Wine and Spirits Travel

To say the Perrier Jouet Anniversary Gala was over the top would be an understatement. Beaux-arts de Paris was filled with exquisite photographs of everyone and every time of the champagne. As we walked along through the gallery, we were all dressed to the nines and then some.  I had meticulously picked out a long black dress with a white beaded lace top and a graduated overlay over the black jersey bottom which fit in perfectly and it was certainly the perfect setting to sip Champagne . The evening included the picture of French elegance herself, actress Catherine Deneuve and her son, actor Christian Vadim, as well as model Jeri Hall and her daughter Georgia May Jagger, who is currently following in her footsteps as a model, and actor Alain Delon. Also on hand was Pernod Ricard royalty, including Chairman Lionel Breton and Cellar Master Hervé Deschamps, and the executives of the company's U.S. distributor, Southern Wine & Spirits.  I was honored to be one of only a handfu

After a disappointing dinner at Les Tablettes de Jean-Louis Nomicos, Paris once again showed me its magic. Or, more accurately, Perrier Jouet did. We went from dinner to a place I had yet to go to in Paris, even though it is one of the most famous – especially in the cocktail world. It was more or less the “home” of the infamous Ernest Hemingway. The bar that bears his name is in the Ritz Carlton and it was nothing like I expected. In what would probably be referred to as a “hole in the wall” if it were any place else, this tiny room holds no more than two dozen. What it lacks in stature, however, it makes up for in elegance and in some very creative cocktails. Our group was treated to a selection of highly priced (around 30 Euros a drink) concoctions by the gracious representatives of Perrier Jouet, who understood our need to have a little break from the bubbly.  I actually tried three of the mixtures, favoring the first, Serendipity. It was a combination of Calvados Pays d’Aug