It is a summer of celebration for “Champagne King” Don Johnson who Page Six recently called “the most popular and prolific big spender on the New York nightclub scene.” Last Monday he bought a 15-liter bottle of Champagne at Avenue for the Women’s Soccer team and followed that with a $50,000 evening of Champagne at SL the next night.

He is most famous for buying the most expensive bottle of Champagne ever; the 30-liter Armand de Brignac Midas which was sold to the King for $270,000 last month in London. This gorgeous bottle is the new hot ticket item for the jet set and I thought I would take a closer look at this amazing bottle. The Armand de Brignac is produced in Montage de Reims in Champagne and by the award-winning Champagne Cattier chateau of Chigny-les-Roses.  The winemaker and his family have been making wine in this region since 1763. It is handmade from harvest to bottling and Jean-Jacques Cattier is very proud of his prize creation stating, “Our Champagne is produced from grape to glass through traditional hand labor-intensive methods. It is aged in a gated section of the cellars considered one of the deepest in Champagne”

The Cattier family produce three prestigue cuvees- Brut Gold, Rosé and Blanc de Blancs which are all stunners in their own right but true luxury is found in their Midas large format bottle. Named after King Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold, the 30-liter bottle is the equivalent of 40 normal sized 750ml bottles. The first bottle of Midas was sold back in January to a high roller at XS in the Wynn’s Encore Casio in Las Vegas and has been in hot demand ever since.

The Armand de Brignac Midas is not only gorgeous but it also was rated the #1 Champagne in the world at a blind tasting of wine critics and sommeliers.  In this tasting it beat out such heavy hitters as 2000 Dom Pérignon, 2002 Roederer Cristal and 1998 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. The wine critic Jancis Robinson has called this wine “tense and refreshing with secents in the floral/vegetal spectrum followed by real precision on the palate.”

The bottle itself is also a work of art and inspired by fashion designer Andre Courreges. The Ace of Spades insignias and pewter labels are applied by hand and then placed in velvet-lined boxes. This could quite possibly be the best gift ever for anybody who loves Champange. 2011 seems to be the year to pop a big bottle. Also check out the world’s largest bottle of Rosé, the six litre Bertaud Belieu.

Cheers!

Where to Buy: If you are out and about in New York you can enjoy Armand de Brignac at The Eldridge, 1Oak, and Tenjeune.

Click Here for more haute drinking from wine expert Tiffany Westlie.

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