Last month I had been to Barcelona， which is one of my favorite cities to experience Dom Pérignon & El Bulli‘s original collaboration decoding event-“It is not a dinner”. After an entire month of intensive projects schedule，finally I could sit down to share with you about his journey from my perspective.Until now that night is still very clear in my mind ，I think the real remarkable memory will never fade away. To be honest I was kind of nervous yet excited at the same time before this trip. Excited to see how was the cooperation going to be between these 2 respectful brands，also I was nervous to meet two legendary masters—Richard Geoffory and Ferran Adria ，who are the idols of many of my friends.But actually everything turned out perfectly in the end. It was so relaxing during the talks with them , they were friendly and down to earth, the conversation left an impression in me which was that of motivation and inspiration which to this day still is as fresh, and keeps spinning in my head.Food and Drinks are the artificial kinds of Arts in our Life, as well as theVisual arts and music.
The collaboration project between Dom Pérignon and El Bulli institute, is like an interesting experiment of combining two types of arts together.We all know the good quality wine always depends on the natural conditions. It is quite risky and also brave to insist on producing the vintage series only. As Richard Geoffory and Dom Pérignon team said,” Once you made a decision, it never changes. It always take a risk. You need to keep tasting continually during the entire process, we follow the rule of nature, what nature could offer us. Simplicity is the most original yet the best. And we all experience these. After all, everything is based on Philosophy & Science in the end.
As Mr Ferran told me:” Cooking is a personal thing, so is Art. You could cook whatever you like depends on your own taste. And the taste is all from your mind…Actually there is no such big taste difference among these multiple cultures. We all come from the same place, we are the same civilization-The Global civilization. But there is a difference between the Visual Art and Cooking: The visual type of Art is not as necessary as cooking in our daily life. Just imagine if someday art becomes one of the most important things in our life, how this world would look like? ” That is a very interesting point. Somehow I wish the world could become like that one day, but I realize it is such a Utopia fantasy.
“During the process of creating your works, all the inspirations , knowledge comes in at once, but there is only one kind of emotion comes out when you cook for your friend, that is Love.” Mr Ferran is not only a master of cooking, but also a real life artist, philosopher indeed.
“ It is not a dinner” night was just unforgettable.
When I tried the Vintage 2005 in the darkness, I started to imagine the scene: I found a river in the sunny, summery forest, then I jumped in to swim, felt all the refreshing coldness around me…Later the feeling becomes different with all kinds of snacks: The drinks help the food spreading your tastes buds bite by bite, the snacks provided the drink more layers as well. It was indescribable, I guess everyone felt differently that night.There is no doubt it was a good start of this decoding collaboration…but also nobody will exactly know what will they plan to do in next 3 years. But something unknown makes things more exciting. I do believe the meaning of collaboration is about find a refresh perspective , a new partner to create more new possibilities.
Photography by Anne Combaz.
