{Focus on Champagne}

Champagne may be the most interesting wine region of all. Legend has it that Dom Perignon, taking his first drink of champagne, gushed, “I am drinking the stars!”

Pure fiction.

In fact, this bubbly drink was first considered “a vulgar fad” and a problem to be corrected. A pessimist might say that champagne is, in effect, defective wine; an optimist, that it is the result of a happy accident.

The bubbles are caused by the failure of the wine to complete fermentation before being placed into bottles. This sudden stoppage of fermentation is a function of geography. Being so far north, Champagne’s weather would turn too cool too soon to allow fermentation to be completed. The partially fermented wine would be placed into bottles. And then, when temperatures warmed up again in the spring, the wine would start fermenting again -- inside the bottles. The build-up of carbon dioxide led to many exploded bottles and much consternation. It also led to bubbles in the occasional bottle that didn’t explode and to a delicious biscuity taste.

Faced with a defective product, there was clearly only one thing to do, call in the marketing team! They positioned Champagne as a fun, festive wine — “LOOK! it has bubbles! And the cork pops! Whoo-HOO!”

In this way, Champagne signals the first modern wine; the first mass-marketed wine. It also requires quite the industrial process. To get sparkling wine, a syrupy sugar mixture (dosage de tirage) is added to still wine to ensure a standard secondary fermentation in the bottle. This secondary fermentation creates a sediment called lees (dead yeast cells), which settle and collect in the neck of the bottle (the bottles are placed tilting forward). The bottles are then uncorked, the sediment is removed, and the bottles are topped off with a dosage d’expedition to fill the gap. So as you can see, the process of making champagne is time consuming and requires a lot of labor. Good champagne, therefore, is expensive. The reason I’m always thinking I don’t like champagne is because I’ve only tasted really good champagne maybe twice.

One of the other interesting things about Champagne is that it is often made with black grapes. Specifically, Pinot Noir (also Meunier). Champagne made with black grapes will sometimes be labeled blanc de noir (white from black). Blanc de blanc means the grapes are all white grapes: Chardonnay.


Nose: Biscuit, toast

Food Friendly Quotient: High. I would drink champagne with food more often, but it’s too expensive. It’s really good with oysters and shellfish.