Anniversary time

 Well, it's that time of year again - my birthday!  Which would quite rightly be of little interest to you, dear reader, if it were not also the anniversary of my retirement - the fourth anniversary to be precise.  It's also very close to the lovely Jackie's birthday, so (as Private Eye would doubtless put it) trebles all round!

This year, we decided to celebrate these marvellous events with an unprecedented display of wanton extravagance and buy actual champagne.  Specifically, Bollinger.  I don't know why it's happened, but the lovely Jackie's historic preference for Lanson has been cast aside for Ab. Fab's Patsy's slug of choice.  I can't even remember whether I've ever tasted Bollinger to be honest, let alone whether I like it better than Lanson, but no matter; this time, Bollinger it must be.  After all, one only becomes 64 once in a lifetime, eh?

All this is a long-winded way of getting round to the main theme of this post, which is something of an old standard of mine - being aghast at excess.  As you all know by now, I am not, by nature, an extravagant person.  Rather the opposite, in fact.  I generally want to have a go at things myself, instead of letting some mere professional, armed with the proper tools and a lifetime of experience, have a go on my behalf.  But if I do have to pay someone else to do something, I definitely don't want to feel ripped-off afterwards.

So, where does a bottle (or possibly a magnum?) of Bollinger fit into this spectrum?  Well, I recognise that champagne is definitely outside my production capabilities, so once the decision has been made, I'm actually OK with it, on a one-off, special occasion basis.  But for the avoidance of post-retail rip-off syndrome, I've had to go online and check out the options; and thus accidentally expose myself to the world of extreme champagne prices.

The bottom end of the champagne market starts at about £13 a bottle.  

For example: Comte de Senneval Champagne Brut (Lidl):  The tasting notes begin "Given the high cost of making Champagne, one would not expect it to be available at this price.  Indeed not.  Their in-house wine taster goes on to describe it, with admirable candour and restraint, as "Perfectly respectable".  Fair enough.

Then there's a popular lower-mid-range: for example, our old favourite Lanson at £35 from Waitrose: "Extra crisp, dry style with bountiful finesse".  Indeed so, but at £35 a bottle, it's already moved well into special occasion territory for me.  Surprisingly, the champagne market is so tight nowadays that you can buy Taittinger, which sounds to me as if it should be in the next category, for a mere £34 - and in a pretty box, at that.  

Next is the "standard premium" range, where everybody has heard of the names:  Moët & Chandon, Bollinger, Pol Roger, Krug, Veuve Cliquot etc.  These are typically yours for about £50 a bottle.  Of course, we're still talking about non-vintage blends here.  We haven't got anywhere near excess yet.

Like car manufacturers, some champagne houses have a "premium" brand - for example, Moët & Chandon's fancy-pants label is Dom Pérignon.  (The brand used to be owned by Champagne Mercier, but they gave it away to M&C as a wedding present - aaaw!).   DP is always vintage, so it's only produced in good years - which, oddly, turns out to be nearly every year.  A bottle of 2010 will set you back about £150, or roughly £35 a medium glassful, and a bottle of 2006 rosé will be about £285 (£70 the glassful, which is getting a bit extreme IMHO).  But if you can stretch to £325 for the bottle (just £10 a glass extra!), you can have exactly the same stuff, but with a label designed by rock legend Lenny Kravitz! 

At this point, the noise from my rip-off alarm is becoming rather overwhelming, and I need to take some time out with a glass of something Italian at about £5 a bottle to regain my sense of perspective.  But of course, we're not done yet.

Most of the quality stuff for day-to-day drinking by the extravagant is in the £150 - £200 range, and typically you're getting a fairly recent vintage, from a respectable house (as you'd expect for £40 a glass).  But after that it all gets a little more complicated - in the next price range (a mere £389, or possibly £495 - but who's counting?) for the bottle, let's call it £100 the glass, why not? hic! you find Moët & Chandon MCIII, which they describe as a "Multi Vintage Champagne".  Isn't that what everyone else would call a "non-vintage champagne"?  Hmmm...  Still, it's won lots of awards, so who cares?  I'll take a dozen cases.

The top end of hand-crafted, old vine champagne should really be appreciated by connoisseurs, but is probably only ever bought by extremely rich people who just want to show off how much money they've got.  We're talking stuff like the newly-released Krug Clos D'Ambonnay 2002, of which a bottle can be yours for just £2,500 (with free UK delivery!).  It's awfully special - they only made 4,743 bottles and 240 magnums from that particular year's crop, all from a tiny 0.68 hectares plot.  I make that a total street value of £13m!  At £7.7m/acre, you can see why they called 2002 a good year.

Anyway, enough about booze.  For some unaccountable reason I found myself on a "fashion" site the other day.  Obviously, "designer" fashion is the poster child of ridiculous excess, but normally you get something that's at least distinctive for your money, like this "textured top", maybe:

distinctive...

Obviously, you could quibble about the £1,424 price tag, but at least you would be buying yourself some kind of attention, even if does turn out to be a bit uncomfortable getting settled into the Lambo.  And it is made by someone with a name - Charles Jeffrey Loverboy (whoever he is).

 But have a look at these:

knitted vest-top

That particular item (just the vest-top) will set you back a cool £1,177.00 from un-ironically named FarFetch.  Be careful though.  Remember it's dry-clean only.

Maybe you're thinking that's a bit too formal for you?  How about a simple tee-shirt?

tee-shirt, designer style

This time the irony button is stuck down, with that sprayed-over logo!  There's nothing on the back by the way.  But "With a New York logo print to the front, this T-shirt from Palm Angels is taking you on a journey through sleek casual style. All aboard."  So - are you ready to get on board for £140?  Oh, I nearly forgot - it's hand-wash only!

Of course, you can't just go out in a tee-shirt, so you'll need some trousers.  Maybe just jeans?  Maybe a pair of Levi's would do?  Well - yes and no.  Specifically, you'd need a pair that look like this:

"designer" Levis

"these straight-leg jeans from Valentino x Levi's have a loose, comfortable fit. Casual style never looked so good"

Well, as long as the scale of casual style goes infinitely negative, I suppose that's true.  I'm not sure exactly what Valentino has done to these once-genuine Levi's, but it will cost you £650 to buy a pair and find out.  At least your maid will be pleased this time.  They are machine-washable.

You get the idea.  Personally I think that these people are perfectly aware that they are taking the piss, big time, and they probably don't sell many of them - but at £650 a pop, you don't need to, do you?  Some poor sap out there thinks that because it's listed next to the Prada, Ballenciaga and Stella McCartney, it must be similarly valuable.  Stella McCartney, meanwhile, knows what really makes a designer tee-shirt.  This is the real thing:

the real thing...

The key difference is that this tee-shirt says "Stella McCartney 2001" on the front.  There's no mistaking  it for some piece of crap from the "everything £2" rail from your local street market.  It's clearly the work of a true design genius, and worth every penny of the £175 asking price.  Even if it is hand wash only - after all, your maid needs the work, doesn't she?

Perhaps the real selling point is the extraordinary "composition" of this garment: it's made from Cotton 100%, Polyamide 100%.  Neat, eh?

The upside of all this wailing, gnashing of teeth and general aghastness at the preposterous, prodigal profligacy of those encumbered by an excess of cash is that now, I'm actually surprisingly comfortable with the idea of lashing out on a bit of Bollinger at a mere £10 a glass or so, for a special occasion.  Actually, it almost seems like good value.

Just as long as it doesn't get to be a habit.