CHAMPAGNE MEMORIES AND CAVIAR DREAMS.

Byline: MAGGIE FARALLA, FOR THE NM

By Maggie Faralla

For The New Mexican 

A friend was moving away and a dinner was being held in her honor.

What can I bring? I asked our hostess.

Well, Barbara loves champagne, she replied.

Oh, goody.

Having not recently attended an occasion that required a bottle of bubbly, off I trotted to the wine store. Strolling back and forth down the aisle, my attention kept returning to a sparkling golden bottle on the rack. I carefully raised it out of place and watched the minute, effervescent bubbles dance inside. Mmmmmmm. Although I couldn't remember where or when, the Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs seemed to hold delicious memories of occasions past.

Within weeks, another champagne moment presented itself. An old and dear friend visiting, rather than leaving, Santa Fe. Some wonderfully ripe local peaches had me conjuring Bellinis.

On the same day I purchased the second bottle of Blanc de Noirs, I was invited to a wine dinner at The Old House Restaurant and Tavern at the Eldorado Hotel featuring the sparkling wines of Schramsberg Vineyards, with hors d'oeuvres and dinner prepared by chef Eugene Staples.

For me, the promise of an unopened bottle of champagne holds the sparkling promise of a festive moment to be had. When I think Champagne -- that word that we are not supposed to use when referring to anything other than a sparkling wine from France -- I think caviar, those big gray balls of beluga that pop delightfully in your mouth -- and memories of the now-closed Russian Tea Room in New York City return.

Before every red-eye flight out of Los Angeles to JFK in the late '70s, during my days as a rock-and-roll music publicist, I went off to Chianti on Melrose for my favorite pre-flight dinner of a negroni (think Italian martini with Campari added), followed by either veal marsala or osso buco -- veal was still on the map in those days -- and a fine glass or two of vin rouge to accompany my meal. Had that meal been today, I think I would have ordered the Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs.

After attempting to sell cover stories on the talent I represented to national magazines, my self-congratulatory reward at lunchtime was always my visit to the Russian Tea Room for Caviar with a capital C -- big gray balls of beluga and, of course, Champagne, when it was still called Champagne.

Enamored as I was with the Russian Tea Room's old-world glamour -- red-flocked wallpaper with dim sparkling lights that made the room look like Christmas year-round -- and the hopes of spotting Rudolf Nureyev, it was always my first culinary stop when in the Big Apple.

One day, I asked where I might purchase a tin of the beluga and was told that the smoke shop across the street, which was frequented by Russian airline pilots, was the place to go. Hmmmm. Black-market caviar. It gave me a thrill. For around $50, I scored a fat tin each time I visited. Those were the days, my friends.

Back to The Old House, 2008.

Joshua Alderetti, manager of The Old House Restaurant, our affable and informed host for the evening, ushered us into the dining room and Staples' first course appeared. To my joy, I discovered that it was three spoonfuls of different types of caviar, paired with a 2005 Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs. It was like going back in time.

A 90 percent pinot and 10 percent chardonnay blend with low tannins, light acidity and bright, young, alluring, fruitful flavors -- the Blanc de Noirs is my kind of bubbly. With its high pinot content and low, zesty chardonnay backbone, I felt rather like Ruth Reichl in a recent issue of Gourmet magazine, returning to Paris after a long hiatus. Same deal. Same feel. Same groove.

At the tender age of 14 or so at Los Angeles' highly regarded and long-standing Musso & Frank Grill (serendipitously featured in the current issue of Gourmet as one of 20 "Time's Tables," legendary American restaurants opened before 1941) -- everyone who was a son or daughter of Hollywood ate chicken pot pie at Musso's on Tuesday night -- I recall announcing during my parent's cocktail order that I would not be having my standard Shirley Temple kiddie-cocktail, but a cocktail befitting my years.

Obviously, that didn't fly -- but the following Thanksgiving at my Aunt Anita and Uncle Aldo's in San Pedro, Calif., my uncle allowed that I might have one finger of red wine added to my tumbler of 7UP. As the Thanksgivings progressed at Aldo and Anita's, the ratio of wine to 7UP reversed, until I finally reached the opposite ratio of about 90 percent red to 10 percent 7UP -- the origins, perhaps, of my attraction to the Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs with its 90 percent pinot and 10 percent chardonnay ratio.

That same year, on Christmas morning -- an occasion on which my parents always quaffed Champagne while opening presents -- I had my first sip of bubbly. It was probably Asti Spumante but I was a goner: I was obsessed with what I referred to as 7UP with a kick!

But, back to The Old House.

So here I am in Santa Fe and it isn't a big beluga moment -- it's been banned in the United States for several years due to overfishing -- but the third teaspoon-full on my first-course caviar "trio plate," a golden osetra, came about as close as I've come in many a year in this high desert land to caviar-comfort of the nth degree. Pop goes the egg, bursting forth with briny bliss. And at $120 per ounce it should give me a thrill. (I thought of those fat $50 tins of black-market beluga ...) I held a sip of the foamy sweetness of the Blanc de Noirs in my mouth and it bloomed like a flower.

A spoonful of hackleback was too fishy and lacked the prerequisite "pop" -- save it for the bagels, lox and cream cheese. An estate osetra was more refined, but still a distance back. Let's face it caviar-lovers, the bigger the ball, the better the pop -- that's easily half the joy of eating caviar.

In 1976, I had the occasion to participate in a memorable wine moment at Scandia restaurant, one of Hollywood's oldest and dearest. It involved a bottle of 1882 -- yes, 1882 -- Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. As Scandia later reported in the Los Angeles Times, "Scandia restaurant lost an old friend last week. Not a revered customer, nor the exalted chef, but a bottle of 1882 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild." The occasion, while grand in expenditure and obvious extravagance, was simply a "business dinner." Big business.

The rock group Kiss was Madison Square Garden-bound on an upcoming tour and Bill Aucoin, the mega-group's manager, was being hosted by Ron Boutwell and Rob Robinson, who merchandised the group's T-shirts, posters, program books, etc. I was the group's West Coast publicity agent, also headed East on the tour, and Bill's date for the evening. He selected the wine.

The trophy bottle was uncorked and decanted. The restaurant was a-buzz. All tables seemed to be focused on ours. All of a sudden our table had become the it table in the house: one would have thought the current Hollywood cover-story couple were seated there. Several well-heeled diners actually came to our table to ask if they might witness the "first sip," or possibly smell the cork.

After the appropriate decant, the wine was poured. Alas, it was barely drinkable. There was no guarantee what its drinkability might be -- one takes one's chances on such a rare vintage -- but it was a chance worth taking. We each enjoyed a sip of the noble wine, which was shared, due to it's prestigious pedigree, with the restaurant's owner, the sommelier, the chef and the ma"tre'd, among others.

We toasted the success of the group's upcoming tour and asked for the wine list.

Had it been today, I would have ordered the Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs.

After leaving the music business, Maggie Faralla trained as a pantry, pastry and line cook at Trumps and Spago in Los Angeles. In 1984, she moved to Santa Fe and filled the same positions at Santacafe, leaving in 1987 to become the first pastry chef at the Zia Diner and manager of Zia Bakery. After serving as Walter Burke Catering's pastry chef for five years, Faralla opened her own custom cake-design business in Santa Fe in 2000.

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