Have you ever wondered what happens to an old bottle of fine Champagne? Probably not, because most people don’t keep sparkling wine more than a few years at most. It is, after all, a beverage designed to be consumed within a couple of years of its release. But I can tell you about a bottle of fine Champagne that held up for more than two decades. It belonged to me, and we drank it with some very special friends last week.
It was one of those oversize bottles, a Jeroboam, that stands 19 inches high and holds the equivalent of four regular bottles of Champagne. It was a 1978 Perrier-Jou & #235;t Fleur de Champagne, housed as its name implies in a flower bottle. Perrier-Jou & #235;t flower bottles are all hand-painted, making each of them a work of art as well. But, you can’t leave this kind of art hanging around just anywhere. It has to be stored in a dark, temperature-controlled environment, especially if you are going to drag the grand opening party out for 22 years as I did.
First, you need to find the right occasion to open such a bottle. It’s not that we don’t have plenty of friends who appreciate fine wines, it’s more a case of having just the right number of people to finish off such a bottle on some special night. Patrick and I had been trying to get the general managers of several hotels together for some time, simply so that we could all compare notes on the lodging industry, laugh, I suppose, at some of my outrageous tales of life in the fast lane, and just get these people together for the sake of doing it.
We had planned on this being a party of 14, but John Dravinski of the Ritz-Carlton was on the East Coast getting his son settled into college and missed our soiree. Our other guests included a quartet of execs from Anaheim and one who had spent many years running a hotel in that city before moving his office to the Irvine area. Rod Schinnerer, GM of the Disneyland Hotel, and his wife, Maggie; Tony Bruno, newly appointed GM of the upcoming Grand Californian Hotel (and formerly GM at the Disneyland Pacific Hotel), and his wife, Karen; and Doug Watson, area GM including the Anaheim Marriott Hotel, and his wife, Verna, joined us.
Making the party more fun was the erudite and amusing Hideo Amemiya, VP of Disneyland Resorts, and his wife, Naoe. Completing our table was Ned Snavely, area GM including Irvine Marriott Hotel, and Debbie Krebs, newly appointed GM of the Fullerton Marriott Hotel and soon-to-be-Mrs. Snavely. It was an evening of swapping a lot of unique stories to be sure.
We chose to host the dinner at Roy’s of Newport Beach because the atmosphere lent itself to a good, but not-too-serious party and there are several Pacific Rim items on the menu that I wanted to match with wines I had in mind.
The sommelier uncorked the well-chilled Perrier-Jou & #235;t and tasted it with me and some of the staff. We didn’t have to make expensive wine vinegar out of it after all. While it had lost some of its effervescence, the Champagne was still full of floral character and even a hint of walnuts came through. It was quite interesting, and remained drinkable. We, however, finished off but half of that big bottle in pre-dinner toasts and laughs, because we decided to have the Roy’s Late Disgorged Blanc de Blanc ($64 and bottled for them by Schramsberg) at the table with our first two appetizers, then the fantastic ’97 Treana (Paso Robles) Mer Soleil ($54) with our second two. I cannot encourage you enough to try this wine made of 60% Viognier and 40% Marsanne. Why anyone would order another California Chardonnay is beyond me. This crisp wine with stone fruit and floral qualities is reminiscent of a fine white Burgundy and worth every penny. We may have already polished off two bottles’ worth of my Champagne and two of the Late Disgorged, but everyone enjoyed the Treana so much that we managed four bottles of it, even before entrees.
If you want to follow my lead and assure a tasty beginning for your meals at Roy’s, here are my start-up choices. The coconut shrimp are skewered and coated with fresh coconut shreds. They are fried till crispy and served with a dipping sauce intensive with tiny cubes of fruit. Signature sushi rolls are wrapped in nori seaweed and the requisite vinegared rice and can hold their own with any Japanese restaurant version. Do not miss the baby back ribs nor the poke. They are both so good that I have ordered the two of them at a past meal along with a salad and skipped the entr & #233;e. The ribs are tender little things infused through and through in a superb Chinese-style marinade. Poke is the Hawaiian version of made-at-the-moment ceviche. It is my absolute favorite appetizer. Sashimi-grade ahi tuna is cut into small cubes and drizzled with a soy-based ponzu sauce.
I had taken along three bottles of the rare Wolf Blass 1993 Gold Label Cabernet/Shiraz from Australia and we opened them to have with entrees. I had asked the restaurant to give our guests a choice of the Mongolian-glazed rack of lamb, braised honey-mustard short ribs of beef, Chilean sea bass with a jade pesto sauce and the signature hibachi-grilled salmon. They are my four favorite entrees. Being me, I decided that we should have salad after the entr & #233;e, actually the correct culinary order. For dessert, some of us were savoring a last half-glass of the Wolf Blass with the yummy fruit cobbler, molten chocolate souffl & #233; and rich cr & #269;me br & #369;l & #233;e.
As the saying goes, it was an affair to remember. And, because I have come to respect this restaurant in so many ways, it is why I keep ending up with so many people at my tables here. You can always ask for managers Barry Pierce, Heather or Troy to make a reservation. Please feel free to drop my name. And then, you can ask the waiter to have the chef, Chris Garnier, help you choose your meal.
And, don’t forget to laugh a lot. We all need to have more fun eating out.
