Champagne Every Day? You bet, at the Beehive, Boston

365 Days

Champagne Every Day? You bet, at the Beehive, Boston

Posted 11/18/2008 at 10:21 AM by Cathy

By Julia Timakhovich??Champagne has an underrated reputation, really. This festive bubbly conjures up images of celebrations like New Year's Eve, weddings, graduations, and birthday parties. But it is more than that. It is a noteworthy wine that takes tremendous effort to make, and it deserves credit for the right reasons.??Tonight I visited a place (the place?) in Boston that pays it its due attention. ??The Beehive, an artsy venue on Tremont Street in the South End, is the largest buyer of champagne and sparkling wine in the city, boasting over 60 bottles of "bubbles from around the world" on its regular menu. On purpose.??Tonight the restaurant hosted a champagne-only dinner to show that not only is this effervescent wonder a good choice for occasional cheers; it also pairs well with pretty much everything. ??With meat, for example. And with cheese, with fish, and with dessert. And everything in between.??We started, dutifully, with France. A breezy glass of G.H. Mumm Cordon Rouge greeted the guests as we arrived, bundled up, rosy-cheeked, and refreshed. It prepared our palates, got us in the mood, and whetted our appetites for the meal ahead. ??But then, surprisingly, we ventured home. Amidst the best champagne houses in France, there lurked our fair state on the menu. The wine of honor was the 1992 Westport Rivers Cuvee Maximilian, made in Westport Rivers on the tenth anniversary of the Russell family's caretaking of the vineyard. The sparkling wine's almond-like, toasty flavors complemented the creaminess of the appetizer of duck and foie gras ravioli.??And so it continued. One after another arrived perfectly paired proofs that champagne, when picked well, can stand with almost anything: spicy lobster, foie gras, duck, pasta, sweets, and even – best of all – bone marrow.??The marrow was served with a glass of 1998 G.H. Mumm Cuvée Lalou. From the first sip, the bubbles paved the way for the creamy, meaty flavors and texture of bone marrow to explode in the mouth in a surprisingly harmonious pairing.??I thought nothing could top that.

But then came the next course.

Oven-roasted grapes with Brillat-Savarin, a brie-like, soft, white-crusted French cheese, paired with a rare vintage 1985 Veuve Cliquot. At that moment, there was nowhere else I'd have rather been. ??And that's exactly the appeal of champagne paired with food. And the appeal of the Beehive.??Host Bertil Jean-Chronberg's passion for bubbly shows. An acclaimed sommelier and wine director at the Beehive, he is the main proponent of sparkling wine as an everyday beverage and the drink of choice in restaurants. He proudly proclaims the versatility of champagne as a perfect bedfellow for a variety of dishes, plus it is a drink that can hold its own. He believes the world will be better off with more bubbly.

Why is that? I asked.??"It's easy," he said. "It's an affordable luxury."??That was unequivocally proven by our menu. Sparkling wine, champagne included, is universally accepted and absolutely not required to be out of budget.

Champagne or any sparkling wine of choice will lighten up the evening and provide a foray into food and wine that for many, is as unknown as it is exciting.??And worth it.

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About the Author

Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe writes about drinking wine every day in the Boston area. She finds the quirky characters, the after-hours events, and the surprising stories that make up Boston's vibrant local wine scene. But no matter where she is, what she's doing, or who she's with, she mostly just wants to drink the stuff.

Her first restaurant gig was at Chez Panisse, when she knocked on the kitchen's back door and asked if she could work there. She's also worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris and Thomas Keller in Las Vegas. She went to graduate school at Harvard (twice), and her writing has run in Boston magazine, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Edible Boston, and on Nevada Public Radio and Grist.org.