It is not every day that you get to attend a Moët & Chandon champagne tasting & pairing hosted by Moet’s Private Client and Prescription Director, Pierre-Louis Araud. It promised to be a good night with good food, laugher and some great champagne so of course I had to be there. The event was held at the Villa Rosa Kempinski. It was a light and fun event as we went through a Moet webinar on how Moët champagne is made, what wine varietals are used to make the various champagnes and how to open a Moët champagne bottle.
The setup was beautiful and elegant as we got served glasses of Moet Champagne Brut by some elegantly dressed beautiful ladies in white.
We listened to Pierre-Louis Araud as he explained the fascinating process of making Moet Champagne.
Photo courtesy of Moet Imperial. Photo credit – Paushinski.A few facts.
It takes 3 years to get one bottle of Moet Champagne.
There are 3 grape varietals that go into each bottle of Moet champagne and more than 100 different wines are used to create what ends up being the quality champagne that you enjoy. The 3 grape varietals are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier.
20% to 30% of what goes into Moet Champagnes are reserve wines specially selected to enhance the intensity, richness, complexity and constancy of this delicious champagne.
For the Moet Imperial Brut, it is a mix of Pinot Noir (50%), Chardonnay (26%), Pinot Meunier (24%). For Moet Imperial Rose, some of the Brut is taken out and some Pinot is added for that rose colour. The composition is around 40 to 50% Pinot Noir (10% red), 30 to 40% Pinot Meunier (10% red) and 10 to 20% Chardonnay. For the Moet Imperial Nectar, Pinot Noir (40% to 50%), Pinot Meunier (30% to 40%) and Chardonnay (10% to 20%). So when you toast know that you are drinking a superior blend of all the best wines from the Moet And Chandon wine vineyards.
Do you know how to open a Moet Champagne bottle properly? If you don’t here is the right way to do it. First, tear off the foil. You need to hold the bottle properly using your dominant hand. Then untwist the wire loop 6 times while making sure you keep a thumb on the cork to make sure you don’t accidentally pop it. Once this is done gently twist the bottle in one rotation while holding the cork steady with your thumb and keep your grip so that it slides smoothly out of the bottle.
Pierre-Louis Araud says that as long as you are buying and enjoying the bottle you can pronounce Moet any way you want. So you can call it mo-wet or even moh-et. Just enjoy.
For Moet it is recommended that you only have 3 favour profiles for food you are pairing with it. Here is what you need to consider when creating a pairing.
We had four courses and a Moet Imperial Champagne was paired with 3 of the dishes.
The first pairing was Moët Imperial Brut with different types of sushi. I loved this pairing of Moet Imperial Brut with prawns with cauliflower sushi, mango and cauliflower sushi and tobiko and tamarind reduction sushi. These were delicious and sweet and went very well with the Moet Imperial Brut.
The second pairing was Moët Imperial Rose with Beef tartare. For those who do not know beef tartare is raw meat but if well prepared you will not notice that it is raw. I was enjoying this until I tasted the egg in the meat. For people who are sensitive about the taste of eggs in food or cannot think of eating raw meat, this may not be for you. The beef tartare was made up of finely minced beef, white onion, gherkin, mustard, quail egg yolk, and herbed melba. The pairing was also an excellent one which was enjoyed by those who don’t mind the taste of raw egg.
The third pairing was Moet Nectar Imperial Rose with cottage cheese and vegetable biryani. This was a great pairing that I enjoyed from presentation to sampling. The Cottage cheese and vegetable biryani had spiced and flavorful basmati rice, slow-cooked with marinated vegetables and panner with ginger, mint and special chilli powder makhani sauce, and chilli yoghurt foam.
Finally, there was the Summer Alaska made up of seasonal fruit carpaccio, natural fruit sorbet, baked ice cream which was delicious and could be paired with any of the three Moet champagnes we were having. I loved it most with the Moet Nectar Imperial Rose.
