champagne tasting

We put our palates to the test over Christmas blind tasting an expensive (to us) champagne (Ruinart £55) with a cheaper champagne (£30) and a prosecco. It was not a clear outcome. First of all we nearly confused each other with what we were actually testing - 'which one did we prefer?' or 'which did we think was the most expensive?'. Settling on the answer that what we prefered would be the most expensive obviously. Of the three of us, we each chose a different one as our preference. I chose the cheaper champagne but have no idea why. The strange french sommelier who sold us the Ruinart swooned and almost fell to the ground in an overwhelming rhapsody of praise for this gloriously fat bottle and I was so impatient to see if it really was special. Maybe our palates need to be trained (mine has let me down on every taste testing so far even choosing cheap orange juice and cheap UHT milk). Does the average person really examine the taste or does the cost influence the taste? If you were at a beautiful party would you feel let down to be served Prosecco, or if the bottle was covered would you really know the difference? My local wine shop man adviced to me keep on tasting! I will I will! So henceforth I go to glug champagne, and to develop my taste buds along with strong opinions one way or another.

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”― David Orr, Ecological Literacy