At Wine Shop, a Taste of Luxury Amid Financial Fears

Outside Maison Du Vin yesterday, the sky was gray, the woods were as bleak as the economy and the air was damp with the promise of snow.

But inside the Great Falls wine shop, the black beads of caviar rested on a fluffy layers of creme fraiche.

The Pierre Peters champagne seemed to cleanse the mind, as well as the tongue. And the Scottish salmon tasted fresh from the oak chips in the smokehouse.

Caviar, champagne, smoked salmon? At worrisome times like these?

Especially at times like these.

"After you have a glass of champagne," said Bill Lane of Great Falls, who was on hand for yesterday's free taste fest, "you don't really worry at all."

That seemed an important sentiment among the modest group of customers and store staff who bucked the gloomy national mood to savor the delicacies of the czars and the clans and the beverage of celebration.

"We're drinking champagne and eating caviar," said store wine expert and longtime winemaker John Fitter. "What could be better than that?"

Well, the caviar -- fish eggs -- was American, gleaned from paddlefish by a firm in Savannah, Tenn., southwest of Nashville. It's cheaper than foreign caviar, Fitter said, at $45 for two ounces.

But what is the attraction of eating fish eggs? "I guess the texture, for one, is very interesting," Fitter said. "And the rarity. It's a very decadent sort of food. . . . Mink coats, champagne, caviar, these are all luxury items."

"But people aren't going to stop drinking because the economy's bad," he said. "And once you get to a certain price point, you've got a lot of people who aren't as heavily affected by the economic downturn."

Indeed, as late-fall snow flurries began outside, about a dozen people mingled in the store, which opened last summer in a Great Falls shopping plaza. They swished champagne in glasses. They sniffed champagne -- one man said his smelled like apple cider.