Take a smoke on the bubbly side: cigars and champagne

Well, I'm not such a cigar smoker. Guess that's a confession. Nevertheless let’s attack the interaction between cigars and those fancy bubbles, better known as champagne, on the basis of some food-wine pairings insights (hey, I'm a food eater and a wine drinker, so no objections here).

What is Champagne all about? First of all bubbles, ooh yes, loads of them. Secondly, combine this with the use of the Champagne grapes (in general chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier in combination or on their own, although there are also some other grapes allowed) and all this is translated into a drink with high acidity.

This is a refreshing drink, open ups your taste buds and makes you long for that nice food. So it is primarily an aperitif wine which however (certainly some millesimés or special crus) can be used as a companion to the meal.

Now the hard part, cigars…

Well, you have alread read my confession, but there is more: I am what Spanish tend to call a “BBC fumador” that means that I only smoke a cigar at Bodas, (weddings), Baptismos (baptisms) or Communiones (cummunions) (I can not be held responsible for the Spanish spelling nor the English translation). In practice, on average I smoke 1 a 2 cigars each year. So I went on looking for some tasting notes on cigars and what I found match to a great extent the few smoking experiences I had.

So the following tastes I have found: raisin, dried plum, sweet syrupy fruit, honey, earthy notes, spices, wood, tobacco leaf (off course ;-)), dark chocolate, etc.

Well if I have to do a categorisation I would put this tastes within the “mature” / “ripe” taste (see KLOSSE, P., Het Proefboek). No young fresh fruit here but ripe and dried fruit. Earthy notes, mushrooms, spices such as vanilla fall all within this “mature” category.

Moreover, from the tasting notes I have read it is clear that a cigar is very rich in taste (if a cigar lover wish to contest this assumption that he raises his voice now or otherwise be silent eternally).

About the actual mouth feeling, I did not found much. But what I recall is that a cigar has the inclination to dry out your mouth.

If these three elements are combined, I tend to go for wines that are rather powerful such as a white Burgundy, wines on the basis of the nebbiologrape (Barolo), a Brunello, or southern Rhône wines famous for their spicy (garrigues) character, cabernet sauvignon wines and so on. So not Champagne as such.

However as regards the typical acidity of Champagne, I agree that it will have a nice refreshing impact on the mouth after a heavy cigar. And I also fully agree that if Champagne is used, it should be an aged Champagne and in my opinion preferably a special one, like a special cuvé or millesimé, in order to be able to give some “resistance” to the heavy flavours of a cigar.

Conclusive, it can be stated that as with fine food for a fine cigar you need to taste and look for the right drink pairing. Above are just some general rules and I always say that the proof of the eating is in the pudding. So if anyone would volunteer to put the theory up to a test and have a champagne-wine-cigar evening, always welcome. I would gladly join...