Jay-Z and Beyonce toast Obama with Ace of Spades

In a move befitting for hip-hop royalty, dynamic duo Jay-Z and Beyonce hosted a $40,000-a-ticket fundraiser for Barack Obama last night featuring a 350-bottle Armand de Brignac Champagne tower, as reported on db.com. Designed by Jeffrey Beers, the bespoke tower, composed of 350 bottles of Armand de Brignac Brut Gold NV, took centre stage at the glitzy event at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in New York.

“Floor-to-ceiling gold bottles fill the entire space. It’s beautiful, breathtaking. It’s the first thing you see when you walk in,” a spokesperson for the club told The New York Post. According to The New York Times, Obama kicked off the intimate dinner for 100 guests by thanking Beyonce and Jay-Z for their friendship. He went on to say that he felt a sense of kinship with Jay-Z because, “we both have daughters and our wives are more popular than we are.”

Beyonce’s speech was short and sweet: “I can’t tell you how proud we are to host tonight’s event with President Obama. We believe in his vision,” she said as she introduced the US president. The White House, which meticulously controls Obama’s image, is not expected to release any photos from the dinner. Before the event, Obama made an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Jay-Z’s relationship with Armand de Brignac, produced by Champagne Cattier, stretches back to the Champagne’s launch in 2006, when bottles of it appeared in his music video for the single Show Me What You Got.

The fizz, a favourite of rappers such as Kanye West and Drake, is facing a false-advertising lawsuit from Krug and Dom Pérignon owners LVMH over claims that it is “rated the number one Champagne in the world,” which LVMH believes is “intentionally misleading consumers.”

Usain Bolt treated to £80k Champagne at Movida

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt celebrated his triple Olympic gold medal win in style at the weekend when he was treated to an £80,000 bottle of Champagne on Saturday night after breaking the world record for the 4x100-metre relay. As reported on db.com, a 15l Nebuchadnezzar of Armand de Brignac Champagne, known as Ace of Spades, was brought to Bolt’s table at Movida nightclub in Mayfair.

The bottle, the equivalent of 20 75cl bottles, has a retail price of £80,000. “Usain Bolt was given a Nebuchadnezzar of Armand de Brignac Brut Gold NV,” said Movida spokeswoman Martina Pokorna. The Champagne house only produces one bigger size bottle – the 30-litre, 40-bottle Midas, which has to be ordered in advance at clubs.

Bolt, who scooped three gold medals at the London Olympics, was joined in the VIP area of the club by Jamaican sprinting teammate Yohan Blake, who Bolt affectionately calls “The Beast.” The pair partied with boxer Amir Khan, double Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah and swimmer Rebecca Adlington, who picked up a bronze medal in London.

Across town at Chinawhite in Piccadilly, gold medalists have been treated to a cocktail priced at the Olympic sum of £2,012. American swimmer Ryan Lochte and South African swimmer Chad le Clos are among the recipients of the cocktail, which contains Hennessy Paradis Imperial Cognac and Luxor 24-carat gold leaf Champagne. Lying at the bottom of the glass is a pair of 18-carat gold rings.

“The golden cocktail is our special creation, and we have given some away. Every night we have a presentation for the gold medalists, and it has been very well received,” said Chinawhite director James Spallone. On arrival at the club, gold medalists are handed a 75cl gold bottle of Moët & Chandon Brut Imperial. 

Largest rosé Champagne in the world released

Armand de Brignac has released the worlds largest rosé Champagne onto the market. As reported on the drinks business, the 15l Nebuchadnezzar of Armand de Brignac Rosé, equivalent to twenty regular 75cl bottles, is housed in the brand’s signature metallic bottle finished with a pewter ace of spades. Only a limited number of bottles will be produced each year for the global market.

The Nebuchadnezzar made its debut at private members club Nikki Beach in St Tropez on 1 June. “This was the perfect time for us to release the Nebuchadnezzar as rosé is synonymous with summer,” said Philippe Bienvenu, commercial director of Armand de Brignac, adding, “Armand de Brignac Rosé is fresh and full-bodied with a rich bouquet of red fruits and aromas of strawberries and blackcurrant – perfect for enjoying in the sunshine.” 

