Tag: JC Agid

When Art Meets Wine, Champagne Loves It

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When art meets wine, champagne loves it
(Post based on a conversation held at the Payne Whitney Mansion in New York City on October 26th, 2022 during a fund-raiser dinner presented by the American Friends of La Cité du Vin).

In 1973, Château Mouton Rothschild paid tribute to Pablo Picasso, who passed away on April 8th of that year, by decorating the Premier Cru Classé with an Atelier Mourlot printed label reproduction of the 1959 master’s painting, Bacchanale.  A century before, in 1874, Louise Pommery created the first brut champagne and became famous for patronizing art and artists.

To celebrate the symbiotic relationship between art and wine, which was highlighted in the 2022 Cité du Vin exhibition ‘Picasso, the Effervescence of Shapes,’ the American Friends of the Cité du Vin invited Maïlys Vranken, President of Vranken Pommery America, and Éric Mourlot for an exclusive conversation. “There are serious dinners in New York,” said the co-host of the evening, France’s Cultural counselor in the United States and director of Villa Albertine Gaëtan Bruel, “and there are joyous ones; this one is a mix of both.”

So, while tasting a vertical of Pommery Champagne, including a Blanc de Blancs Apanage and a Cuvée Louise 2005 paired with a dinner prepared by Tastings NYC-SoFlo and Alain Ducasse veteran chef Laetitia Rouabah, Maïlys Vranken and Eric Mourlot told the tales of their artisanal companies’ own relationships with art and artists.

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Art: Never Forget

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Art: Never Forget
English edited by Delphine Schrank

Who could have imagined in March 2001 that when the Taliban gleefully blew up the three giant Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, their appalling act of cultural vandalism was just a prelude to the assassination less than six months later of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the country’s iconic resistance leader, and just two days after that, to the attacks of September 11? Silent vigils to the endless vicissitudes of human history, these storied sculptures had survived countless previous attempts to ransack or raid them since their creation sometime between the 4th and the 8th century. 

More recently, Islamic State terrorists, or ISIS, made a central mission of destroying the archaeological sites across Syria and Iraq—art, the collateral victim of anger and stupidity. 

Archaeologists had previously dismembered many of these relics and transported them to major Western museums—art, the collateral victim, or assumed booty, of powerful nations, human vanity, and plunderers too.

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The Masked-Life of a Maestro in Times of Covid-19

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The Masked-Life of a Maestro in Times of Covid-19
Part Two of a digital conversation with Keri-Lynn Wilson presented by The American Friends of the Paris Opera and Ballet
Access to the full video of the webinar at the bottom of the post.

For a year now, governments—and often doctors—have redesigned how people can live to combat and survive the Covid-19 pandemic. In some regions, entire sectors have sometimes been shut down: travels, restaurants, hotels, and sport arenas, but also bookstores, museums, theaters, concert halls, and opera houses. Culture and art often don’t fall into the lines of the iconic contemporary word: ‘essential.’

Remarkably though, the Paris Opera was opened for a few weeks in the Fall of 2020. Hopes were then high in France that Covid-19 was being contained, yet it came back with a revenge. While rehearsing Carmen for her debut at the Bastille Opera, Maestro Keri-Lynn Wilson experienced it first-hand. Within a minute, rehearsals were halted, and the opera shut down by the French Government. The same happened for movie theaters, museums, bars, and restaurants. 

Wilson’s dream of conducting in Paris was postponed. So, she went back to New York and resumed what she had been doing since March 2020: sharing music online and studying new scores. She created a ‘Becoming the Conductor Series,’ on Instagram, launched a YouTube Channel, built her own playlist on Spotify, and shared many videos and recordings on her website.

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The Postponed Musical Feast of a Woman Maestro in Paris

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The Postponed Musical Feast of a Woman Maestro in Paris
Part One of a digital conversation with Keri-Lynn Wilson presented by The American Friends of the Paris Opera and Ballet
Access to the full video of the webinar at the bottom of the post.
A French version was published via Le Petit Journal

Only a handful of women conducted at the Paris Opera, and none of them ever took her baton to present Carmen, possibly one of the greatest operas of all time. The Canadian-born Keri-Lynn Wilson was supposed to do just that—and to also make her debut in Paris last December. 

With the threat of Covid19 everywhere, and the measures local and national governments have taken to contain the pandemic, Wilson’s calendar has been reduced to just a few performances. A digital tour of her website (here) lists the many changes: A Concert with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Opera Gala at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Carmen at the Bastille Opera, Rigoletto with the Bayerische Staatsoper, all canceled… With the exception of the opening streamed-concert of Mozart’s Week last January 21st, Wilson actually has not conducted for a live audience since March 2020.

Yet, had the French Government not decided to shut down all theaters in France a few days before the Christmas holidays, she would have led an exceptional performance, in times of Covid19 and in a major European city. A musical feast.

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At Your Home, Without Me. Alexandra Morris’ Own Guide to Reinvent Parties

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At Your Home, Without Me: Alexandra Morris’ Own Guide to Reinvent Parties

— Note that Tastings and Vranken Pommery America, along with the French Institute Alliance Française, will host a webinar / food, wine and Champagne tasting next June 29th at 630pm EST. Although limited to FIAF Young Patrons, you sill could participate by registering through Tastings Website (Click Here) | limited spots available, fee applies for dinner, wine and champagne delivered to your doorstep in New York City (60USD per person all included) —

The New York restaurants were asleep, all of them, when thousands of miles away, the godfather of dining, of elegance and the signature behind the crême brulée discreetly passed away in his native hilltop Tuscan village of Montecatini at the age of 88. Sirio Maccioni, the founder of the legendary Cirque, had defined an era of New York cuisine. Sirio was not a chef, but a Maître D’, a master in welcoming the rich, the famous, the Sinatras, and and the rest of us, the invisible food lovers. When he was in Manhattan, Sirio sat at the entrance of Le Cirque everyday faithfully, until its doors were finally closed in 2018. Sirio hired the best chefs from around the world, and was notorious for stealing them from other kitchens, which is how he came to find Daniel Boulud in 1986.

To Alexandra Morris, the glamorous, mischievous, somehow reserved, founder of Tastings–one of New York’s most renowned catering companies, as well as two restaurants in East Harlem, Maccioni was a legend.

When restaurants eventually wake up from the Covid pause New York, the landscape will be an uncharted territory. The elders perhaps will recall Maccioni’s tales and wonder what he would have done to adapt to the new gastronomic scene and to the disappearance of flamboyant cocktails and galas for a while. Alexandra Morris has already started to imagine her new tasty relationship with her clients, the restaurant at home and the digital parties. She calls it, ‘Tastings 2.0.’

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