I actually took this photo for the symmetry of the champagne brand: Taittinger on the bottle and on the ice bucket. They rarely match! But it’s that pink splash of the rose with its fallen petals that always catches my eye.
Taittinger
Descent to the caves of Taittinger
Eighteen metres (59 feet) below the ground in Reims, France, lie the caves of Taittinger, one of the finest producers of champagne. To make the descent to the caves, you must negotiate this spiral staircase.
The Taittinger caves occupy some of the vaults of the ancient Saint Nicaise Abbey. These stairs are in the old abbey vaults.
In World War I, the caves were used as places of refuge for civilians and Allied soldiers. If you look closely, you can make out the year 1914 in this graffiti carved into the wall.
A pupitre with bottles is visible at the foot of these stairs. The bottles of champagne are placed in the pupitre and rotated so that the sediment collects in the necks.
And this is what it’s all about…
(The first four photos were taken in the caves of Taittinger in May 2005 on a poor quality print camera, and later scanned to digital. The final photo was taken in October 2014: the champagne in the glass is not Taittinger, but the backdrop is a bag from Taittinger; it appeared recently in this post.)
Champagne Day redux
I don’t make a habit of posting twice in the same day, let alone two posts on the same topic, but that garish ‘Bordello Bubbly‘ post has been making me cringe all day. I couldn’t let that stand as my ode to Global Champagne Day! So here is something rather more tasteful.
With apologies to Taittinger, I must confess that this is a glass of Mumm champagne. All I can say in my defence is that Mumm is on sale in Sydney this week! The very elegant glass itself was, uh, liberated from the Dorchester in London. The backdrop is genuine Taittinger: it’s the bag they put my ice bucket in when I bought it in Reims.
