Please contact me for private tasting parties on (646)322-3658 or email Karl@charlemagnefinewines.com

Author Archives: Karl Curran

Champagne, for the buyer who wants to understand a little more…

July 27 2017 posted by Karl Curran
We all drink Champagne from time to time, however few of us understand how to buy Champagne. This is a an educational piece on the various types of Champagne one can find on the market. I buy primarily for my clients who appreciate it, but also I buy as it is the perfect choice for my Gift-Boxes paired with chocolate truffles. I find there is a high demand for the better quality wines which are not as commercially driven as the more famous Champagnes such as Veuve-Cliquot. Education is king and hopefully these few paragraphs will help you discern the better bubbles next time you are in the market.Champagne is roughly ninety miles east of Paris. It is famous for growing primarily three different grape varietals that make the famous sparkling wine. The three varietals are Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. There is a word the french use to denote...

Tar and Roses.

August 19 2016 posted by Karl Curran
Have you ever been invited into the wine cellar at a friends house? It pops and says something about the owner, you can tell what the person is like by the wines they choose. Its very similar to looking at their library, fascinating to get into the mind of the enigmatic type. These cellars vary from place to place. In Paris top private cellars will be exclusively French. Hong Kong is all about marquee names, brands with strong financial clout. In London you will find wines from all over the world. Overall London and New York are where you will find an even distribution and the most interesting cellars. Los Angeles has some amazing collections, dominated by local picks which are excellent, and the exciting thing is that a lot of the buyers are open to trying something new. Showing an unsuspecting buyer the beauty of a Meursault premier cru or a Cannubi Barolo is a...

A gastronome’s journey to entrepreneurship, part 2

November 17 2015 posted by Karl Curran
Voila, I said I wanted to do this professionally and now i’m doing it! I recently launched Charlemagne Wine Tasting Dinners. We have done three evenings so far; our last dinner was a moment of triumph. I am collaborating with a great chef, Mr. Graham Heldreth, who is helping me realize this dream. Graham worked at the Beverly Bouchon in Beverly Hills and is an extremely talented man with a desire to learn and please his guests. I look after the wines and Graham is preparing the menus. The style of cooking is modern American done to a high gastronomic level. The wines are all imported from France and Italy, and they too are of top pedigree. All of the clients so far are loving the experience with its tremendous cultural backdrop, loaded with history and accentuated by exciting facts about the wines and how they pair with the...

A gastronome’s journey to entrepreneurship, part 1

November 17 2015 posted by Karl Curran
I was young when I attended catering college in France. I must say, when I was there I had no clue how cool it was. I didn’t realize what a two star Michelin restaurant was even though I was working in one for my Easter holidays during that school year. I was working at Pierre Gagnaires’s place in a well know French ski resort for the Christmas break. That restaurant was my first taste of gastronomic cuisine. After I left France I got a job on the trading floor in London thanks to my fluent french. I was working as a currency broker during the bull market of the 90’s. Leverage was in and to all intents and purposes I was Jerry McGuire with an expense account. Being a currency options broker was almost like having baseball star status. I went to the best kitchens all over the world—Lucas Carton, Taillevent,...

A Dinner Fit For A King

August 3 2015 posted by Karl Curran
This summer I held a dinner at home with my wife for some friends who have supported my venture, an entertainment and lifestyle business all based around fine wine, the culinary arts and travel. I feel there is a great opportunity to extend my knowledge of the culture and the wines and food of France & Italy in this format. To that end, I thought it a good idea to have guests participate in the kitchen so they too can feel the moment. Thereafter it would be easier to understand the wines and their pairings in the dining room, offering some real value and a sense of belonging. knowledge is power.   At the forefront of my mind is making sure my guests would enjoy themselves. I was thinking to myself, work on the basics. The quality of the food & wine will do the trick. I was looking for qualified people who can...

Orange, Tain and Burgundy

March 31 2015 posted by Karl Curran
All of these pictures are of vineyards in Burgundy & the Rhone valley, namely Hermitage and Chateauneuf- Du-Pape. As a wine buyer I am looking for a common denominator on my choices. Every taster has an identity. My identity or how I would like to be judged, is that the wines I choose are brimming with elegance. What does this mean? Elegance in wine speak means that the alcohol levels are in sync with the acids and phenols within the wine. Of course I am referring to wines that are considered to be fine wines. There is a nice mouthfeel when the balance of the ingredients are in harmony with each other. When the balance is out of whack, it will usually lead to a bad experience. I have deliberately selected some photos from Chateauneuf, Hermitage and Burgundy as quite often these wines are perfectly balanced and consequently very...

Bordeaux Renaissance

March 28 2015 posted by Karl Curran
Due diligence is paramount if you are selling something as complicated as higher end French and Italian wines. The customers are passionate and have a thirst for knowledge. This is my point of view for the 2014 Bordeaux vintage and the current state of the market. Bordeaux wine is more than just wine, it’s a financial barometer, not in the same way as oil, gold, or real estate, however it moves in tandem with these asset classes. It can and does outperform them on yield. Recent seismic moves such as the collapse in the price of oil and volatility in global currency markets reflect instability. It seems there is a flight to quality, US assets are in high demand and naturally enough this had led to a strong dollar which is tremendously good news for Bordeaux. What happened to Bordeaux after 2010 is a grey area. It’s sadly a...

Re-Uninification: Life in The USA

June 27 2014 posted by Karl Curran
I wanted this site to be about life and community. This June of 2014 will mark my eleventh year living in the USA. I miss the UK and Ireland. I miss football or soccer as they call it in the US. Funny how I still look at the BBC website first thing every morning to see the results from the night before. When I lived in London, I used go to Arsenal and watch midweek games. Now far away from all of that I think back, estranged and lacking a sense of community. I am in a chat group on ‘what’s app’ with a few of my brothers and some friends on saturday mornings which keeps me in the loop, an identity of some sorts. We talk about what’s happening, transfer talk and general bollocks. It’s quite funny, me and my brother John are Arsenal fans and there is...

Face your fears

June 25 2014 posted by Karl Curran
I was walking on a beach in Brazil when suddenly life became so much clearer and all because of a rash guard emblazoned with ‘Face your fears’ had caught my eye. The slogan had translated itself into its real meaning. O’Neill is a surf apparel company and coincidentally I was staring at the huge surf in Buzios, Brazil’s most famous surf town. I had taken a vacation in South America from the craziness of the global currency markets. I saw this T-Shirt and I knew there and then my days as a currency broker were over. I was going to face my fears. If I had seen that T-Shirt in some bar in London it wouldn’t have meant a thing, but the size of the waves and the sheer sight of guys getting thrown about the surf like rag dolls made me grab my balls and ask myself what...