Champagne Blanc de Blanc

Tweet

Small Town Opportunities – The Orchestra Comes to Town Talking about the Blanquette de Limoux with @toppfer reminded me of an evening long ago when we lived in Ravensthorpe, a very small country town in south-east Western Australia. A group of us wanted to bring some 'culture' to the town and the chance came to host the Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra through the Arts Council of Western Australia. The Melbourne Philharmonic wasn't particularly large or well-known but it was bigger than anything most of the townspeople had ever seen. To qualify for funding we needed an Arts Council so that was easy - we formed one. We then got six people to guarantee the fee needed to bring the orchestra. Next step was to sell the concert. We arranged for the orchestra to play for all the school-children in the district by bussing the kids into the central hall. We advertised a chicken and champagne supper. We billeted the players to save money on accommodation costs. There weren't enough motel rooms anyway. Our two boys were thrilled to have the unicycle-riding, stand-on-his-head comedian staying with us. In the end, we made a minor profit which was donated to the RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service). We also hosted a Georgian string player who had his own orchestra until he defected from his homeland. He and Vince stayed up drinking whisky till three in the morning. When they all left next day, the Georgian shook hands with me and kissed Vince on both cheeks. The point I really wanted to make though was that the cheapest champagne we could get was called Blanc de Blanc which, when said by most Australians, comes out as ‘blankety blank’. ‘Blankety blank’, according to Google, is a word used euphemistically to replace a word considered obscene or taboo. While the champagne wasn’t obscene or taboo it hardly qualified as ‘champagne’. However @toppfer says, in France, ‘blanc de blanc’ can be used for any sparkling wines made from 'a wine whose name I can't print because it contains a 'bad word''. For such a small town, the inhabitants did some amazing things. I remember those days very fondly. The photo is of some wine-barrels at a winery we visited near Poilhes in France.