze at the shore, Billiot is an off shore wind filling the sail that is your tongue, pulling your entire palate out into the deep water.

Billiot is a very small estate producing only 3570 cases of wine from 5 hectare, all limestone Grand Cru. The wine is defined by it's ripe and muscular Pinot Noir. Billiot does not put it's wine through malolactic fermentation, nor do they use a dosage. Therefore the fruit, that Cote d'Or-esque fruit, sits on lightning acidity that delivers the red berry flavors with a fullness and volume, a precision and force that belies it's relatively light rose color. I nurse the wine with my nose, poking at it with my senses, turning it over in my mouth and in my mind.

We drank and ate, and started a bonfire for amusement, a fallen pine tree ample fuel for our fire. We lit unfiltered cigarettes and danced under a sky littered with stars, and waited for the cops to come.


Thanks to Larry St. Pierre who provided these Photos.
To visit Larry, who is a hell of a nice guy, go to www.stpierrephoto.com