Everyone who knows me knows that I love Champagne.  Its an affliction that many sommeliers share.  Other sparkling wines (at least when they are good) will do in a pinch, but honestly, give me Champagne any day of the week.  

When asked, on the record, what is the best food pairing with Champagne? the answer that any sommelier worth their salt will give is: “anything”.    This is close enough to being true that no one feels bad about saying  it, and in the rare cases where Champagne doesn’t go perfectly with a food, we enjoy drinking it enough to overlook the poor pairing. 

Even the recent trend towards Brut Sauvage and Ultra Brut styles  don’t dramatically lessen Champagne’s flexibility, except in so much as they are foul with desserts, whereas traditional Brut Champagne was only pretty bad.    Dessert has always been the food I liked least with Champagne, it reminds me of attending weddings I didn’t want to go to (can we please aknowledge our collective progress in food and wine appreciation over the last 2000 years and seperate the toast from the cake cutting?!?).

Okay, enough buildup: what is the best food for Champagne?  Some of you are already typing “oysters,” or ”caviar,” in the comments.  And surely, these are better than just good pairings with Champagne, they are classic.   But in my mind, they both take second fiddle to movie theatre popcorn, the kind with “real butter flavor.”

I’m not talking about microwave popcorn, even if it has “real butter flavor,” though microwave is better than no popcorn at all.  I’m talking about real, live, freshly (more or less) popped movie theatre popcorn. 

I’m self-aware enough to admit that there are some non-flavor related reasons for this pairing being so much fun.  The first, of course, is the thrill of the illicit: you have to smuggle the bottle into the theatre: breaking the rules of the movie theatre and probably a law or two.   There is the related pleasure of concealing the secret: one not only has to get the bottle into the theatre, but to open it without anyone else noticing (great practice for opening the bottle quietly on your upcoming sommelier examination).  All of this thrill is further heightened by the planning aspect: one must keep the bottle adequately chilled (but never too cold!), and have vessels to drink from (the paper water cups are unsatisfactory because the wax starts disolving into the bubbles, but bringing flutes is a sure way to stand out and get caught). 

I also love watching movies almost as much as I love food and wine, and there is a hedonistic multiplier principle at work in combining multiple pleasurable experiences into one mega-experience (tres Américain).  Here we have not only wine, food and movies, but also (harmless) deceit, scofflawism, and the pleasure of enjoying the fruits of a well-executed plan.  Just bring a date and add Champagne . . .

However, don’t let this distract from the fact that Champagne & popcorn are uniquely suited for one another.  I first discovered this happy coincidence at the fortieth birthday party of  an important client of Cascadia Restaurant, where I was the Wine Director.  The reception featured things ”she loved” including 1990 Dom Perignon, some music and appetizers I can’t remember, and old-fashioned popcorn from a wheeled popcorn cart we purchased for the occasion that came with the “real butter flavor” powder (more like cristals) to mix in with the oil to create “buttered” popcorn.  It was a great party, for 100 of her closest friends, but pretty much all I remember of it is how wonderful the bags of popcorn tasted with the 1990 Dom Perignon.   The Dom and popcorn was even more memorable than the course paired with 5 different 1961 Bordeaux (it must have been 2001).

For quite a while, I thought that this pairing was unique to Dom Perignon.  As surpised as I was, I quickly explained to myself that it worked so well because of Dom’s delightful combination of fresh fruit and creamy richness and that Dom’s overall polish made it a relatively easy pairing.  However, some months later, on a date at the movies, I brought along a bottle of Pierre Peters Blanc de Blanc, and we ended up ordering some popcorn to go with it (I usually order milk-duds and twizzlers): again, the pairing was stupendous.  Pierre Peters Blanc de Blanc, though worlds apart in terms of the producer, wasn’t a completely different Champagne from Dom Perignon, but it was enough so (more toasty, more minerally, crisper)  that it got me thinking.  On subsequent visits to the movies I tried new Champagnes: from the startlingly racy, like Henriot’s Brut Souverain; to the startling oxidative, like Egly-Ouriet’s Vielles Vignes de Vrigny; from the shockingly powerful, like Krug’s Grand Cuvée; and the decidedly delicate like Jean Vesselle Oeil de Perdix (a very pale rose), and a whole lot of others, just for good measure.  All were wonderful with the popcorn.    The wines I had tried ran the gamut from oaked to unoaked, crisp to rich, blanc to rosé, and malic to lactic, yet they all matched perfectly with fake butter popcorn. 

