Veuve Clicquot Rosé 200

Veuve Clicquot has been celebrating the bicentenary of its first blended rosé, and last week I had the pleasure of participating in the festivities in Champagne.

Rosé champagne had never been my first choice. My main concern now is how to make up for lost time: my eyes have truly been opened to the deliciousness, the complexity and the seriousness of fine pink fizz.

Despite having tasted some blissful rosés, both still and sparkling (Dom Ruinart 2002 springs to mind), I’d somehow never taken them seriously. I think I’d felt that pink wine relies on assistance to complete the jigsaw: the blissful Provençal view; the spray of majolica roses; bare shoulders and 22 in the shade. I now realise I may have been suffering from a lack of imagination. Or just prejudice. I am not the only one.

Madame Clicquot, one of Champagne’s famed pioneering widows, suffered from no such shortcomings. In 1818 she had the bright idea of mixing red wine made from pinot noir grown at her prized Bouzy vineyards with her still white base wines. In doing so, she engendered a new champagne category and gave the marketing men the Valentine’s Day gift that keeps on giving; but the most hardened cynic couldn’t fail to have been moved by the wines I tasted last week.   

Our day in Reims began with a playful blending exercise at the wonderful private Hôtel du Marc in which chef de caves Dominique Demarville and his team invited us to consider the impact of vineyard provenance and varying proportions of red wines in Veuve Clicquot’s rosés. Next came apéros and lunch, hosted by CEO Jean-Marc Gallot and cooked by Joel Robuchon, accompanied by Veuve rosés, including vintage 2008, and a rare 1955 Bouzy red in magnum. All the wines and courses were exceptional (I tasted the best artichoke dish of my life and some stunning truffled blanquette de veau), but the main take-away for me was the multi-layered fascination of La Grande Dame Rosé 2006.

That evening, at the Manoir de Verzy, we were treated to music, dinner and Jeroboams of La Grande Dame of different vintages including my favourite, 1990. There was a surprise, in the form of an exquisite violet-scented 2009 Clos des Lambrays. But perhaps the day’s biggest privilege came in the form of a vertical tasting of Veuve Clicquot Cave Privée Rosé from 1990, 1989, 1985, 1979, 1978, 1961 and 1947, with guidance from Dominique and master sommelier Enrico Bernardo. The 1990, 1985 and 1947 were all sublime, but it was the 1978 that really got the synapses firing. The harvest that year, we were told, was late and ripe and the yield very low. But was that marmalade? Malt extract? Apricot kernel? Chestnut honey? All of the above, and more. This is why we taste wine: no other drink has such potential to tell a story, express its origins, and then confound all known facts with a stroke of magic. There is no objective correlative for an end product like this. 

Pink may have been all the rage in the fashion and lifestyle worlds last year, when Millennial Pink made big waves; but the colour has always been in style, and it always will be. It’s frivolous, sweet, charming, universally flattering – but tweak the CMYK proportions ever so little and it can be serious, strident and loud. It can be reticent or, as demonstrated by Mme Schiaparelli, it can shock. It can simper or it can shout (indeed, Veuve Clicquot have created a gift box for their NV rosé in the shape of a pink megaphone). It signals submission, but it also signals power. Now, so they say, we’ve moved on to lilac. But I believe that Pantone Ultra Violet will be a flash in the pan. Lilac simply does not give the same paradoxical thrill. It’s pretty, sure; it can even be mysterious – but powerful? Non. Give me pink – in my wardrobe, and in my glass.  

Tagine

About an hour’s drive south of Marrakech on the road to Ourika, towards the High Atlas mountains with their scrub-clad crags, gorges and red riverbeds, there’s a turning to a town called Aghmat. This was an important Berber city in medieval times. Now, it’s a sleepy place where stray dogs lope, widows lean on walking sticks, and boys hang out in groups, or lounge with feet up on car bumpers. They stare candidly as you drive through the dusty streets.

For years, my father and stepmother lived just outside this town. They had hoped to live out their days there, but it wasn’t to be. Lord knows what has happened to the house they built now: it may be inhabited by a local grandee, or by another Westerner, or abandoned to nature. Its walls were made of the local baked earth, which needs to be reapplied and repaired every year without fail, as this is a place where the elements – the winter frosts, lashing spring rain and parching July sun – are far mightier than the hand of man. I wonder if its olive groves and orange trees are now tangled with weeds, the pergola derelict, and the house, with its large, airy, blissfully shady rooms, invaded by the frogs that used to congregate in the reed-fringed swimming pool every evening to strike up their noisy serenade.

It’s a lost time. My way of experiencing Morocco now is via the kitchen: couscous aux sept légumes; a crisp, savoury-sweet bstilla; the wonderful breakfast pancakes known as msemen, eaten with fig jam; or a sticky pot-luck tagine slow-cooked in earthenware. Tagine – to the Western ear the very word evokes the stew’s glossy stickiness. It's a doddle to make. If you haven’t got the proper eponymous earthenware vessel, use enamelled cast iron, but don’t expect the same soul. Tagines are fit for purpose, adept at doing their work of reducing, concentrating and melding flavours. So at any rate, choose a pan with shallow sides and a large surface area to allow the proper evaporation. I use my Le Creuset shallow casserole for large quantities.

Number one in the tagine hall of fame is lamb with prunes and almonds. Everyone has a slightly different take: here is mine, humbly offered. More or less any cut of lamb is fine. In rural Morocco, it’s all the same – leg, scrag, head, tail: you pay the same price for one bit of the animal as for another.

Lamb and Prune Tagine

Ingredients

• 1kg diced lamb leg, shoulder or neck
• 1 large onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 stick celery, finely sliced
• 2 medium carrots, cut into large chunks
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 handful of plain blanched almonds
• 750ml lamb or chicken stock
• A handful of pitted prunes
• 2tbsp lemon juice
• I small bunch coriander, leaves picked and stalks chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped mint

Method

Fry the onions, garlic, celery and carrots with the cumin, cinnamon, ginger, bay leaf and pepper on a low-medium heat until the onions are soft and translucent. Then remove these to a plate.

Turn the heat up slightly, add the diced lamb and brown evenly on all sides. You might want to do this in small batches to avoid crowding the pan. Towards the end of the meat cooking time, throw in your handful of almonds.

Return the onion mixture to the pan, pour in the stock and add the prunes, fruit spread, lemon juice and coriander stalks. Season generously. Bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down. Simmer uncovered for 30 mins, then cover and simmer for a further hour and a half. More, if you like. Sometimes I put the tagine in the oven and forget about it for a while. Or try to – it smells maddeningly good.

Check the seasoning, adding a little more salt and lemon if it’s a touch too sweet (though remember, like many Moroccan dishes, it’s supposed to be sweetish). Serve, scattered with the chopped mint and coriander leaves, with wholewheat couscous or bulgur wheat soaked (or cooked, in the case of the bulgur) in stock, drizzled with olive oil and scattered with a handful of toasted pine nuts.

Ourika.

Serves 4