You don't have to be a royalist to find it difficult to turn down a dinner invitation from a bona-fide prince - especially when he makes some of France's most appealing champagnes.
That opportunity came recently when Prince Alain de Polignac was touring the East Coast on behalf of Pommery & Greno, a 165-year-old champagne house whose performance has been improving under his stewardship.
And where better to meet with a prince than in Glen Burnie, where Trattoria Alberto sets a royal standard for cuisine in a shopping strip on Crain Highway?
It turned out to be a delightful conversation, not because of any title but because the 60-year-old prince is a very perceptive winemaker who has carefully thought out each of the wines in Pommery's line.
Pommery is not one of the best-known champagne houses in France, but it played an important role in the evolution of the world's most celebrated sparkling wine. It was one of the two champagne houses to establish a reputation under the reign of a legendary widow who had inherited the company. (Veuve Clicquot was the other.)
La Veuve Pommery, who took over in 1858, was a pioneer in the evolution of champagne from a sweet wine to the dry, ethereal beverage we know today.
In 1879, her daughter Louise, Prince Alain's great-great-grandmother, married Prince Guy de Polignac, a member of one of France's oldest noble families. Pom-mery slipped from family control around 1970, but Prince Alain continues to lead the winemaking team.
The prince, who is credited with lifting the reputation of a house that had sagged in the 1970s, says he has a vision of the role each of his wines plays at a sumptuous dinner. Each is crafted to suit its particular role.
The prince says the most challenging wine he makes is Pom- mery's Brut Royal, the company's least expensive wine at a suggested retail price of $33 (often discounted at the holiday season).
"The heart of the house, the beginning of the beginning, is the Brut Royal," the prince says. All other Pommery wines, he says, are variations on the theme.
According to Prince Alain, the Brut Royal is the Pommery wine to serve at all occasions outside the meal. He envisions it as a wine people sip while standing around talking and nibbling on hors d'oeuvres.
"The wine must be able to seduce you even if you don't pay attention to it," he says.
