During a dinner at the Otto Geleng restaurant in Taormina we met Alice Tétienne, Krug winemaker, to find out more about the champagne of the famous production company
Sicily has always been an island where the cultures Yes meet and yes crossing. It's a perfect place to hear stories we've never heard before. It may seem strange, but a Taormina we met Champagne, intended first as a region of France and then, of course, as a sparkling wine.
We met him toasting (over and over) with Alice Tétienne, Krug winemaker, original and always passionate about the Champagne-Ardenne region.
The historic champagne production company chose Sicily to tell its story, also through meetings with different gastronomic traditions. On the occasion of a dinner at the exclusive restaurant Otto Geleng of the Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo (only eight tables), we exchanged a few words with Alice, especially intrigued by the story that is hidden in Krug Grande Cuvée.
To make a bottle (every year a new edition) are needed 20 years: the latest edition, the 167, is an assembly of 191 wines from 13 different vintages, ranging from 1995 to the 2011.
Krug is special: how would you tell even the less experienced of champagne?
«It is special because it is the dream of a man, of our founder, Joseph Krug (1800). For him, champagne was absolute pleasure and wanted to make sure that it was always available, regardless of the climate, which influences and varies the quality of vintage in vintage: for this it created the Gran Cuvée, an assembly of several vintages and reserve wines. We have one incredible diversity in our territory and this allows us to produce precisely the champagne we want, regardless of the weather conditions that change over time and in different villages. All this offers one richness of aromas difficult to achieve with wines of a single vintage .
What is your role in Krug?
«In total we are six people in the enology team and everyone has a specialty: mine is being responsible for relations with the vineyards. In Champagne the vineyards are owned by the winemakers and the maisons buy the grapes. The work is carried out like this: there is no recipe, we usually do five months of tasting, let's try so many assemblages, each year in a different way, to recreate the same emotion.
What do you like most about this job?
«I love mine territory and stay in the vineyards. I want my region to shine in time: to make it so, we must Respect the enviroment more and more, readjust vitivinicultural practices to face climate change and always make a quality product. This is why I am always in contact with the winemakers. There is confidence we all know each other in Champagne. "
Speaking of this, Alice refrains from stopping one more day among the beaches of Taormina, despite being her first time in Sicily. He must return to Champagne to meet the wine growers: there he created a collective, to help them obtain a new European certification that guarantees the unique quality of the grapes.
Champagne for the whole meal: how would you drink it?
"Champagne can match all dishes. In the Grande Cuvée, in particular, we can find a world of different emotions, which can be easily combined with all the kitchens. My favorite pairings were with the sushi and with the Thai cuisine.
We tried it in conjunction with the chef's gourmet menu Roberto Toro at the Otto Geleng restaurant.
As it happens, even the Grand Hotel Timeo, which houses the restaurant, was born after meetings details: named after the German painter Otto Geleng, who in 1863 had stayed with Don Francesco La Floresta in Taormina to devote himself to painting.
The spectacular landscapes immortalized in his watercolors caused a sensation in Berlin and Paris, since nobody believed that such beautiful places could exist for real. To show that it was not all his imagination, Geleng returned to Taormina with the skeptical artists who had criticized him. Soon, Floresta turned into an elegant luxury hotel and, during the Grand Tour, became a place of passage for the rich European nobility who came to Taormina to discover its culture.
In gallery below, some samples of our trip to Taormina.
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