A review of the Louis de Sacy Brut Rose Champagne and the Talisker 25 year old Single Malt Scotch Whisky bottled in 2005.
By Joshua E. London and Lou Marmon
Washington Jewish Week May 15, 2013
We recently had some reasons to rejoi...
A review of the Louis de Sacy Brut Rose Champagne and the Talisker 25 year old Single Malt Scotch Whisky bottled in 2005.
By Joshua E. London and Lou Marmon
Washington Jewish Week May 15, 2013
We recently had some reasons to rejoice and, as our readers would expect, there were a few bottles opened with family and friends. With a wide range of excellent wines available at all price levels, choosing the best celebratory wines was a bit of a challenge.
We started by considering a few wines stashed away for “special occasions” including a couple of vintages of the Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, several wines from Domaine du Castel, Capcanes and Adir as well as some kosher Bordeaux wines. We then looked at some of our favorites from the past year from Golan Heights, Hagafen, Recanati and Dalton. After much contemplation, we ended up opening a bottle of sparkling wine.
Sure, it is a bit of a cliche. And we have long bemoaned the tendency to save sparklers for merely special occasions. Their variable flavor profiles range from sweet to bone dry, from light to full-bodied and from fruit forward to more restrained – all of which make sparklers some of the world’s most food-friendly wines. Since we enjoy sparkling wines throughout the year (try a “blanc de blanc” with an omelet), it seemed okay to pop open an exceptional one to celebrate our blessings.
The Louis de Sacy Brut Rose Champagne is produced by a family that has farmed grapes since the 1600s. The winery is named after a distant renowned relative whose bewigged portrait serves as its logo. This non-vintage, gracious and elegant wine opens with strawberry, cherry and floral aromas. The complex frame of spice, green apple and raspberry is accented with minerals, hazelnuts, citrus and blackberries and leads into a bright, long and satisfying finish.
Spirits-wise, we had the same dilemma: what to crack open for that special occasion? The immediate answer is, really, anything that underscores that notion of “special” or “distinguished” will service nicely for the moment. So, really, anything that is not your usual libation.
If you rarely drink a l’chaim, then having one marks the occasion as special. (Though if you rarely drink a l’chaim, you are probably NOT still reading this.) As we’ve said a great many times before, greater expense does not necessarily translate into better distilled spirits. The higher price-tag does, however, constitute a distinguishing or even elevating characteristic to the spirit, if for no other reason than that the price tag means neither you nor your guests are likely to drink such a whisky all the time. Expense, thus, can instantly convey special status to your beverage simply because the cost takes it out of the sphere of normal or usual.
Sometimes the price tag is all about marketing (such as with the more expensive Macallan single malt Scotch whiskies-these are uniformly good whiskies, sometimes even great whiskies, but they are marketed as “luxury” whiskies and priced accordingly). Sometimes the price tag is high to cover the high costs bringing the beverage to market, such as the production or importation of rare spirits or spirits from far away places.
If you shop wisely, the high price tag will acquire you something truly special in every sense. Single cask single malt whiskies, for example, are usually the best way to spend a few extra bucks when it comes to whisky. As we’ve noted before, absolutely fantastic single cask, single malts, with minimal marketing nonsense, can be had from the membership-based Scotch Malt Whisky Society (smwsa.com) and from the membership-based Jewish Whisky Company’s Single Cask Nation (singlecasknation.com).
In this particular instance, one of us had an addition to the family. As Judaism is simultaneously a family-centered as well as belief-centered religion, a simcha for one Jew is a celebratio