First of all, thanks to you all for your congratulations. The public
celebration of our 20th anniversary took place this Saturday. We threw
a party for our friends from work, our neighbors and friends from
childcare. At its height, there were probably 40 or so people in our
home, and a gaggle of 8 children aged 2-5 upstairs with two babysitters
(Andrew was having a party in parallel with our own). We served various
finger foods: a 5.5 lb side of farmed Scottish salmon that I smoked, a
huge batch of gambas al ajillo, some skewers of moo ping from our
excellent local Thai restaurant, bread and platters of cheese, salume,
antipasti and vegetables. We had various still wines on hand, as well
as a case of Gruet Brut, but the centerpiece to the event was Jean's
gift to me:

1989 Veuve Clicquot "La Grande Dame" (3 L)
nose: lemons, lightly toasty
palate: subdued mousse, creamy mouthfeel, lemony fruit, moderately
toasty finish

The backstory is that Jean opened a bottle of NV Veuve Clicquot in '88
to propose to me (yes, Larry, I am lucky), so she decided that it would
be apropos to celebrate with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the year of
our marriage and was able to find a double magnum for sale at Crush in
NYC. We were both pleasantly surprised at how young and vibrant this
wine was. Having only had La Grande Dame a few times previously, I
can't say that I'm an expert on the house style, but this wine seemed
less acidic but also a bit more complex than what I recalled. Very
little earthy/mushroomy/oxidative character to this wine, reflecting
most likely the large format. (side note: I got the cork out with some
effort as the backpressure was much reduced over the standard for a
young bottle) Consensus was that this was a crowd pleaser of an aged
Champers, which in the end was for the best.

Mark Lipton


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