Every time I go to Les Caves de Taillevent, I fall in love with that place once again. I love the setup, the caves, the staff and more importantly the food and alcohol pairing sessions that take place there.

I was invited along with 8 or 9 other people last Friday for a session of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne and food pairing. To be honest, I am not a big Champagne fan but I’ve never had Piper-Heidsieck before, and given that it’s one of the oldest Maison de Champagne around the world and has an excellent reputation, I thought I’d give it a try and get to know more about Champagne tasting. Moreover, my good friend and the super talented Nicole Maftoum was the chef for the evening, so I didn’t want to miss out on her dishes.

Before we started the tasting, we were served hot freshly baked bread with a delicious herb butter. Afterwards, we got to try out Piper-Heidsieck’s finest champagne, the Rare Vintage 2002 bottle which is a blend of 17 crus which matured for over seven years in the House’s cellars. This was one of the best champagnes I’ve ever tasted and it was different from all champagnes I’ve had before. In fact we all agreed that they should have kept it for last as the bottles that followed weren’t as good as this one.

The dishes we got along with this bottle consisted of 1 oyster with Salmon sashimi in a pea puree with fish roe, followed by an organic salad greens with tuna sashimi, quail eggs, edamame and a parmesan champagne vinaigrette. I loved the raw fish but what I enjoyed most was the salad dressing.

We got to taste the 2006 vintage brut and the cuvée brut afterwards with a Porcini Rigatoni with Saffron dish and a Quinoa Paella with shrimps and a creamy thai-base sauce. Both bottles were good but I’d rather have the 2002 with both dishes. Speaking of which, I loved the Porcini and the Quinoa Paella that followed was fresh and tasty.

Moving on to the best part of the evening, we were served four different desserts along with a glass of Rosé Sauvage. The Piper-Heidsieck Rosé Sauvage has a hint of red fruits and is elaborated with a majority of Pinoits Noir, which matched perfectly with the Red Beans Dark Chocolate brownie, The Labneh Red fruits cake with nuts and dried berries, the Chickpeas fruit tart with vanilla pudding and the Rose sauvage Champagne ice cream.

I was anxiously waiting for the Labneh, yup Labneh, Red Fruits cake and it was very light and delicious! The chickpeas fruit tart was surprisingly good and the ice cream was amazing. It was the perfect ending to a thrilling and enriching experience.

All in all, I got to appreciate champagne a bit more with this tasting and I would gladly have a glass of that Rare Vintage 2002 bottle with fish and seafood.