Last year the company released the world’s largest Champagne bottle format onto the market – the 30l Midas, named after the mythological god that turned everything he touched to gold. Equivalent to 40 regular 75cl bottles, the Midas weighs a hefty 45kg. Earlier this year young financier Alex Hope splashed out £125,000 on a Midas of Armand de Brignac Brut Gold at a nightclub in Liverpool, racking up the most expensive bar bill in the world in the process.

Yvonne Lardner, Armand de Brignac’s director of PR has reported a large interest in Nebuchadnezzar’s of Brut Gold NV in emerging market Nigeria, which are being used for weddings and large family celebrations. Lardner also reports an interest in Ace of Spades Rosé from men: “We’ve found our Rosé to be really popular with men, the stigma towards the style seems to have gone,” she said. 

Ace of Spades recently appeared in Nigerian singer D’banj’s music video for the song Oliver Twist. D’banj is signed to rapper Kanye West’s record label. Last month Wine and the City reported that Nigeria was developing a third for wine, and particularly high end Champagne, with its wine industry expected to reach US $370m by 2015.

City boy splashes £200k on Ace of Spades Champagne

A young financier splashed out over £200,000 on drinks at a Liverpool nightclub, breaking the world record for the highest bill ever paid in a club. As reported on thedrinksbusiness.com, 23-year-old Alex Hope spent £125,000 on a 30-litre Midas bottle of Armand de Brignac, known as Ace of Spades – the world’s most expensive bottle of Champagne. The 45kg bottle had to be carried to the table by staff.

He spent a further £80,000 on other Champagnes, vodka, beer and mixers for guests including Manchester City footballers Joe Hart and Adam Johnson and Manchester United star Wayne Rooney’s wife Coleen at the PlayGround nightclub at Liverpool’s Hilton Hotel, owned by George Panayiotou (pictured). Hope also ordered a further 40 75cl bottles of Armand de Brignac – the Champagne endorsed by rapper Jay-Z, and handed them out to single women in the club.

One clubber observed: “He didn’t seem to be drinking a lot and looked totally sober.” The £204,000 bill, including an £18,500 tip, is thought to be the highest ever paid in a club, beating the £170,000 paid last June by professional US gambler Don Johnson at the One For One nightclub in London’s Park Lane. “It caused a bit of a stir. We have some of the best Champagnes in the world, but nothing like that. Everyone was talking about it and wondering who on earth this guy could be,” admitted one worker.

The day after, Hope boasted on his website: “Just opened the world’s largest Ace of Spades bottle at the PlayGround. Great night! Miami Next!” After just three years in finance, Hope is well known in the industry as a high flyer, and has been tipped by many to become one of the biggest traders in London.

Armand de Brignac: the Jay-Z effect

On Wednesday night I was invited to a party at the Park Lane Hilton hosted by Armand de Brignac Champagne, better known as Ace of Spades, to celebrate their Brut Gold being voted the number one Champagne in the world.

The prestige cuvée, which sells for £250 a bottle, scored 96 points out of 100 in a blind tasting of over 1,000 brands organised by FINE Champagne magazine, beating the likes of Krug, Bollinger and Dom Pérignon to the top spot. Milling about the bar in a sharp suit was Armand de Brignac CEO Jean-Jaques Cattier, a diminutive man in his mid-sixties with Martin Scorsese glasses.

I couldn't resist asking him about the Jay-Z connection, and how he felt it has affected the brand. Jay-Z after all, is Armand de Brignac's biggest supporter. Since boycotting Cristal in 2006, Jay has got behind Ace of Spades in a big way, featuring it in his 2006 music video Show Me What You Got and introducing his high profile homies, including P. Diddy and Kanye West to the brand.

'I don't mind the association with the hip-hop world at all', Cattier tells me. 'I'm happy for the exposure Jay-Z's endorsement has given the brand. He's helped get our name recognized.'

So how did a small Champagne house in Chigny-les-Roses manage to catch the hip-hop mogul's eye and in three years command £450 a bottle (for the blanc-de-blancs) and have a demand that cannot match its supply? The story goes that Jay-Z spotted Armand de Brignac in a liquor store in New York three years ago and was so taken with the bottle design that he ordered three cases from the estate to be featured in his Monaco-based music video Show Me What You Got.

