Lunch on Sunday with my daughter and her children. What is served is a chicken with leeks and noodles shaped like rice grains. We go directly to the table and open a Champagne Brut Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin non vintage that must date from the Seventies. The cork is very tight in the neck and I operate gently so that it does not shear. The pschitt is auspicious. The color is rather clear, the amber being little marked. And it is at this moment that a miracle occurs. The nose is powerful, evoking peach. The fruit is subtle and the fragrance is noble. In the mouth, it is the birth of Venus by Botticelli. And I hardly exaggerate. For what enters the palate is of indefinable perfection. The champagne is of an absolute balance and of an irreproachable quality. To reach this absolute level, the initial material must have been perfect. Everything in this champagne is balanced. It is a simple champagne, generous, full, solar, absolutely without defect. Every sip is rewarding. One wonders: « How does it make to be so perfect? « . It is only happiness and every sip we marvel. It is not in the complexities of champagnes more typed. It is in the purest joy of living. Every sip until the last one amazed me.

I must quickly tell Dominique Demarville, the man who makes Veuve Clicquot so that he knows that this non-vintage of the Seventies represented a form of perfection.
Small interesting detail: I bought this champagne from an Italian importer. It seems that journeys form youth and benefit the champagnes!