One of the factors that make the match so appealing is the way that warm puffy/crunchy texture of the popcorn is pleasantly contrasted by the cool, cutting texture of the Champagne while being complimented by the bubbles.  Another factor is the way that the Champagne provides both rich flavors that comliment the popcorn’s richness, and crisp flavors that contrast with them in a pleasant way.  Then there are the more tricky flavors of Autolysis (directly or indirectly adds acacia, bicuity and brandylike flavors and complexity) and Reaction Maillard (adds toasty, roasty,vanilla flavors) that I suspect have a lot to do with why both toasty popcorn, and “real butter flavor” are so good with Champagne.  If it wasn’t for the fact that I had tried some non-malo-lactic Champagnes with the popcorn, I would say that the malo-lactice fermentation flavors (butter, cream) were the main factor.   And it would be silly to forget that salt and Champagne are great companions, because of the slight sweetness  of many brut Champagnes, but also because salt highlights the fruit that is sometimes hiding under the surface in Champagne. 

For those of you who love Champagne as much as I do, and have exhausted the usual resources such as Tom Stevenson’s excellent, Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine, Peter Liem, currently an editor at Wine & Spirits Magazine, and part time resident of Champagne has an outstanding blog called Besotted Ramblings that often talk about Champagne, but is equally amuzing and urbane when talking about other things. 

The general consensus amongst wine experts (self-proclaimed and otherwise) is that for wine and food to go together, wine must be low in alcohol, high in acidity, moderate in oak, and not too overhwelming in flavor.  There is something to be said for this approach: acidity is almost always welcome, there is a tendancy to use too much oak in many wines which makes them hard to drink alone, much less with food, and alcohol can easily overwhelm more delicate foods.   But I disagree that these principles have a special, or even a tenuous, hold on holiday food: Christmas and Thanksgiving are the times to bring out the bruisers.

American holiday meals, particularly Thanksgiving and Christmas, are rarely made up of delicate foods.  Holiday meals tend to be rich, and many of the dishes are even sweet, and often heavily influenced by spices.    At Thanksgiving, I think about not only Turkey (okay, this is arguably a bit bland sometimes), but cranberries, sweet potatoes, and stuffing (often laced with onions, herbs and even chestnuts).  At Christmas, I think of ham or prime rib, maybe even a goose, and, again, rich often sweet side dishes.   With food like this, the worry isn’t that the food will be overwhelmed, but that it will overwhelm the wines. 

For rich, intensely-flavored foods, it is crucial that the wine is equally rich and flavorful: this can mean big fruit, big oak, and even big alcohol.   This is also a great approach to sweet foods.  Though it is traditional  to serve a wine that is slightly sweeter than the food it accompanies, sweet wines aren’t always appropriate for dinner (this is mostly a matter of modern taste, see the attached menu gilded-butterflies-menu-version-3), and both alcohol and oak can give wine a perception of sweetness that goes wonderfully with moderately sweet food.   In order for wines that are high in alcohol, oak, fruit or all of the above to taste good, they need acidity to balance them, so I do think that the acid is a necessary component here.

The following are some of my favorite general holiday pairings.  For a list of specific wines, see my list of recommendations from my appearance on King 5 TV with Tim Robinson on Monday, November 24th by clicking this link.  Viognier is a great white for holiday meals: it has loads of flavor, often high-alcohol, and the best have the acidity to balance.  Chardonnays also have a great place in these meals, both Burgundy and the big new world Chards: I’ll be drinking 95 Verget Meursault le Rougeots for T-day.   Grenache is also a great choice, particularly for Thanksgiving, as it often has a lighter red fruit flavor, lots of spice and smoke, and a serious dollop of richness from alcohol.  Syrah is a hit across the board, for the big black fruit, smokiness and spice, as well as the richness and oak that are such and important part of the best California, Washington, Australian and South African (don’t miss these) version.  Other whites that work include Torrontes, Pinot Gris and Smaragd Gruner Veltliners.  Other reds include: Malbec, Morvedre (also as Monastrell in Spain) and most Spanish Reds (not in the least because of the use of American Oak).

Some people argue that the holidays should be about drinking what you like and eating what you like, rather than food and wine pairing.  I’m not adverse to this notion, and I really do believe that good food and good wine will find a way to work together — I just think that sometimes picking which of the wines you like, and which of the foods you like can make both better.   

Oh yeah! one more thing: I didn’t mention Champagne.  It should go without saying that Champagne has a place at all meals, especially those around the holidays.

Happy Holidays for now. 

-Jake