Cattier upholds the story that the two had never previously met, meeting for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival last year. But it all seems too convenient that the same year Jay boycotts Cristal, a new and suitably 'bling' Champagne comes onto the market. You've only got to look at the design - the flashy gold and silver bottles with pewter ace of spades labels to realise this could only have been thought up by someone in the hip-hop industry. It's got Jay-Z's stamp all over it, and I am far from convinced that the Champagne was conceived without his involvement. Perhaps with Ace of Spades, Jay-Z is being the ultimate magician, leading us to believe the illusion that he stumbled across a brand he actually created.

Champange Cattier are adamant that Jay-Z had nothing to do with the conception of Ace of Spades, but I wouldn't be surprised if the whole enterprise was his idea; a way of expanding his ever-growing empire and sticking two fingers up at Cristal while he's at it.

But what of the Brut Gold? Did it merit its 'best Champagne in the world' status? In a word, no. Sorry Jay. The nose was closed and I struggled to get much from it. It was better in the mouth, with detectable autolytic notes along with lemon zest and crunchy apples. Clean, clear and crisp, it had a rich mouthfeel and good mousse, but in comparison with Krug, DP and Cristal, it was big and clumsy, lacking the elegance and finesse of a world-class Champagne. It was more masculine, more in-your-face, more... bling.

Cristal: hip or hype?

Last weekend we hosted our Decanter Fine Wine Encounter at the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone. It was a great turn out - just under 100 producers from around the globe came to show off their wines, including Château Palmer, Chapoutier, Seghesio and Craggy Range. Château Palmer were showing their 1996, which proved such a hit queues around the stand were five deep with tweed-clad gents jostling one another, glasses aloft, in hope of a drop.

A number of the wine world glitterati flew in to present masterlcasses, from Michel Chapoutier and Christian Moueix to the charismatic Angelo Gaja, who provided the highlight of the weekend by comparing Cabernet Sauvignon to John Wayne as a lover and Nebbiolo to Italian screen legend Marcello Mastroianni. Wayne, he argued, would be strong and powerful but a bit boring, whereas Mastroianni would bring something different to the table (or bed) every night.

I got to try some sensational wines over the two days, my highlights being Angelus 2004, Chryseia 2007, and Gaja 1976 Barbaresco, which was to die for. I'd been looking forward to the final masterclass of the weekend – Louis Roederer, as we were going to be serving Cristal 1999 in Jeroboam. They were brought into the kitchen in their bright orange wrappers like giant Christmas presents. Three of them; the three kings. We unwrapped them and left them to chill in the ice box until we received orders to pour.

Created for Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1876, Cristal gets its name from its crystal clear, flat-bottomed bottle. Fearing assassination due to a rocky political situation, the tsar ordered the bottles of his favourite fizz to be made clear and flat so they couldn't be laced with poison or planted with a bomb.

In the late 1990s, with the emergence of 'bling' culture, rappers like the Notorious BIG, P Diddy and Jay-Z chose Cristal as their Champagne of choice, ordering it by the case load in clubs and boasting about their conspicuous consumption of it in their lyrics. Cristal became a byword for cool in the hip-hop world; the Champagne holy grail. Moët just wouldn't cut it anymore - it had to be Cris.

But the love affair with Cristal ended for Jay-Z at least in 2006, after Louis Roederer managing director Frederic Rouzard made the following comment in an interview with The Economist when asked if he thought the association with hip-hop would harm the Cristal brand: "What can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business." Jay-Z quickly boycotted Cristal, moving on to Armand de Brignac or 'Ace of Spades' as it's been nicknamed, which is quickly replacing Cristal in hip-hop circles as the trophy bottle to be seen sipping from.

But what of the Cristal 1999? How did the cult cuvée perform on the night? By the time I got some in my glass, after two of the three bottles were poured in the masterclass, it had gone flat. It was like arriving at a party an hour too late. As I sipped it, I imagined what it might have been like, had I tried it as soon as the cork popped. It was certainly light and elegant with a complex and alluring honeyed nose, but worth £2,200 a bottle? Of course not. No wine is.

Panic grew in the kitchen post-masterclass when doing the routine bottle count. Where was the third Jeroboam? The masterclass leader sent a search party out to the Champagne room, while we combed the kitchen fearing the worst. Could an opportunistic ticket holder have crept in and shoved it up his lambs wool jumper? Surely not. The search party returned empty handed. We were still a Jeroboam down. Retracing the bottle's last steps, I rushed to the ice box and flung open the lid - there it was, laid back, luxuriating in the ice.