CHAMPAGNE 101

Champagne (and other sparkling wines) often are served in wine glasses called “flutes,” but it’s OK to serve it in regular, tulip-shaped glasses, too.

Champagne is wine with a grin on.

Without Champagne, we wouldn't have the sparkle in wedding toasts or the pizzazz in New Year's Eve. Queens would have nothing with which to launch their ships. There'd be no "O!" in mimosa. And James Bond wouldn't have gotten out of Russia alive.

Champagne isn't a mere wine. It's a metaphor. It seals the beginnings and the ends of life: births, engagements and marriages; treaties, deals and death.

Champagne—properly considered—comes only from Champagne, France. We use the word “champagne” to mean any wine with bubbles, but we've just borrowed the name. Sure, not all the good sparkling stuff is French—but all the good stuff is made like Champagne.

Legendary bubbles
However, so fanciful is this wine that its history has become, more or less, a fairy tale.

For example, the champenois (the people of Champagne) love to relate how virtually all the kings of France have been crowned in Reims, Champagne’s capital city, on which occasions they poured rivers of Champagne. But none of the royal tipple resembled the Champagne that we know today. That wine came about in the very early 1800s.

And then there is Dom Pérignon, called the “inventor of Champagne.” He is said to have exclaimed, after a sip of Champagne, “I see stars!”—which was quite the trick because Dom Pérignon was both blind and a teetotaler (he was a monk).

This clever cleric’s contributions to the development of Champagne were more prosaic—but several and significant. He was alone or among the first to make white wine from red grapes; to mandate lower vineyard yields; to pick grapes early in the day to preserve freshness; to place presses directly in the vineyards; and—this is his greatest achievement—to conclude that blending different wines ends up making a better Champagne.

In truth, Dom Pérignon was an abject failure at what he himself sought most of all to do: prevent Champagne from “re-fermenting” and becoming fizzy when springtime temperatures warmed the cellars. Whoops.

It took time
In short, Champagne did not arise from the eye of God. Champagne’s story is like the story of most wines: it started out iffy and luckily got better.

For centuries, this coolest of French vineyards produced highly acidic, lean, thin (mostly red) wines—to compete with Burgundy, its neighbor and rival. In the spring, the new wine regretfully frothed and got cloudy. The champenois sweetened it to make it palatable. (And they poured it around at all their royal coronations.

In time—a lot of time—a succession of savvy entrepreneurs (and, OK, further hardworking monks) came to see that Champagne’s propensity to bubble was not a fault but a bonus. In short order, they began to make it fizzy on purpose.

They learned how to clarify the wine and how to make it both balanced and dry. They graded their 80,000 acres of vineyards and figured out which vineyards in particular best suited their cool climate grapevines—Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay.

They began to make the Champagne that we know, that we love, and that became, in its own time, the wine of legend.

Vineyards near Verzenay, in the Champagne district south of Paris, France.

La methode champenoise
Champagne is one of the world’s great blended wines. Each grape variety used to make it contributes its particular dimension. By and large, Pinot Noir lends roundness and persistence of flavor. Chardonnay gives crispness and a flowery perfume. Pinot Meunier, fruitiness. (These are generalizations.)

Now and again, Champagne is made from only one variety of grape, usually Chardonnay. Even so, most Champagne blends use anywhere from 30 to 60 different pressings (or singular, individually made wines).

The blended wine is introduced into heavy bottles and the winemaker adds a little sugar and some yeast. The bottle is sealed and a second fermentation occurs—the key to the methode champenoise. Carbon dioxide is a natural offshoot of fermentation, but with nowhere to go, it infuses itself into the liquid. And voila: bubbles—around 58 million .0000044 cubic-inch bubbles per bottle, in fact.

After this second fermentation and to gain complexity and flavor, Champagne ages further (sometimes up to six years) on the spent yeast cells. After a time-consuming process called riddling and disgorging, the wine is cleared of its dead yeast matter.

Finally, a wee spoonful of sugar and wine (called the “dosage”) is added to round off the wine, and the bottle settles for a short while before shipping.

How much dosage goes into the finished wine determines the level of sweetness in the finished Champagne. From driest to sweetest—note the odd use of “dry” (sec)—these levels are: extra brut, brut, extra dry, sec, demi-sec and doux.

Champagne is a versatile wine, good by itself, better with food. Most wine drinkers favor “brut Champagne,” a dry (or non- sweet) sparkler. As an apéritif, it really snaps the palate to attention. As a food wine, it complements a range of cuisine, from light- to full-flavored fare.

Champagne is especially delicious with smoked and salty foods such as smoked salmon, smoked trout or prosciutto. Its acidity is a good foil to salt.

It also works well with egg dishes, which are difficult to pair with any wine.

What is the difference between the various styles of Champagne?
The first style indicator in Champagne is vintage vs. non-vintage. A vintage Champagne is from a particularly good harvest, and 100% of the grapes used in a vintage bottling come from the indicated year. Vintage Champagnes express the characteristics of an individual growing season, often tasting fuller and fruitier than non-vintage bottlings. However, this style of Champagne is the exception rather than the rule.

Non-vintage bottlings (which actually ought to be called “multi-vintage” because they are a blend of wines from several vintages) make up the vast majority of all Champagne sold. Champagne houses rely on a system of complex and extensive blending so that they can produce their non-vintage wines with a distinctive style that is consistent from year to year. One house may prefer a dry, full-bodied style, while another aims for something lighter and fruity.

Têtes de cuvée or Cuvées de prestige are the best Champagnes that a house can produce. They generally come from only the highest-rated vineyards, are aged longer in the cellar than the producer's other wines, and usually are vintage-dated.

Blanc de Blancs (white wine from white grapes) is Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes. This style of Champagne can age extremely well, despite its relatively lighter body. Blanc de Noirs (white wine from black grapes) is Champagne made entirely from either Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier grapes, or from a blend of both. Rosé Champagnes can be made either by blending together white juice with still (non-sparkling) red Pinot Noir wine or by leaving the grape skins in contact with the juice for a brief time to partially extract the pigments and achieve the desired depth of pink color.

How to open a bottle of Champagne
Opening a bottle of Champagne isn't difficult, but there is an art to it. Remember that, while he asked his martinis to be “stirred, not shaken,” James Bond opened his own bottles of the bubbly.

Keep in mind these safety tips when opening a bottle of good sparkling wine. First, chill the bottle well (30 minutes in a mix of ice and water). Strip the bottle of its foil top. Untwist and loosen, but don't remove, the wire hood over the cork.

Drape the top of the bottle with a cloth, keeping a firm grasp on the cork with your weaker hand. Then, holding the cork stationary and with the bottle at a 45-degree angle, twist the bottle, not the cork, controlling the exit of the cork with the cloth and your weaker hand.

The cork should depart with a whimper, not a bang. Never use a corkscrew or other tool to open a bottle of sparkling wine.