Here’s something you may find surprising in terms of food and wine combos: champagne goes well with wagyu beef and sea bream sashimi. The tip came via Perrier-Jouët’s cellar master, Hervé Deschamps, over a cocktail party hosted by the label last Thursday evening in Tokyo. On Friday, this writer tried it, and the pairing was outstanding (if a bit unconventional).
Perrier-Jouët was in Japan (its largest market) to host its eighth formal “Eden” event, a casual soiree-meets-immersive experience in which collaborations and camaraderies are put front and center. In past iterations, Ellie Goulding performed (in Miami) and Naomi Campbell deejayed (in London). Tokyo’s edition, at the trendy and contemporary Trunk Hotel, saw a more artistic angle: an installation by the Chicago-based artist duo, Luftwerk (Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero), who work primarily with color and light projections. To note, the couple has quite the impressive track record of sites for said projections: Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed Fallingwater house; Mies Van der Rohe’s Farnsworth house and Herzog & de Meuron’s 1111 Lincoln Road among them. Next up, they’re flying to Colorado to virtually map the Denver Museum, before setting up a public work in Boston a few days later.
“Science and technology and art are a crossroads that inspires us,” said Gallero. “Somehow, light is infinite.” Their commission, on display at the Trunk and named Becoming, depicted gently swaying neon interpretations of Perrier-Jouët’s famed Art Deco anemone flower. It’s the overlap of science that brought the two entities together. Another thing you may not have known: one of Perrier-Jouët’s main inspirations is nature. The confluence between the two, then, felt even more synergistic considering that Tokyo is in the thralls of springtime (cherry blossom season is over, but the gingko leaves are a brilliant green and the city is fragrant). The event, therein, was a clever blend of commerce and creativity; a modern sort of Eden in one of the world’s most impressive megalopolises.
