Eden Smith writes Eden Smith is a doctoral student in Law at the University of Cambridge. His research mainly concerns the history of contract law in medieval England, but away from the manuscripts he spends most of his time thinking about cooking and the wine to drink alongside it. If his supervisor reads this, he promises he will soon finish his PhD.
Of popping corks and questions
I am not an especially superstitious person. I am, however, a pragmatist, and it does not do to tempt fate. Here’s a tricky question which does just that: what is the perfect champagne to open after proposing? My answer, at least, was a bottle that had been ready and waiting for several months. But when I saw this year’s competition — and despite immediately thinking, I’m about to propose, what a perfect theme! — I knew I couldn’t think about writing a single word. At least, not until I was safely up off one knee, and the ring was on the finger. I couldn’t let Jancis Robinson jinx my engagement, at least not more than buying the champagne in advance already had.
The moment itself was planned for a day in early May in Oxford, the city where Molly and I had met, and indeed where I caught the wine bug. A private balcony with views of the Radcliffe Camera and the University Church seemed perfect not only for the all-important question, but also (at least in my optimistic mind’s eye) for the right bottle with which to celebrate.
I knew, and know, that the details would not really matter; whilst the day itself, the place, the time, even the element of surprise, were all prepared down to the last detail, all that would really matter would be whether she said yes. After that, everything else would be irrelevant. Nonetheless, I thought, I do love wine. My girlfriend loves wine. I was not going to pass up the perfect excuse to continue to think about it instead of cracking on with some work.
How, then, to choose? Something we’d had before? Something new? Something safe? I thought about particular bottles we’d shared. After a close friend’s birthday at which the wine had firmly taken centre stage, I remembered my girlfriend had thought the best drink of the night had been that first glass of Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2000, totally fresh but still deliciously nutty at the same time. Pretty special, admittedly, but perhaps not all that personal to us. Given that, maybe something closer to home would be better? Molly’s parents have loved Nyetimber for many years, and we’d enjoyed many bottles on sunny days since I was first introduced to her family. But did I want to tamper with the winning formula of the Real Thing? Maybe not.
In the 1984 Christmas Special of Yes Minister, Sir Arnold Robinson observed that so often, ‘the problem isn’t really finding the answers, it’s finding the questions’. I tried a different tack: not which bottle, but which year? Molly is a great fan of the music of a singer named Maisie Peters. Attending one of her concerts had in fact been a part of the reason we were visiting Oxford on the date I had planned to propose (along with attending a conference which I’d fabricated in order to get us both in the centre of town during the day). In her song The Party, Peters sings that:
You’re my favorite comic, my Jupiter comet,
People ask how long have I loved you? No comment.
‘Cause probably since I was seven and you were eight,
We didn’t know each other, but baby, it was fate.
The year in which Molly turned seven and I turned eight seemed, to me at least, a pretty romantic answer to my question. I had one other factor to narrow down my pairing further, namely Molly’s preference for blanc de blancs. After some more musing (I really will get back to work soon, I promise) I settled on Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2007. As a medieval legal historian, a wine named principally for a thirteenth-century magnate already has me sold, but there’s also something about Taittinger — still family owned, after some back and forth — which holds its own amongst the dreaming spires, even down to the distinctive historic bottle shape used for its prestige cuvée. After some searching, and some abortive deliveries, I eventually had only one problem left: hiding it.
Molly has since confessed to me that although upon seeing the ice bucket on the balcony she realised what was about to happen, the fact that her first words were, ‘There’s champagne!’ were really more of a warning — watch out Eden, someone’s about to propose here! By the time she’d processed that this was not in fact a terrible mistake, and that despite the balcony being attached to our own room we hadn’t blundered in on someone else’s moment, I was safely down on one knee.
I have my own confession: I can’t entirely tell you how the champagne tasted. That’s not to say we didn’t drink it — we did, and we loved it. It was energetic, it was tangy, it had the brightness of fresh lemons but enough creamy depth that even though the sun disappeared for an hour, it worked perfectly. But I am unable to give you any objective description. Because at that moment it simply tasted pretty bloody marvellous.
Molly, I’m so very lucky I get to keep opening great wine with you, and I hope we have lots more great moments with which to pair it. And on the subject of pairs, I think we make a great one. Thanks for saying yes.
Published unedited and in accordance with the rules of the competition published here.
