There’s poetry in this man’s soul. The Sommelier and Beverage Director for Birmingham’s Silver Pig Group (Michigan, USA) recalls a luncheon in a Chicago restaurant when he was the “young, rookie, green, waiter.” It was held by a group of food and wine collectors who started the meal with 1982 Salon Champagne. They “offered me a glass”, Antoine tells me. “It was the first time I remember smelling a wine and closing my eyes because the aroma alone transcended any wine I had experienced… one of those moments of synesthesia where you can hear the smell and taste the sight of the bubbles.” Wow.
Antoine, it transpires, claims Champagne as his favourite wine region (“My Code38 doesn’t help much, but Champagne is the best!” he declares.) And yet what’s currently turning him on are the 2011 Rosés from Europe. They have, he says, just started arriving – “and as usual the best producers are killing it. Patriomonio Rosé from Clos Teddi is phenomenal.” He says he loves rose all year around, especially from Provence, but if he had to pick one grape variety as a favourite it would be Chardonnay.
“Hands down”, his favourite white is Puligny-Montrachet, while favourite red is Cornas (“Just wish there was more of it”, he regrets.)
He reckons that the most exciting wine his Code38 has had to tackle was a Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet ‘Les Pucelles’ 1990. “An industry colleague brought the wine into the restaurant and the cork was a little shady”, he says. “The coated helix, weight and balance of the Code38 made me confident enough to calm my nerves.”
A Sancerre is his pick when it comes to a wine he would recommend to other Code38 members – specifically the Henry Natter Sancerre 2010. “I just had this with a mushroom carpaccio over the weekend”, he tells me, “and the two were phenomenal… that kiss of older oak really held up the earthiness and texture of the mushrooms.” (that poetic soul again!) Antoine says that this wine is imported by Vintage 59 in the US.
The highest praise, however, he reserves for his Code38. It is, he claims, “simply the best wine tool ever made. Maybe one of the best tools period.”
