What you eat and what you drink to one of the elegance contests most important in the world?
We have been to Villa d’Este where for the past 90 years the vintage car show is held and the four-wheeled queen of the party sponsored by is elected BMW. All on Lake Como, a Cernobbio.
First of all, never say the word machine (which could be sewing), and in the garden they are andmove cars from the roaring twenties from the last century up to futuristic prototype bodywork current where the outstanding Voiture Noire by Bugatti stands out, from which you expect to see Darth Vader descend at any moment. Unveiled for the first time to the public, it costs 16 million euros (which was awarded the design award of the competition)!
The setting bordolago on the terrace of the hotel where the private lounge of was set up Vranken Pommery it is a triumph of lifestyle and here they serve (in rivers) Pommery Apanage Demi Dosé, 40 months on yeasts. The blue of the champagne house is combined with that of the Rolls Royce Cabriolet, while the bronze of the Ferrari 275 GTB / 4 seems to be the color of the toasting club sandwich that they serve at will (one of the most devoured dishes albeit with icy elegance), the yellow of Livornese Bizzarrini GT Strada 5300 recalls the color of lemon in gin and tonic. One of the 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B runs a competition-winning 8-cylinder Berlinetta Touring together with the cars. salade niçoise, smoked salmon with wholemeal bread with Tropea onion and Salina capers, burratine and chopped tomatoes is caramelized pistachio cream with chocolate ice cream.
And meanwhile it is raining.
Simon Kidston famous speaker does not have time to present the first car and the sky opens and the universal flood comes down but undaunted it does not make a turn even if his sartorial suit is soaked. Nathalie Vranken and her husband Paul-François, owners of the champagne house, they joke that everyone is so careful about cars that no one realizes that the level of the lake is rising.
Emma Beanland, Welsh by birth but adopted by the principality of Monaco, winner of the best suit of the competition aboard a Delahaye 135M of 1938 trusts that at home are crazy about Italian cuisine and the son Luke Spencer Roberts young actor based in Los Angeles toasts with a glass of Pommery sixteen months on the lees in the blue plastic glass strictly with ice to drink on the beach with friends as will happen next summer (when it arrives).
Text and photos by Giacomo Bretzel