Attending the lunch were Paulo Russel-Pinot, Marketing Director of the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto (IVDP), and Daniel Lorson, Director of the communications of the Comite Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), who brought along examples of their regions' most definitive products: for Mr. Lorson, it was Gosset champagne, and for Mr. Russel-Pinot, aged white and red Port. The gentlemen spoke at length about the fact that only a sparkling wine from the region of Champagne in France could be called champagne, and though many Californian and Australian producers call their fortified wine “port,” the only fortified product of this type that can be called “Port” is from the region of Oporto in Portugal.
California sparklers, for example, are delicious on their own and, as with Champagne, it is important to appreciate this difference and call them “sparkling wine.” The terms do not imply one wine is lesser than the other; they are just respectful terms for their regions of origin.
And given all the venues in New York to hold the lunch, the 21 Club was a fabulous choice because, like Port and Champagne, there is really only one venue in New York that has such a sense of historical place!
Article comments
1 - John Wilson
Very informative article.
2 - Alan Kurtz
I am appalled that the Center for Whine Origins is promoting respect for terroir from a secretive cellar in Manhattan haunted by the ghost of Richard Nixon. He may be past his pique, as you report, but invoking a disgraced ex-president only shows how low whine merchants will stoop. There is nothing respectable about terroirism, and it should not be promoted. Yet from their posh M Street headquarters in our nation's capital and with lavish funding from the European Union, the Center for Whine Origins brazenly lobbies for protectionist U.S. Government regulations that would benefit known foreign terroirists such as Osama pinot Noir and Burgundy al-Zawahiri. This is an outrage! California sparklers and other domestic terroirists would be placed at an insurmountable disadvantage. Privileged whiners like you may find it fashionable to hate the United States, and of course money can buy virtually anything in Washington, but at some point Americans are going to wise up and send you and your fancy Institutos dos Vinhos and Comités du Vin packing to your whiny overseas origins. To which I say good riddance to one and all.