Babette's Wine Flight
Serve when
Pour the Amontillado with the soup, the Champagne with the blinis, the Burgundy with the quail — let each glass arrive exactly as its course does.
What to drink
This is the rare film that narrates its wines course by course, out loud, at the table: dry Amontillado sherry with the turtle soup, Veuve Clicquot 1860 Champagne with the blinis, and Clos de Vougeot 1845 — a great red Burgundy — with the quail, before coffee and a fine marc to close. You can't buy the 1860 or the 1845, but you can echo the flight honestly: a good dry Amontillado, a real Champagne, and a village or premier-cru red Burgundy (Pinot Noir). It isn't a cocktail anyone mixes on screen — it's the meal's own pairing, and following it is the closest you'll get to sitting at Babette's table.
Ingredients
Steps
- Chill the Amontillado lightly and the Champagne well; let the Burgundy breathe at cool room temperature.
- With the turtle soup, pour the sherry — a small glass, dry and nutty.
- With the blinis and caviar, pour the Champagne.
- With the quail in pastry, pour the Burgundy, the biggest wine of the night.
- After the sweet course, serve strong coffee with a small glass of marc, and let the table talk until the candles burn down.
What to drink
Babette worked at the Café Anglais, and she plans this feast like a composer: each wine lifts its course and hands off to the next. The General, the one guest who knows wine, keeps naming the bottles in disbelief — it's how the film tells us, without a word of explanation, exactly who has come to cook in this poor seaside village.