Veuve Clicquot Champagne Dinner
Every month, the Limelight Hotel in Snowmass, Colorado, hosts a memorable, affordable multi-course pairing dinner for at least 50 guests and diners to enjoy.
This past month of August 2023, Limelight decided to give us a taste of the high life with a unique champagne dinner that featured 4 different varieties of champagne made by Veuve Clicquot, one of the world's most well-known and renowned champagne producers. Each of these champagnes were served with a unique dish that each paired wonderfully with the next, and I am more than happy to share this experience with you, my readers.
The Champagnes
Before describing the incredible plates of food I received, I thought I’d go over the incredible varieties of Veuve Cliquot champagne that we got to taste.
First off, a quick question: What is champagne? Champagne is described as a white, bubbly wine that is often associated with high-end eating and celebrations. Often, champagne is produced in the Champagne region of France and can set someone back a couple of hundred dollars, but cheaper champagnes do exist.
Anyway, the 4 champagnes that myself and the other diners got to taste were:
Veuve Cliquot yellow label. The signature style of champagne for Veuve Cliquot’s quality and style has been the symbol for the house since 1772. If you imagine what champagne tastes like, you will likely think of this one. That light, crisp flavor accented with lots of bubbles, plus its relatively inexpensive price, makes it a great champagne for any get-together.
Veuve Cliquot Rose: First created in 1818 by adding some red wine to the yellow label champagne, this Rose has a bit of a deeper, richer, fruity flavor that makes it a great pairing for red meat, fatty seafood, and chocolate.
La Grande Dame: The most expensive champagne served at that dinner, one that costs $350/bottle, and a tribute to Madame Clicquot, the La Grande is a true treat that is slightly sweet, earthy, and about as bubbly as you would expect from such a bottle of top-quality champagne.
Veuve Clicquot Demi-Sec: A term for a medium-sweet wine, the Demi-Sec provides sweetness and loads of fruity flavor that makes it the perfect champagne to have with light desserts such as cream puffs, ice cream, white cake, and fruit tarts.
All 4 champagne varieties were a delight to sip upon, but now it’s time to get to the supporting players for this champagne journey, the food.
Amuse Bouche: Oyster Phyllo Quiche
After sitting down with our first champagne of the evening, the yellow label, we were then given a few little bites to awaken our palettes and get us ready for an amazing meal, which coming in the form of mini oyster quiches with a phyllo crust, crème fraiche, a Worcestershire custard filling, and a bit of caviar.
I will be honest, I might be one of the last people to jump on the oyster train so I was rather nervous about these. Fortunately, these oysters were cooked into the quiches, so that made the experience that much more enjoyable for me.
The flavor and textures of those little bites were on point as well. The crisp, flaky phyllo pastry, the savory custard filling with a bit of an umami kick from the Worcestershire, the tangy cream on top, and that pop of salt from the caviar made it perfect little bites to enjoy with our champagne.
Course 1: Octopus Croquette
To pair with our sparkling rose, our next food item was a unique octopus croquette that consisted of a ball of pressed and cooked octopus wrapped in potatoes, fried, and served over a sauce made with Madeira wine and truffles known as perigourdine sauce.
The octopus itself was very tender, it had a very sweet, mild flavor that paired nicely with the crisp potatoes on the outside, and that sauce, although the diner next to me claimed that it tasted burnt, I quite enjoyed the roasted, tart flavor that it provided to lift the flavor of the octopus.
Course 2: Crispy French Pork Tomahawk
After that little croquette, it can be hard to imagine what dish could possibly come next and be served with our $350/bottle Le Grande Dame.
Oh, how about a huge double-cut pork chop that’s been breaded and fried, then served with a herbed sour cream, creamy mashed potatoes, and pickled roasted pearl onions?
Despite the complaints I heard from my fellow diners, I thought that my chop was incredibly juicy, the breading brought a nice texture and had a bit of a bite to it, but that is the sort of thing you get with chops like that. Then you get a creamy, tangy flavor from the sour cream mixture on top;. However, I somewhat wished that sour cream was served on the side as it did somewhat get in the way of that crispy pork, the mashed potatoes were just-as creamy, and I liked the acidic, pickle flavor from those little onions.
Course 3: Pate a Choux Swan
For our dessert, we were treated with an adorable little Pate a choux pastry swan filled with a white chocolate mousse and served with a creamy vanilla creme anglaise.
There is only one word that I have for this dessert, and that is perfection.
The pastry was light, tender, not super eggy, and was filled to the brim with that creamy, nutty white chocolate filling that was so creamy and light, you almost didn’t need the anglaise, but dragging the pastry through that custard sauce was both fun and enjoyable as it provided a bit of extra moisture to the puffs, as a good sauce normally does.
There are few things that I would change about the Veuve Clicquot champagne dinner, and it only makes me excited for the next dinner that Limelight will host.
