The History Page: Bling in a Bottle
The Daily - Saturday, December 31, 2011
The Eiffel Tower and the snowglobe weren’t the only great legacies of the Paris World’s Fairs, though one of the longest-lasting icons spawned there resembles both. Louis Roederer’s Cristal champagne was the result of a meal hosted by Russian Czar Alexander II at the fair’s 1867 edition.
More than a century later, the wine’s history would bubble over into a controversy involving one of America’s richest MCs — a tale that began with some serious bling and ended with a boycott.
Cristal is arguably the most desirable bottle of champagne in the world, a pure status symbol. It’s what economists call a Veblen good — something like a Rolls-Royce or a Hermès Birkin bag, whose desirability increases with its price. That kind of exclusivity was exactly what Alexander II had in mind.
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