Wine and Music
September 8, 2021
by Edouard Bourgeois
I think it’s safe to say that I’ve been actively playing piano for as long as I’ve been enjoying wine. I should also specify that I grew up in France so the fact that I was around 12 when this started can easily be explained. It started with an obsession for Rock’n’Roll and its roaring Boogie-Woogie parent that I would play at night while my parents were trying to sleep. I was painfully hammering the piano keys, convinced to sound just like Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and other Rock’n’Roll pioneers. It was around the same time that my dad, at the dinner table, introduced me to the finesse of Volnay or the delicate bubbles of Champagne from my home region.
My dad would ask “Tonight we have guests, Edouard. You’re gonna play something right?”. I would greet my parents’ friends at the door with pride. At one point of the night, my dad would introduce me and say: “Edouard, why don’t you play something?” I would hop behind the piano in a heartbeat and start playing for the crowd. I would get rewarded with the right to sip on whatever wine was served that night from my family’s cellar. Everyone was happy.
Ever since, I have always found an intimate relationship between the juice and the tune. I have experienced the same range of emotions from listening to Thelonious Monk and sipping on a 20 year old pristine bottle of Beaujolais. Those two, by the way, make for an exquisite wine and music pairing. If Beyoncé gets drunk in love, I can certainly relate when it comes to feeling a buzz with music.
However, many factors will determine the experience of wine drinking and music listening, two activities I love to intertwine in the same room. Creating a coherent and meaningful moment is key to maximizing the experience. Would you really enjoy a complex and rich 1990’s Batard-Montrachet if it was served too warm, in a red Solo Cup while watching the Super Bowl? Would you really enjoy listening to La Traviata if it was played out of your iPhone 3 speaker while attending a screaming toddler birthday party? NO. I like a cold Pilsner on a hot day after a bicycle ride. I like listening to Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” while cruising down Big Sur in a convertible. It doesn’t hit the same if the situation is not right.
I will be playing piano and singing at Special Club, the room downstairs from Niche Niche, which has been on my radar for a while. It has that natural old school Jazz Club feel where you could easily picture a bunch of mobsters and their ostentatious entourage storm in to sip on shiny Champagne bottles. We are not going for that kind of party though. Instead, we have selected many large and festive bottles of our favorite wines from top producers to be shared across the room while I play my favorite tunes.
I have been wanting to do this for a while. Now it’s happening, and I can’t wait to see you there.
