05 Nov Please The Palate Pick of the Week: A Week of Champagne with Friends

Champagne is a wine of celebration. It is a wine of happiness. And this past week has been filled with so much delicious Champagne that the entire week of Champagne with friends is the Please The Palate pick of the week! It started on Friday, October 28th which was Global Champagne Day. To celebrate, I went to Buvette LA, an intimate wine bar in Sherman Oaks. Located next to the Tipsy Cow, Buvette LA is a sister wine bar to Vintage Wine + Eats located in Studio City. The charming, bubbly Rebecca Phillips is the Wine Director and Resident Sommelier and she was at Buvette pouring flights of Champagne. Buvette has a selection of wines ranging from classic, old world producers to small, boutique California wineries but they also have a full page of sparkling wines from around the world. And for Global Champagne Day, they were pouring a flight of three Champagnes, including Champagne Sanger Brut Nature, Champagne Larmandier-Bernier Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne Latitude NV, and Champagne Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé, which we enjoyed with some caviar. Less than a week later, La Fête du Champagne, a celebration of the wines of Champagne, came to Los Angeles. On Thursday night, I attended the first event of Le Fete du Champagne. It was a seminar celebrating Philipponnat’s 500th anniversary with with Charles Philipponnat, the sixteenth generation to lead his family’s eponymous Champagne house, and his son François representing the seventeenth. Following the seminar, we headed over to the Wine House where there was a tasting of Champagne Delamotte and Champagne Salon at the Wine House. And what pairs better with Champagne than fried chicken and French fries! And it is always a highlight when you get to taste Salon Champagne! The next day was a day filled with more Champagne! It started with lunch at the Proper Hotel with Mathieu Roland-Billecart, CEO and 7th Generation of Champagne Billecart-Salmon. The lunch celebrated the launch of the newest prestige cuvée, Louis Salmon 2008, and we also enjoyed the elegant Elizabeth Salmon Rose 2008, and more! Following lunch, it was off to the Pendry Hotel in West Hollywood for a reception with Louis Roederer Champagne where we enjoyed the newly released 2015 Brut Nature and 2015 Brut Nature Rosé. After the lovely reception with Louis Roederer, we caught the tail end of the APÉRO AU CHAMPAGNE, a festive walk-around party on the rooftop of the La Peer Hotel in West Hollywood. Champagne was poured from large format bottles. There were too many incredible Champagnes to mention but it was also wonderful to see so many friendly faces!!! And to finish off the fun, there was the Grand Tasting of La Fete du Champagne at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica. The weather was perfect for this lovely outdoor afternoon tasting. And it was an honor to meet all of the producers pouring their wines. What a week(end) of Champagne!