Wine Blogging Wednesday: make you own foxey champagne

When a man grows tired of champagne he grows tired of…press conferences.
True. Champagne can be very tiresome when you’ve spent over 20 years having it poured down your gullet by enthusiastic PRs. Part of the problem is the quality of what is poured which usually is run of the mill Moët & Chandon.
And this is why I am pleased that Wine Blogging Wednesday#28, this month run by the Culinary Fool, is about anything sparkling but Champagne.
Just a mention of the name Moët and it gives me acid reflux. The reality is that Moët – and much of the champers business – has more to do with fashion and selling handbags than about champagne. Ditto Dom Perignon. Both are owned by the giant LVMH (think Louis Vuitton)
Foxeys Hangout is different. For a start it is based in Australia on the pretty Mornington Peninsula. Earlier this year, thanks partly to yours truly, it was voted winner of the Best cellar door with catering section of the Mornington Peninsula Golden Plate Awards.
What I like about Foxeys is that it is a business about passion as much as selling wine. And best of all if you buy their grog or drink it by the glass at the cellar door it is cheaper than buying it in a bottle shop because they don’t discount.
The food is great. It is simple and delicious with everything pitched at $9. And the whole lot is wrapped up in a pretty swish modern building overlooking a vineyard.
The winery is run by two brothers, winemaker Tony Lee and the cook Michael. The name comes from a tree upon which two competing local fox hunters hung their kills.
I’ve popped open a bottle of their Blanc de Noirs 2003 worth AU$25 (partly because I’d binged through all the prosecco and cava in a weekend of wedding annivesary/birthday celebration.)

Foxeys hangout cellar door: just a hour and a bit from Melbourne.

We drank it with lobster with Gordon Ramsay’s saffron Aioli.
But wait this gets better. The Lee brothers will even allow you to custom make your own sparkling. You can watch the disgorgement and select the dosage of sugar you’d prefer to put in each bottle. What you do is taste the house range sparklers plus some dosed at differing levels. You can even select the blend of the wine.
As the Foxy boys say on their website: “Sweeter? Dryer? White? Pink? It’s up to you to create the chemistry that’s perfect for your palate. Foxeys Hangout will keep a record of your specifications so that we can recreate your unique blend should you wish to re-order…”
If that’s not enough for you I’m going to break the rules. There are still champagnes that are made with passion and avoid the generic qualities of the mass marketed varieties.
Just go out and swig down a bottle of Jacques Selosse Substance grand cru brut made from 100 per cent chardonnay grapes. The bottle I tried with my, as yet unnamed, wine group was different to any champagne I’ve ever had. In fact it tastes a bit like a white burgundy.
As one of the group (I can’t remember who because we weren’t spitting and I later fell off my bicycle) said: “This is the other side of champagne.”
You can find it at The Melbourne Wine Room (125 Fitzroy St, St Kilda 3182 +61 3 9525 5599) at AU$400 a bottle.

PS: if you would like to win a copy of the spectacular new James Halliday’s Australian Wine Atlas RRP $79.95 (donated by Hardie Grant Books) go to my Menu of Hope entry. Prize code: AP37 I will post anywhere in the world.