Louis Roederer Wine Writers Awards

Monday night was nerve-wracking and exciting in equal measure. It was the Louis Roederer Wine Writers' Awards and I was up for Best Emerging Wine Writer.

I arrived at the Gherkin intoxicated by the promise of the evening. We all had to check our bags, Heathrow Airport style, through an X-ray machine, and walk through a metal detector. Christelle went off.

Shooting up 35 floors in the speedy lift, I got a rush of blood to the head, but was soon rewarded with a spectacular view across the London skyline. It was a Dickensian evening – smoggy and grey, and the city stretched out before me like a painting. The sky seemed to mirror the colour of the buildings out of sympathy. I spotted St Paul's in the foreground. It looked so tiny, like a scaled down miniature. The whole vista looked imaginary - a painted backdrop to our reverie.

I grabbed a glass of Roederer from a passing waiter and was disappointed to discover that my bellyful of butterflies wasn't enough to deter me from the canapés. I had hoped, for once, to be able to show some restraint. Soon however, we were being ushered up another floor into the tip of the Gherkin, where we were greeted by Louis Roederer head Frederic Rouzaud.

The evening drew a number of the wine world twitterati: Jancis Robinson was stood to my right in a tailored gray jacket, and Tim Atkin to my left. Rouzaud introduced the latest vintage of Cristal – 2004, which we all got to try. I remember being more impressed with the 2002 last year, but that may have had something to do with the novelty factor of trying it for the first time. The '02 was golden and rich in flavour, while the '04 seemed far more subtle and introverted.

Charles Metcalfe took the stage and the awards were announced. I was up against the dynamo that is Rebecca Gibb, Jancisrobinson.com's Richard Hemming and Gabriel Savage of The Drinks Business. Rebecca and I were stood next to each other, and, after racing through the first award, they were suddenly announcing ours. My heart began to pound. This could be it. This could be my moment.

Charles read through the list – it was exhilarating just to hear my name called out. 'This person has been rewarded for her remarkable reporting that defies her young years'. I knew I hadn't won - all my articles were features. Rebecca Gibb's name was announced and she weaved her way through the crowd and up onto the stage.

Hats off to Rebecca; a deserved winner. Not only is she a Master of Wine student, but she freelancers for all the top wine titles and is about to set up a wine school in Aukland - I didn't stand a chance! Other winners on the night were Jancis Robinson for her website, Decanter's own Andrew Jefford, who was crowned Wine Columnist of the Year, and Simon Woods, who scooped Online Wine Columnist of the Year. I stuck around for a few more glasses of fizz, then sloped off into the night with a bottle of Roederer swinging by my side.

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.