Choose the cream of the pink Champagne crop

I’m a big fan of sommeliers and when I’m in the appropriate kind of restaurant — oh the memories! — I always take their advice on food matches.

In this time of virtual tastings, while it’s always good to hear from winemakers, being talked through wines by a sommelier is a real bonus and so it proved recently when Julie Dupouy guided us through three exceptional pink Champagnes from the LVMH stable, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart. Yes, the posh stuff.

Julie pairs her encyclopaedic knowledge of wine with a finely honed instinct for how it compliments food, and rosé Champagnes are, of course, arguably the most food-friendly. While I’d never turn down a glass of pink Champagne as an aperitif, I’ve found that it comes into its own with seafood. I had not tasted Ruinart for years. This is the oldest surviving Champagne house, dating from 1729. Their pink is based on lots of Chardonnay, 45%, to Pinot Noir, 55%. Very fresh with an emphasis on fruit, it spends three years on the lees yet remains what Julie neatly describes as ‘airy and evanescent’. Ruinart themselves suggest this to accompany carrot cake with orange icing which may well be a marriage made in heaven. I’m more likely to try it with lobster if funds allow.

Moët & Chandon’s Rosé was first made in 1794 and Napoleon liked it so much he snaffled 100 bottles. The current version, however, dates from 1997. It’s dry (with a dosage of just 7g of sugar as against 100g in the 1878 vintage), based on lots of Pinot Meunier and surprisingly creamy in texture for a non-vintage blend.

I can well imagine its touch of minerality marrying well, as Julie suggested, with beef tartare. I’d like to try her other suggestion: beetroot crisps! It’s miles better than the white NV, by the way.

Veuve Clicquot invented rosé Champagne so it seems only right that there should be lots of reserve wines in the blend, from two to 30 years old. There’s a lot of complexity, toastiness and a little butteriness in this beautifully salmon pink wine.

I’m adding a couple of other pink Champagnes to this week’s ultra-decadent suggestions, the first being Bollinger. It has been described as ‘intellectually stimulating’ by no less an authority as Jancis Robinson MW.

And I must throw in Laurent-Perrier’s Cuvée Rosé whose colour is derived from skin contact instead of the usual addition of red wine.