MAKING SPARKLING WINE
Sparkling wine is wine that's smiling.
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.
The night they invented Champagne belongs to a celibate (and blind) monk, Dom Perignon, cellar master at the abbey of Hautvillers, near the city of Reims in the district of Champagne, France. In 1640, he decided to try to control the spritz or carbonation that occurred in wine, in those days, when it refermented each spring.
He failed.
“Champagne” Champagne
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 stuff is French—but all the good stuff is made like Champagne is made.
The greatest compliment to true Champagne is that all the great sparkling wines of the world use the original, time-consuming and labor-intensive “methode champenoise” as their means of production.
Champagne doesn't merely happen. It must be fashioned.
La methode champenoise
Making wine in the classic methode champenoise takes many years and steps.
First, the winemaker very lightly presses one or more of three—by and large, these three—varieties of grapes (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier) and makes them into wine.
Each wine contributes its particular dimension. For instance, Pinot Noir lends roundness and persistence of flavor. Chardonnay gives crispness and a flowery perfume. Pinot Meunier, fruitiness. Now and again, Champagne is made from only one variety of grape, usually Chardonnay (when it is called a “blanc de blancs,” a white wine made from white grapes).
But, by and large, consider Champagne as one of the world’s greatest blended wines, each Champagne using between—get this—30 and 60 different pressings in its blend.
The blended wine is introduced into heavy glass 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.
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.
Dosage
Finally, a 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, best when you're in love. 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.
How to open a bottle of Champagne
Opening a bottle of Champagne isn't difficult, but there is an art to it.
Keep in mind these safety tips when opening a bottle of good sparkling wine. First, chill the bottle well (45 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 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.
Photo by Deleece Cook on unsplash.
QUOTABLE NOTABLES
“Champagne with foaming whirls / As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls.” Lord Byron''No government could survive without Champagne. In the throats of our diplomatic people, it is like oil in the wheels of an engine.” New York Herald Tribune, July 21, 1955.
''I'm only a beer teetotaler, not a Champagne teetotaler.” George Bernard Shaw
''I like Champagne because it always tastes like my foot is asleep.” Art Buchwald
''This French Champagne / So good for the brain.” Cole Porter
''Champagne certainly gives one werry gentlemanly ideas.” Robert Smith Surtees
''If the aunt of the vicar / Has never touched liquor / Look out when she finds the Champagne.” Rudyard Kipling
''Champagne. I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it – unless I'm thirsty.” Madame Lily Bollinger
''Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.” Graham Greene
''In victory, I deserve it. In defeat, I need it.” Winston Churchill
''Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman more beautiful after she drinks it than before.” Marquise de Pompadour
DID YOU KNOW?
At .0000044 a cubic inch a bubble, there are approximately 58 million bubbles in one bottle of Champagne.
Until around 1850, all French Champagne was sweet.
The pressure in a bottle of champagne is six atmospheres or 90 pounds per square inch—three times that in your auto tire.
Twenty-five percent of the British drink four times as much Champagne each year as does the entire population of the U.S.A.