Ruinart Blanc de Blanc Champagne Interpretations tasting event at The Edge Steak and Bar in the Four Seasons on Brickell

Last time I said "no" to champagne, I didn't understand the question.

Andrew Lampasone

I am a big Champagne fan and an advocate of teaching people the correct way of enjoying this wonderful elixir.  I am not saying that all of you people who serve Champagne ice cold and drink it moments after opening it are incorrect.  You should enjoy Champagne however you like it, but...You should also learn to treat it as a fine wine and the best Champagnes need time to open like great Bordeaux, Burgundy, Brunelllo, Barolo or any of the world's finest collectible wines.

Some friends invited me to a vertical tasting of Chateau Latour to start the year out and one of the collectors brought a magnum of Dom Perignon 1982 to the party.  It seemed to disappear in a few minutes, but I kept my glass until the end of the night.  I passed it on to some of the others in the room and we could not believe how much this wine had changed, with notes of mushroom and butterscotch now very pronounced.  This 1982 Dom Perignon out of magnum format was a shining example of why you should give great Champagne a chance to stretch its legs. 

The first part of this tasting is the interpretation part of the event.  Our friends at Champagne Ruinart have isolated the 8 main aromas of the Blanc De Blanc and they have oils to represent each of them.  Our tasters this evening will each get a set of these oils and then be asked to smell the esters and then try to pick out the aromas.  This should be a fun and educational event and our top sniffer this evening will go home with a bottle of NV Ruinart Blanc De Blanc Champagne.

Everyone will get to try all of the Champagne in the Ruinart Line-up and Chef Aaron Brooks will be sending out a few small courses to accompany the tasting wines. The fee for this event is $65 + tax. For reservations call 305-358-3535 or e-mail: maria.torres@fourseasons.com.

Valet Service at the hotel is $9 for three hours.

 

Ruinart Interpretations tasting event at The Edge Steak and Bar in the Four Seasons on Brickell

Wednesday, October 10th

7:00pm

NV Ruinart Blanc De Blanc Champagne       

Price: $79.50       Sale $69.96          6 Pack $399

Orange peel, ginger and peach like fruit on the nose with notes of jasmine 95% Permier Cru Montange de Riems chalky mineral tension and cotes de blanc lush sexy classic champagne, they have lowered the dosage to 7.5, the do full malo with these wines.  That chalky mineral notes starting to come out in the nose and some toasty yeasty notes.  Fine bubbles on the tongue with a smooth and creamy texture on the tongue, some of that ginger spice and jasmine floral notes showing along with an almond note on the finish lovely complexity and a long tongue tingly finish, zesty lemon notes.  Finish 45+                  Excellent +

NV Ruinart Rose Champagne          

Price: $97.50       Sale $85.80          6pk $498

All about Chardonnay with this house , so the rose also features a heavy dose of Chardonnay 45% and the remainder Pinot Noir, 15% of which is red, all premier cru with a similar dosage and full malo also with this wine.  Very pretty raspberry, plum and guava with notes of fresh rose floral notes and candied ginger spice nuance.  Smooth and creamy on the tongue with bright raspberry fruit on the tongue with pretty floral notes, very fresh and bright with notes of floral nuance through the finish.  Finish 45+              Excellent +

2002 Dom Ruinart Blanc De Blanc Brut Champage             

Price: $172.50    Sale $151.80       6pk $879

All Grand Cru, 5 grams of dosage, kept in the cellar for 10 years en tirage, 100% Chardonnay but does not say Blanc de Blanc on the bottle but rumor has it that this will change shortly.  Rich, round leesey hazelnuts with peach and apricot fruit, candied ginger spice, very complex bouquet.  Tiny bubble on the tongue leaving a creamy finish on the tongue with apple and peach fruit on the tongue with ginger spice and nutty and ginger spice notes through the finish, wonderful precision and a long layered finish.  Finish 50+        Most Excellent +

1996 Dom Ruinart Rose Vintage Brut Champagne

Price: $380.00    Sale $334.40       6pk $1938

 

(93 Points) The 1996 Brut Dom Ruinart Rose is a dense, shut-down wine that needs serious time in the cellar to come together. With additional bottle age, the Pinot character should emerge, as it almost always does. For now, this remains a structured Rose that only occasionally reveals the brilliance that it appears capable of, yet all of the ingredients are present for the 1996 to emerge as a brilliant Dom Ruinart Rose. Accordingly, my score represents the wine’s potential at maturity rather than where it is today. This is Lot: ADONA6, disgorged October 2006. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2026.

