The best match for caviar - vodka or champagne?

For those of you who are lucky enough to be serving caviar this New Year's Eve I just dug this post I wrote back in 2009 out of the archives. Is champagne or vodka the better pairing? (I must confess the *research* was fun ...)

"One of the highlights of my recent New York trip was an extraordinary caviar tasting at Petrossian where I had a chance to taste for the first time the new farm-reared caviars that are coming out of the US and other countries such as Israel and China.

Petrossian, which was founded in France in 1920, now sources 98% of the caviar it sells from farmed sturgeon and may shortly be selling 100% if no quotas are issued for caviar from the Caspian sea in 2010. (None were given in 2009)

I tasted six caviars selected by Michel Emery of Petrossian with a American food writer David Rosengarten, the wine editor of Saveur. They were served simply with triangles of hot toast made from sweet, slightly milky-tasting bread and interestingly from chilled jars rather than ones put on ice which Emery explains makes the caviar too cold.

With them we tried Petrossian’s own vodka, a super-smooth, five times distilled spirit, two champagnes and, as a wild card, a Rolling Rock beer (David having a theory that beer is as refreshing a partner for caviar as champagne)

1) Royal Transmontanus (California) $69 per 30g
This American caviar had a good flavour but the least definition - fine bubbles that almost created the sensation of a smooth caviar spread in the mouth.

2) Alverta President (California) $107 per 30g
A caviar from an older fish (8 years as opposed to the average 6 years for the Transmontanus) resulting in larger eggs with more definition. Elegant with a savoury depth - David Rosengarten’s favourite.

3) Tsar Imperial Siberian (Florida) $139 per 30g
From the Baeri species of sturgeon, I personally found this a stronger, saltier more obviously ‘fishy’ tasting caviar with more structure and body than the others we tasted. It appealed to me less than the other caviars.

4) Royal Ossetra (Israel) $189 for 30g
Very fine-textured, delicate, slightly nutty with well-defined eggs. Very much what you’d expect from top caviar.

5) Tsar Imperial Ossetra (China) $208 for 30g
For me, given its origin, the most fascinating caviar of the tasting with a very fine texture and subtle, complex flavour. Second only to the Royal Sevruga below.

6) Royal Sevruga (Iran) $364 for 30g
A rare sample of aged wild caviar from the Caspian sea. (It came from the 2008 harvest - none is available in 2009) Smaller, less clearly defined eggs than the Ossetra but with an incredibly intense marine flavour. Wonderful.

The pairings
Having always thought that champagne is the ideal textural match for caviar (bubbles on eggs) I actually found the very pure, fine Petrossian vodka which was served in frozen glass flutes consistently showed off the individual flavours and textures of each caviar. Not least, I think, because of vodka’s mouth-coating oiliness which combined with its serving temperature sets the palate up perfectly

What I hadn’t thought about before was the issue of residual sugar in champagne which proved quite intrusive in the first one we tried - a Nicolas Feuillatte Blanc de Blancs 1998, less so with a lighter, crisper non-vintage champagne from Paul Goerg. The effect was less noticeable with toast but the caviars still tended to make the champagne taste slightly sweet and in the case of the Royal Ossetra (4) a little metallic. Better matches would have probably been a no-dosage champagne like Laurent-Perrier Ultra Brut or a weightier vintage champagne like Krug.

The beers too (we deliberately tried two very light ones - a Becks and a Rolling Rock) proved problematic. The latter was better though the only spot-on match I thought was with the saltier Tsar Imperial (3). But even that was very much a case of ‘you could but why would you?’. Caviar being as rare and expensive as it is it seems perverse to accompany it with anything else but a high quality drink. (It’s also been suggested to me that fine sake works well which I’d very much like to try)

All in all an utterly fascinating (and let’s face it, wildly indulgent) tasting, particularly for the chance to try this new generation of caviars which represent the future for this rare, luxury product.

