Wine and Antiques

M

MLipton

Mark Lipton
What wine do you open when your wife appears on TV to display a bracelet given to her on your wedding day by your aunt? In our case, it was a gorgeous bottle of Veuve Fourny Brut Nature Blanc de Blancs Vertus 1er Cru to accompany Jean's appearance on PBS's Antiques Roadshow tonight with a bracelet made for my paternal grandmother in Germany. The wine was splendid, everything we could hope for in a Champagne: creamy yet precise with zippy acidity and a mineral streak and a welcome lack of toastiness. With a dinner of chili rellenos stuffed with a potato-chorizo-cilantro mixture and a Rick Bayless pork shoulder stew.

link to AR episode
link to Web interview with Jean

Mark Lipton
 
Starts around 4:44 in the episode.

Brava to your better half!

And, clearly, your aunt liked you two. Rubies and pearls, eh?

Platinum bunsen burners in your lab, doc?
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Starts around 4:44 in the episode.

Brava to your better half!

And, clearly, your aunt liked you two. Rubies and pearls, eh?

Platinum bunsen burners in your lab, doc?
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Yes, I was quite close with this aunt, who lived in the Philadelphia area, but that gift took us totally by surprise. Jean was quite nervous and misspoke: we always thought that the red stones were garnets. D'oh! The Burma rubies created quite a backstage stir while they worked out whether it was even legal to sell the bracelet because of the ban. As Gloria said on air, they figured out that the bracelet was grandfathered in.

You'd be hard pressed to even find a Bunsen burner in my labs these days, platinum or otherwise.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
The Burma rubies created quite a backstage stir while they worked out whether it was even legal to sell the bracelet because of the ban. As Gloria said on air, they figured out that the bracelet was grandfathered in.
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AR has commented on this issue before.

You'd be hard pressed to even find a Bunsen burner in my labs these days, platinum or otherwise.
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Hm. I thought you boil wine and add powdered newt to it. Or something like that.
 
Very cool, Mark. I also like your description of the wine. I could use those exact words to describe Veuve Fourny's Cuvee R extra brut Vertus that I've been grooving on lately. Finely balanced Champagne.
 
originally posted by Todd Abrams:
Very cool, Mark. I also like your description of the wine. I could use those exact words to describe Veuve Fourny's Cuvee R extra brut Vertus that I've been grooving on lately. Finely balanced Champagne.
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Thanks, Todd. Yeah, we're getting fairly picky regarding bubbly in our dotage. We really like the raciness of BdB Champagnes and also like the zip of non-dosé fizz but also want some richness and creaminess to the experience. It really is about mouthfeel for us. Since both Jean and I now can't handle the toasty elements of a lot of otherwise fine Champagne, it limits the field considerably. Fortunately, this wine walks that fine line admirably.

Mark Lipton
 
Fabu! But how about the suit on the appraiser of the Mucha poster? That's got to be worth a lot. Or at least you'd have to pay someone a lot to wear it.

Amazing and sad story about your Grandmother's family, though, Mark. And of course it resonates today in the era of Bannon.
 
originally posted by kirk wallace:
Fabu! But how about the suit on the appraiser of the Mucha poster? That's got to be worth a lot. Or at least you'd have to pay someone a lot to wear it.

Amazing and sad story about your Grandmother's family, though, Mark. And of course it resonates today in the era of Bannon.
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Kirk, there's a lot more to that story, much of which I didn't learn until relatively recently. My grandfather told all 4 of his children to get the hell out of Germany and change their surnames (family name was Lipstein). All the kids did get out, my uncle to Cambridge, my aunt to Palestine by way of Italy and the other 2 to the US (my dad and the aunt who gave us the bracelet). The parents stayed in Frankfurt, though. I'd always assumed that they were old enough (60s) that they felt it not worth the disruption. I now know, though, that my grandmother stayed because of her brother, an epileptic, who couldn't emigrate. They managed to survive for years, albeit with increasing privation, but in 1942 were deported to Theresienstadt. In the pavement outside their former home are now two brass plaques commemorating their lives. When we visited in 2014 and saw those plaques in front of the Hotel Villa Florentina, the true enormity of the tragedy hit me. The losses that that family suffered are almost unthinkable. That's why Jean was barely fighting off tears when talking about it.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Wine and AntiquesWhat wine do you open when your wife appears on TV to display a bracelet given to her on your wedding day by your aunt? In our case, it was a gorgeous bottle of Veuve Fourny Brut Nature Blanc de Blancs Vertus 1er Cru to accompany Jean's appearance on PBS's Antiques Roadshow tonight with a bracelet made for my paternal grandmother in Germany. The wine was splendid, everything we could hope for in a Champagne: creamy yet precise with zippy acidity and a mineral streak and a welcome lack of toastiness. With a dinner of chili rellenos stuffed with a potato-chorizo-cilantro mixture and a Rick Bayless pork shoulder stew.

link to AR episode
link to Web interview with Jean

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

This is fabulous! :)
 
originally posted by MLipton:
In the pavement outside their former home are now two brass plaques commemorating their lives.
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Those are called 'stumbling blocks'. They're all over Germany and very effective at what they purport to do.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by MLipton:
In the pavement outside their former home are now two brass plaques commemorating their lives.
Click to expand...
Those are called 'stumbling blocks'. They're all over Germany and very effective at what they purport to do.
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all over the Jewish Ghetto in Rome too.Sobering to say the least.
 
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