Ruinart is Champagne’s oldest house, with a history that dates back to 1729. The wines are quite well-known around the world, but less so in the US, where the estate is making an effort to re-establish its presence. Today the wines are made under the guidance of Chef de Caves Frederic Panaiotis, who clearly has an outsize passion for these Champagnes as well as the house’s rich heritage. Although Ruinart is best known for their vintage Blanc de Blancs, the Rose is perhaps even more fascinating, particularly after a few years in bottle, which in important vintages allows for the Pinot Noir to speak with great eloquence. The Ruinart wines tend to be medium in body and are made with levels of dosage that are closer to the high end of the spectrum. Although the back labels show codes which can be tracked to disgorgement dates, it would be nice to see Ruinart provide disgorgement dates for its wines. Wine Advocate # 180, Dec 2008

 

Menu

Barnstable Petite Oysters, Creamed Cucumber, American Caviar, Dill

Olive Oil Poached Trout, Fennel Brioche Puree, Sauce Gribiche, Baby Greens

The fee for this event is $65 + tax. For reservations call 305-358-3535 or e-mail: maria.torres@fourseasons.com.

 

A bit about Ruinart:

This success of the House of Ruinart was founded on a discreet yet consequential revolution.  The Royal Decree of May 25, 1728 whereby Louis XV gave his consent for sparkling wines to be shipped in baskets containing 50 to 100 bottles.  Prior to this decree, lack of investment in glass bottles made it so that they were too fragile to be shipped outside of the Champagne region. The Royal ruling of 1728 opened the gates of Europe to this spirited wine.

Ennobled and having taken the name Ruinart de Brimont in 1817, the Ruinart family has run the House steadfastly for over two centuries. Each generation has produced a Head of House with singular talents devoted to upholding the family tradition started by Dom Ruinart, its Inspiration, and his nephew, Nicolas, its Founder. Their successors demonstrate the enduring character of Maison Ruinart, and also its ability to welcome strong and varied personalities to enrich their expertise: Claude the Traveller, François Irénée the Administrator, Edmond the American, Edgard the Market Maker, Charles the Communicator, André the Rebuilder... and many more besides.

Nicolas Ruinart, a Reims draper like his father, started his first account ledger devoted to "wine with bubbles" on September 1, 1729.

This ledger serves as the birth certificate for the first Champagne House ever created. The first bottles of "wine with bubbles" produced were intended  as gifts for Nicolas Ruinart's clients who purchased cloth and fabric.

However, Nicolas was a sophisticated businessman and he had adopted his uncle's pioneering vision and ambition for "wine with bubbles," and just six years after the initial bottles were produced he found success.

In 1735, Maison Ruinart abandoned the cloth trade to concentrate on

the burgeoning champagne trade.  This became Nicolas's sole occupation and growth was exponential with 170 bottles sold in 1730, 3,000 bottles in 1731, 36,000 in 1761, and onwards.

On April 12, 1817, Louis XVIII granted nobility to François Irénée Ruinart. With the letters of nobility, the King also granted François

the heraldic crest which has appeared on the labels of Ruinart bottles ever since.

Dom Thierry Ruinart was an intuitive, visionary, hardworking, and modest Benedictine monk who lived from 1657-1709 and was a contemporary of Louis XIV. A brilliant theologian and historian, at the age of 23 he left his home in Champagne to go to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, one of the most influential centers of learning near Paris. While there, he was exposed to the city and court where he gained an awareness of a more worldly life and in-particular he learned of a new "wine with bubbles," not yet known as champagne, which was already popular among young aristocrats.

Dom Ruinart was an author of scholarly works, but also had a taste for the contemporary and his inquiring mind went hand in hand with a keen business sense. Throughout his life, he would visit his brother and home in Champagne and these diverse observations instilled in him the conviction that "wine with bubbles" produced from the vines of his native soil – also known as "vin de mousse" or sparkling wine – had a promising future. He passed on this conviction to his brother and his nephew.

In 1729, twenty years after the death of Dom Ruinart, Nicolas Ruinart, Dom Ruinart's nephew, founded the first Champagne House, Maison Ruinart, and forever ingrained his uncle's name and the house in the history books.

The Chardonnay is the very soul of Ruinart. The grape, mainly harvested from the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims terroirs, is at the heart of all our cuvées.

With its fresh aromas, vivacity, purity and luminosity, the Chardonnayis the essence of all our cuvées.  The delicate, fragile Chardonnay will only display the full breadth of its aromatic richness after a slow maturation in the coolness of the Crayères (our chalk cellars): up to 3 years for non-vintage wines, and 9 to 10 years for a Dom Ruinart.  This maturation is a test of our Cellar Master's skill, required to tame the capriciousness of this grape unlike any other.