Tuesday, December 16 2008
What's Your Coupe Size?
If the glass fits . . .
There's an old legend that the classic coupe glass was modeled on the endowments of Marie Antoinette. I can understand how this has an appeal as a salacious story, but it's pretty darn silly. First, coupe glasses and the broad, shallow bowl style have been around a lot longer than 18th century France:
Bronze-age Greek kylix (wine cup)
Reason being, they're easy to make, either by carving from wood or other material, throwing on a potter's wheel or blowing out of glass: broad, shallow bowls are less challenging than making bowls with long tapers or narrow tops. These particular glasses weren't even intended for Champagne or any sparkling wine. Shallow depth means the bubbles form and pop quickly, and the broad opening allows them to escape easily, wasting their fragrance. A proper champagne glass is tall, narrow and should taper gently at the mouth, like this flute:
I can carry a tune on that
The bubbles can form at the bottom and spiral upwards, in a classic 'string of pearls'. The narrow mouth captures the aromas and keeps the bubbles corraled in a small area, so they tickle your nose when you take a sip. Perfect, yes?
Secondly, while Antoinette might be a great symbol for wretched excess she was simply a frivolous idiot, and never even said, 'Let them eat cake'. But the story does serve to remind us of the vast gap between the French aristo-oligopoly of the time and the people who actually made up the useful elements of society.
It's against this background that Karl Lagerfeld is teaming up with Dom Pérignon to produce a tribute glass to model Claudia Schiffer.
Sure the jokes write themselves. But you can't put 'em in a family blog.
For a mere $2500 Euros ($3200 USD) you can get the Lagerfeld-designed glass, along with a bottle of 1995 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque Champagne. This sounds like a pretty doubtful bargain to me. First, I don't like Dom Pérignon. When I drink French Champagne (although I haven't for some time, as the price is too stupid these days) I prefer Tattinger, Bollinger and Pol Roger, in that order. To me, most French Champagne is so sweet (even the brut ones) that it tastes like marshmallow syrup to me. Dom isn't the worst (that'd be Veuve Cliquot) but it's pretty bad.
Like Bridgette Bardot, only not crazy
Second, while I'm sure Ms. Schiffer is a nice person, what a six-foot tall German coat-hanger has to do with fine wine is beyond me. While I'm unimpressed with wretched excess, I'm highly amused with the connection between Marie Antoinette and this modern reinterpretation, in light of modern events.
The roots of the French revolution that eventually took Antoinette's life lay in the astounding gap between the lives of the super-wealthy and everyone else, and a government dangerously out of touch with the realities of the day. Global climate change (from El Nino and volcanic eruptions) disrupted harvests, transportation infrastructure was terrible, the government fought wars on multiple fronts, including interfering in the sovereignty of other nations, the taxation system was grossly inequitable and crushed the peasants while the richest paid nothing, and the government ruled as a despotic autocracy, ignoring the will of the governed.
Somewhere George Santayana is grinning, I'm sure.
| Posted by Tim AT 7:36PM | 0 Comments |  |
Post A Comment |  |
 |