For some people wine is a miracle. And perhaps it is. Wine and also spirits are in my opinion magical. As long as the quality is good. Who decides what’s a good wine or a nice spirit? I learnt on several occasions professionaly how to taste wines and I learnt how to recognize what is a good one or not. But I’m still learning every day something new about wines or spirits. The price of such a product is not always the standard. But it can give you a small indication of its quality. The longer a wine, champagne or spirit matures in a wine cellar on barrels or stays in a bottle with its yeast, the more expensive the product gets. Thats understandable. And at the famous chateaux they can use new oak barrels, other special bottles or design fancy labels. And the price goes up! But I do not say that more expensive wines are only good. With spirits the price often says something about the age of the product. And with age comes smoothness and a nicer quality. I do not pretend to be a ‘wine Guru’. I only guide and advise people.
In February 2025 ‘Wine Paris’ (the wine and spirit fair) opened it’s doors again. This year it was much bigger. And perhaps for some people to big. But I enjoyed it.
The fair officially starts when the president of ‘Wine Paris’ and (this edition) the three Secretaries of State of the French Governement opened the fair by cutting a three colors (blue, white and red) ribbon together.
Sometimes you taste a new product, you know by name, but you have never tasted before.
Champagne Carbon is such a wine. CEO Alexandre Mea, fifth generation, of the Devavry family champagne (established in 1920) is it’s creator.
The bottles of Carbon champagne are made of carbon fibre. And that’s unique. Carbon collaborates with the world famous car brand Bugatti.
For the 110th birthday of Bugatti, the house of Carbon was asked to make a special blend for them. The blend for Bugatti is made from 90% chardonnay and 10% Pinot Noir. The champagnes are good; but it’s one of the more exclusive champagne brands.
Novelties are always very interesting. And yes this is something not many people know yet. The most well known sparkling wine in Italy is Prosseco. I have read that Prosseco was already known by the Romans under the name Puccino. In 1772 Prosecco was mentioned for the first time in an edition of ‘Giornale d’Italia‘ by Maria Malvolti. The compagny of Sandro Bottega, ‘Bottega Spa’ is the first one to create Procecco with a year/vintage on the label. The grapes are coming from a single plot vineyard. I have tasted some of their new sparkling wines.
Very
remarkable. The other new sparkling prossecos are due to come out next May. Sandro Bottega is the biggest producer for sparkling wines in the world. Their smoked grappa is also refreshing. Normaly I don’t like a smoked flavor in spirits like whisky. But this grappa is really different and not so smokey.
https://www.bottegaspa.com
The best invention I have seen (in the wine world), was in Restaurant ‘Madame Brasserie’ in the Eiffel Tower. Wine maker Michel Chapoutier invented especially for his blind father a wine lab
el with braille on it. The Bila-Haut, white Côtes du Roussillon has small dots on the label so a blind person can read it with his/her fingers. The wine is produced with the grape varieties Grenache Gris, Maccabeo and Grenache Gris. It’s not an expensive wine and it’s even a nice one.
But a good wine without a proper or the right glass is a disappointment. In 1756 the Austrian Riedel family started a glassworks based in Bohemia. But after world war II all their properties were taken from them. In 1956 the Riedel family reopend their glassworks in Kufstein, Austria. The compagny is now managed by Georg Riedel (10th generation) and his son Maximilian (11th generation). Riedel almost has, for a lot of well known grape varieties, a separate glass or for a whole wine region, like Bordeaux or Burgundy, a glass. For some regions you can create several glasses. A Burgundy glass or one for the white Chardonnay and one for the red Burgundy produced from Pinot Noir.
But some wines also need to breathe. That means a wine has to open up by getting oxygen. Then you need a special carafe. I saw their carafes on Wine Paris. They look more like glass art and they seem very fragile. And also expensive.
But what do you do when Wine Paris is over? If you have the possibility you visit some restaurants in Paris. And so I did…..