Petrossian is at 182 West 58th Street (58th St. at 7th Ave.) New York, NY 10019 Tel: 212-245-2214

Photo (not of the original event) © gkrphoto

How to drink vodka like a Russian

I have to admit I accepted Leonid Shutov’s invitation to taste vodka with some trepidation having heard tales of the hangovers that some of my colleagues had suffered as a result of their visits to his Soho restaurant Bob Bob Ricard.

My worst fears were confirmed when he insisted that our vodka shots should be downed in one but as it turned out his assertion that ‘that was the way it was done in Russia’ was not a line.

I Googled ‘How to drink Russian vodka’ afterwards and came up with this excellent article on BBC’s h2g2 which asserted that “a traditional Russian drinking bout is generally preceded by toasts, during which it is considered rude not to drain your glass 'bottoms up' as a sign of respect to whomever is being toasted.” And who was I to be disrespectful?

Anyway we were there (in theory) to try three antique vodkas and to explore how they went with food or ‘zakuski’ - the little tapa-sized appetisers that are vodka’s traditional partner.

The qualities that are valued in vodka in Russia, Leonid explained, are smoothness and lack of aftertaste - “flavour in vodka indicates you can’t afford a more expensive drink."

Until the1980’s Russian vodka - which is always made from wheat not from other grains or potato - was the only beverage that would be drunk throughout a meal but Leonid genuinely believes it brings out the flavour in food. “You see flavours shine in a way they wouldn’t on their own.”

All the vodkas we tried were served ice cold ( -18°F ) in small shot glasses - he disapproves of drinking it at room temperature.

We kicked off with Kauffman Collection Vintage 2006 (£65 from the Vodka Emporium, £69.99 from Fareham Wine Cellar) The use of the word 'vintage' in relation to vodka indicates that the grain it is made from comes from a particular year. This is a limited production vodka - just 5000 cases - and to me tasted very smooth, slightly sweet and woody (it is apparently sweetened with honey) and very slightly minty: a perfect foil to a dish of jellied ox tongue with horseradish flavoured cream (above) that would not have been out of place at a Victorian banquet. Horseradish is a spot-on match for vodka.

The next vodka was Kaufmann Luxury Vintage 2003 which is apparently flavoured with shizandra or extract of magnolia vine and costs a hefty £23 a shot at BBR (though you can buy a bottle for a comparatively modest £135 at Fareham Wine Cellar). Only 25,000 bottles are made and it takes fourteen distillations to achieve the requisite level of purity.

Not being a habitual vodka taster I struggled for a vocabulary in which to write my tasting notes but it was again very pure and smooth with a faintly toasty flavour that apparently comes from infusing it with dried wheaten bread crusts. It was partnered with blinis and (farmed) Beluga caviar from the Caspian sea which confirmed the conclusion I’d reached in a caviar tasting in New York that vodka and caviar is a great combination - the smoothness of the spirit helps you to appreciate the texture of the eggs. “You need a nice big mouthful” encouraged Leonid who told me he used to put away a pound of beluga a sittling in a previous life. He also sneaked in a shot of Stoli red to show how coarse it was by comparison. “You just taste the fatty acids.”

The third vodka was the silky Russian Standard Imperial (£32.95 a bottle from The Drink Shop), one of Russia’s best-selling premium vodkas - eight times distilled and filtered through quartz: “perfect for the effortless cosmopolitan" according to the website.This was served with herring cured Russian-style with cinnamon, cloves and allspice and warm potatoes which Leonid instructed us to eat in order. the warm potato after the herring. There were also some pickled cucumbers on the side - again, a totally natural register for the drink.

Frustratingly (and possibly unwisely) we then moved on to wine - a 1990 La Conseillante Pomerol which was solidly matched with a beef Wellington with truffled sauce and a half bottle of Chateau d’Yquem 2001 - served with a delicate Bramley and Cox Apple Jelly which it slightly overwhelmed. But after the vodkas, neither seemed quite as exciting as it should have done. I just wanted to get on with exploring other vodka pairings.

I dined at Bob Bob Ricard as a guest of the restaurant.