Champagne Celebration

Over the last decade or so, my family have developed a habit of meeting up in some interesting places around the world. Happily, one of these places a few years back was Champagne, France It was a decadent long weekend where my sister, brother in law and I visited at least two champagne ‘caves’ daily, and where each meal in between was accompanied by at least one bottle of champagne. My favourites caves were (actually, my memory is a bit hazy…) Moet (very posh), Veuve Clicquot (très chic) and Piper (good fun).

One of the final remaining souvenirs from that trip is a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Brut Rose, 1989 vintage, which has been quietly waiting in the wings for a suitably celebratory occasion to make an appearance.

One of my favourite books, when I was a kid, was ‘The Adventures of Doctor Dolittle’. Two things stuck in my mind about that book. No, not that animals could talk, that seemed perfectly normal. The first one was the flying fish. I accepted their depiction in the book as an exaggeration, but after seeing the fish on this trip that actually flies, I think it’s actually a fair description. The other one was the experience of crossing the equator. The good Doctor and his talking animal friends had a great celebration of crossing this line dividing north from south, which in physical form consisted of a red line in the water.

I guess in this day of cheap flights and ‘air show’ in-flight entertainment, crossing the equator isn’t such a big occasion anymore. But when you do it ‘yourself’, it’s worth opening vintage champagne.

We should cross the equator and enter the southern hemisphere tonight. I shall prepare Aroha’s finest plastic champagne flutes for the celebration…