WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS OVER 6000 WORDS LONG AND WILL MAKE YOU BUY SIGNIFICANT QUANTITIES OF CHAMPAGNE
As long-time readers will know, New Year’s Eve has long been a special evening for me every year, as I always make sure to spend it with the world’s #1 collector of Champagne, otherwise known as Big Boy. One of our other, frequent drinking buddies happened to be in town as well this New Year’s, otherwise known as Bad Boy, another of the world’s top connoisseurs of Champagne. Add into the mix the world’s #1 expert on Champagne, Richard Juhlin, and you may be able to imagine the rest. Make sure to add ‘and then some.’ And when 2012 arrived, all through the house, every creature was stirring, thanks to Deadmaus.
Now normally, Mr. Rosania hosts an evening of rare Champagne and wine for many fine friends in his home on New Year’s, but thanks to some domestic construction, we were out and about this year. But I am getting ahead of myself, as four days before we welcomed 2012, Richard Juhlin stepped off the plane from Stockholm, and we welcomed him with open bottles. There were three nights of Champagne hosted by the Wine Workshop, and then one hosted by Big Boy, and the momentum kept building throughout the week until I couldn’t take it no more, which was about 2am Sunday morning.
I had the good fortune of meeting Richard Juhlin for the first time earlier this year, on the small yet lovely island of Aland in the North Sea. We were both there in honor of the ‘Shipwrecked’ auction, when we set a record for the most expensive bottle of Champagne ever sold. We instantly hit it off thanks to our mutual passion for Champagne, although he drinks it a lot more of it than me, an estimated 300 nights a year. I’m probably just over 100 myself, cut me some slack, will ya? Richard is closing in on 8000 unique Champagnes tasted, not even counting multiple notes of the same wine. Of course, Rob will tell you he has tasted 8001 lol. Much like Allen Meadows in Burgundy, Richard has taken over the Champagne space to become the voice that matters the most, and I couldn’t think of a better ambassador; charisma is his middle name. A former athlete and fitness nut to this day, Richard knows the value of both working hard and playing hard; we focused on the playing hard part ?.
