Saturday morning, Maliya and I were together at the dining table.
I told Claude, “Maliya, my five-year-old, has some questions for you.”
“Aww, hi Maliya! I’d love to answer your questions. What do you want to know?”
She looked at me.
“What are dogs and cats not like?”
A little shy at first.
Then another.
“Why do dogs like to scratch their bodies?”
“Why can’t humans breathe underwater?”
“Why do people drown when they get into the water?”
“How did plants know how to grow on their own without humans helping them?”
Each time, she waited for the answer.
Then:
“Why did people want to destroy the world?”
“What is the most valued thing in the whole world?”
Claude offered love, family, friendship, clean air and water.
“Flowers,” Maliya said.
Then:
“Why do people crush plants when they walk and not notice?”
Somewhere along the way, she had stopped looking at me.
She just kept asking.
Later, the questions moved to school.
“Why do people go and play without permission in the classroom?”
“What happens if the teacher does not say anything and another kid says to go play without asking?”
An old friend visited recently.
We had known each other since college, through the years after, through jobs, moves, marriages, children.
“What be do?”
“Be champagne-ificate!”
Bread and butter on a menu still brings back another friend, who once asked what was in a cheese and tomato sandwich.
“Cheese and tomato.”
We have been laughing about it ever since.
The joke is not particularly funny.
That does not seem to matter.
Other things came back too.
Stories from college.
People we had not mentioned in a long time.
Old ambitions.
Bad decisions.
Things we once worried about that now seem trivial.
Things we once dismissed.
A phrase.
A name.
A badly remembered story.
A joke repeated for the hundredth time.
Then a part of your life that had gone quiet is there again.
The Quiet Detail
In the late 1980s, brothers Philippe and Pierre Aubry began reading old books about Champagne.
They became interested in grape varieties that had nearly disappeared from the region.
Arbanne.
Petit Meslier.
Fromenteau.
They found them and planted them again.
Bottle of the Week
Aubry Brut Premier Cru
Structure
Petite Montagne, Premier Cru
31% Chardonnay
31% Pinot Noir
31% Meunier
7% Arbanne, Petit Meslier and Fromenteau
70% 2021, 30% reserve wine back to 1998
Jouy-lès-Reims, Villedommange, Pargny-lès-Reims, Coulommes-la-Montagne
Mostly stainless steel, with some Chardonnay aged in used barrique
Malolactic fermentation
18+ months on the lees
4 g/L dosage
Seven percent is not much.
Most of the bottle is the familiar trio: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier.
But Arbanne, Petit Meslier and Fromenteau are still there.
Planted.
Harvested.
Blended.
Drunk.
What to Notice
We opened it on the second night.
Champagne was not his preference, but he humored me.
The wine has some richness, balanced by enough acidity to keep it lifted.
Chalk.
Mineral.
A little weight.
Refreshing.
Effortless.
Not showy.
It asks for food.
Where to Find It
Aubry Brut Premier Cru is generally available through independent wine shops and online retailers in the $40-50 range.
A Short Detour
Stories disappear.
So do words.
Recipes.
Songs.
Grapes.
Inside jokes.
Ways of speaking.
Versions of ourselves.
Sometimes we simply stop using them.
The old joke gets told one fewer time.
The story is not asked for.
The person who knew it dies.
The grape is not replanted.
The language becomes impractical.
Forgetting is not always erasure.
Sometimes it is simply neglect.
Things disappear because nobody asks, nobody repeats the story, nobody keeps the phrase alive, nobody plants the grape.
Maybe that is why I keep returning to one of Maliya’s questions.
“Why do people crush plants when they walk and not notice?”
Until the next bottle,
Manj
P.S. What is something you only remember when you are with someone else?
Short Champagne notes on Instagram: @le_dosage
