Champagne On Ice
Champagne On Ice
Keep cool with this favorite French Riviera cocktail
Fashion icon Margherita Missoni isn’t just setting international style trends with her family’s sportswear brand. She’s also influencing the world of wine by making Champagne on ice quite stylish.
In Europe, Champagne on the rocks is called a Piscine — since the ice cubes are floating in a swimming pool of Champagne. The drink has been a summertime classic on the French Riviera and at swanky yachting parties for years. But the cocktail got some new exposure after Missoni recently said if she’d been on the doomed Titanic, she probably would have been sipping a Piscine — her favorite cocktail.
Sipping Champagne with ice cubes on a hot day sounds like a good way 
to end up with a watery drink. But we’ve got a couple solutions. You could always make your ice cubes out of Champagne, so the flavor isn’t diluted. (The cubes will be a little soft but they’ll work). Then again, the clever minds at Moët & Chandon have another idea. Late last year they launched Moët Ice Impérial, a more concentrated Champagne cuvée designed to be served on the rocks. We tried sipping it straight, but found it too intense. 
Dilution with ice cubes makes it light, refreshing and just right. We wouldn’t mind sipping Champagne Piper-Heidsieck NV Brut over ice — either; we’re still waiting for our invite to one of Piper’s infamous Piscine parties. I guess we’ll have to stop looking askance at people who put ice cubes in their wine.
Have you tried Champagne on the rocks? Tell us about your experience below!
Tags: Margherita Missoni, Champagne on ice, Piscine, Moët Ice Impérial, Champagne Piper-Heidsieck NV Brut
