Mazedar

The Urdu word mazedar is used to describe the idea of wanting to experience something over and over again. The word is often applied to food, and is said to describe the magical essence of a food’s flavor. Often, the (insufficient) one-word translation is: yummy. The idea of a flavor being so gravitational that you want to experience it again and again is a concept that anyone who has tasted a great wine immediately understands. So thank you, Urdu. (Urdu, by the way, is a form of Hindustani and is the language of Pakistan).

Prestige Cuvée Champagne wines are defined as those wines that come in elaborate, expensive bottles.

Answer: False.

Prestige cuvée Champagne bottles may come dressed in finery, but it is what’s inside that earns them the title. These are the finest (and most expensive) wines that a producer makes, from the best grapes in the top, highest-rated crus or vineyards of Champagne. The French refer to these singular offerings as têtes de cuvée, a term that can be loosely translated as “top batch.” Prestige cuvées are almost always vintage-dated, and are made only in exceptional harvests, on average 3 times per decade. One reason for this is that Champagne is one of the most northern wine growing regions in the world—at roughly the same latitude as the U.S.-Canadian border—with an inherently cool climate where the grapes struggle to ripen. Prestige cuvées are aged longer than other vintage Champagne wines (on average 10 years versus 3 years) and continue to develop in the bottle for another decade.

“On more than one occasion in recent years, I’ve opened a wine list in a trendy restaurant and been a bit stumped. A lot of choices, but on the entire list, I may recognize about half the wines. I cannot imagine how a customer with less knowledge about wine than I, if such a person exists, feels reading an obscure wine list like that. Except intimidated. Which is not normally why a human goes to a restaurant. That’s why you go to church.”

—Ron Washam, The HoseMaster of Wine

Mazedar

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