The diamond dash

James Sherwood

• 1998 Nicolas Feuillatte Palmes d’Or Brut, £75. The Nicolas Feuillatte co-operative makes one of my favourite standby NVs (£17.99 if you buy two at Majestic) and this Pinot Noir-dominant blend, aged for eight years, is a cracker, full-flavoured and supple.

• 2000 Dom Pérignon Brut, £95. Named after the monk who supposedly ‘invented’ champagne (he didn’t, he spent most of his time trying to stop the bubbles appearing), this not only looks the business, it is the business, full of creamy brioche, buttery toast and peaches.

• 1999 Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque Brut, £95. If this wasn’t so silky, balanced and downright delicious, it would make it on to my list on the strength of its elegant and distinctive art nouveau label alone. It really should be sipped from a showgirl’s slipper.

• Krug Grande Cuvée Brut, £100. The only non-vintage in my top ten, its meticulous winemaking and inimitable style demanding its inclusion. Fermented and aged in small oak casks, it is simply sublime with both freshness and power and a long, long finish of toasted nuts.

• 1998 Gosset Celebris Extra Brut, £100. Gosset can claim to be the oldest wine producer in Champagne, having been founded in 1584 (Ruinart is the oldest sparkling wine producer). Celebris is a stunning fizz, full of almonds, pears, quince and hints of honey.

• 1999 Philipponnat Clos des Goisses Brut, £105. Now in the hands of the family’s 16th generation, Philipponnat can boast something of a curiosity, a single-vineyard champagne. A 70 per cent Pinot Noir and 30 per cent Chardonnay blend, it is rich, ripe, rounded and rare (only 1,600 cases were made).

• 1998 Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill Cuvée Brut, £115. This tiny, family-owned house makes consistently scrumptious fizz. Of her father’s famed fondness for Pol Roger, Churchill’s daughter, Lady Soames, once said, ‘I saw him many times the better for it, but never the worse.’ • 1997 Bollinger RD Tradition Brut, £120. Crikey this is good! But with 65 per cent Pinot Noir in the blend, and lengthy ageing on the lees (it was disgorged in March 2008), this is almost too full-flavoured for an aperitif. Enjoy with a socking great lobster thermidor.

• 1998 Taittinger, Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut, £130. The Gold Medal Winner at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2007 and 2008, this is made solely from Chardonnay, of which just the tiniest proportion spends time in oak. It is both creamy and citrussy, with a lingering finish.

• 1998 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Rosé Brut, £185. OK, it’s a ridiculous price, but pink champagne is so frivolous and so decadent and this one, named after the ‘Widow’ herself, is just so flipping delicious, full of bready, earthy, dried fruit flavours and wild strawberries. In 1785 Marie Antoinette was offered the most fabulous jewel in the world: a 2,800carat diamond ‘girdle’ necklace crafted from 647 pear and brilliant cut stones set by Boehmer & Bassenge. The collar, dripping with loops and teardrops, supported an impossibly ornate festoon of diamond bowknots and tassels. But the poster girl of rococo excess considered the two million franc asking price de trop, declaring, ‘Our jewel cases are rich enough.’ In July 2008 London’s king of diamonds Laurence Graff unveiled the $50 million Lesotho Promise necklace. This masterpiece comprising all 26 D-flawless diamonds cut from a 603-carat rough is a crown jewel in all but name. The fact that Graff has set the entire Lesotho Promise collection into a single piece is audacious even for him.

‘Diamonds are meant to be worn,’ says the great man. ‘To have this wondrous collection it makes perfect sense to create the ultimate jewel. I am confident given the provenance of the Lesotho Promise — the 15th largest rough diamond ever discovered — that this historical and unique collection of diamonds will find an owner here or abroad this month or next.’ To put the Lesotho Promise into context, its four named stones total 165.98 carats compared to the 1005.5 carats of the Cullinan I-IV in the possession of the Queen. Those who thought such display of wealth had died with Queen Mary — who famously wore all four Cullinan primary stones as well as the fabled Koh-i-Noor at the 1911 state opening of Parliament — didn’t count on the gallons of oil money pouring into London from Russia and the Middle East.

‘It’s not that we jewellers see oil prices topping $140 per barrel and think it will be a huge season for us,’ says Cartier’s Arnaud Bamberger. ‘But record oil prices are hardly bad news. The Middle-Eastern and Russian clientele who have made their fortunes through the oil business will be flying in this year.’ On cue, Cartier’s spectacular ‘Sunshine’ collar ablaze with 35 yellow diamonds and 253 whites made a guest appearance in London in August, as did the ‘Primavera’ white diamond and natural pearl necklace, suspending a pink sapphire of 20.25 carats.

The house of Moussaieff has completed a watch smothered in 145.63 carats of white and pink diamonds. But the superstar stone set over the face of the watch is a D-internally flawless 38.79 carat diamond from the fabled Golconda mines in India. Now entirely depleted, Golconda mine diamonds are famed as the most chemically pure, exceptionally transparent stones. Moussaieff’s Golconda is of comparable purity to its sister stones the Cullinan and Koh-i-Noor. For collectors of the exceptional stones, the Moussaieff Golconda is irresistible, despite the multi-million-pound asking price and the incredible caprice in setting such a remarkable diamond as a watch face.

The finest pieces of jewellery in the world are converging on London. ‘When you do the diamond dash down Old Bond Street, you may get the impression that there’s an abundance of magnificent stones over five carats,’ says Vogue’s jewellery editor Carol Woolton. ‘But what you’re seeing is the highest concentration of rare stones in the world all within 300 feet.’ The big three for magnificent stones — Moussaieff, Graff and Leviev — vie with each other to deck out their windows like a spoilt Maharani at the Delhi Durbar.

‘The 10-carat-plus market is insatiable,’ says Leviev managing director Keith Gerrard, ‘with diamonds being considered a safer investment than property. Some of our clients have liquidated their property portfolios to reinvest in diamonds. Magnificent diamonds do have magnificent price tags but it is relative. For someone worth half a billion, £2 million to £3 million is not a huge dent in capital. In my opinion no city in the world compares to London for selling diamonds.’ A star of Leviev’s current crop is a 5.01 carat Fancy Vivid orange diamond as pure as a Renoir nude. In excess of £5 million, this rare beauty is mounted as a ring surrounded by two pear and four marquise cut D-flawless whites totalling 5.37 carats that each alone would melt the heart of a billionaire’s mistress. A coloured diamond’s rarity, durability and portability (handy if one needs to shift assets in a swift exit) make it more appealing to new wealth than real estate or art.

Records continue to be broken in the art market, such as the £40.9 million paid at Christie’s in June for Monet’s ‘Le Bassin aux Nymphéas’. But Alisa Moussaieff, matriarch of the eponymous house, observes, ‘Appreciation for a Monet is entirely subjective. Not so a diamond. No one can question the records being broken for coloured diamonds.’ In the current bullish market, a named stone such as Moussaieff’s famous red diamond is easily comparable to a Monet. As the largest of five GIA-certified reds in the world, Moussaieff’s stone is a much coveted ace of diamonds for the world’s collectors.

Cartier’s Bamberger advises caution. ‘Do people appreciate that what they are seeing on Old Bond Street is exceptional? Sometimes I feel it is too much: this orgy of stones. We at Cartier are not in the stone business. Stones are commodities. The strength of Cartier is that we are jewellers. Nobody else has our creativity and craftsmanship. Of course we sell beautiful stones but it is the craft of fine jewellery that makes them exceptional.’