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

Category Archives: Uncategorized

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...

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...

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...