A lovely blonde friend once made a list of champagnes for me, a list of champagnes that had meant something to her in her life, champagnes that had played parts in her adventures with various lovers. Champagne came to mind today because I was at brunch and had a couple of Mimosas made with fresh-squeezed satsuma juice.
If I had to list champagnes from my own life and past, I suppose they'd be:
- Veuve Clicquot
- Moët et Chandon
- Piper Hiedsieck
- Bollinger
- Taittinger
Nothing too out of the ordinary there, of course. My blonde friend added something called Daniel Le Brun, which seems to be a New Zealand local brand that she keeps on hand in Wellington as a champagne for "ordinary" drinking. I'll note that I never became enamored of either Cristal or Dom Perignon. Krug remains a mystery to me, as does Pol Roger, which I believe was Churchill's preferred brand.
Champagne for me was always associated with ritual. It was not so much the old, apocryphal quote (Buonaparte or Churchill, take your pick) about champagne--- "in victory we deserve it, in defeat we require it" ---as it was the idea that here was a drink that lent itself to ritual and symbolism. Absinthe does that, too, I suppose, but it lacks a certain clarity of meaning.
Champagne was and is something you open as part of the rituals of seduction. Champagne is what you kiss off a lovely young companion's lips--- or nipples. It's something for licking off bare hipbones. A drink for rooftop bars overlooking Manhattan or Shanghai or Paris. A drink for ritual nights, for birthdays and New Years Eve. A drink for celebrations, and for first nights together.
I've always believed that we need things like that. We need markers and symbols for things. Opening a bottle of Veuve for a young companion is a way of marking the transition from companion to lover, from balcony to bedroom. We need rituals for moving through the steps of relationship, we need symbols that establish what's happening between two people.
I believe in ritual; I've said that before. Ritual makes so much of life and love, of sex and romance easier. Begin the ritual and move through it. I keep comparing that to the Mass, or to a graduation ceremony, both things I know something about. And I do miss rituals, and it saddens me that we seem to be losing them.
There in my fridge tonight are two bottles of Piper. There's a bottle of Veuve and a bottle of Bollinger on my liquor shelf. The year is winding down, and what's left of it will pass through my birthday, through Christmas and New Years Eve. I do wish that I could open those bottles with someone elegant and clever, someone lovely and long-legged. Champagne calls for ritual, and I miss being abe to enact those rituals.
