The History of Champagne
Effervescent wine has been made for as long as wine has - some 7,000 years - for sealing wine before fermentation is complete will naturally produce it. True sparkling wine, though, a wine that is clear from cloudy impurities, was invented in the Champagne region of France in the 17th century. The perfection of the method which removes the unattractive clouds which had long be-spoiled fizzy wine is widely credited, rightly or wrongly, to a monk and cellar master at the Benedictine Abbey of Hautvillers, one Dom Pérignon. It was at this Abbey near Rheims that a veritable revolution would occur which transformed the region's fortunes and changed forever the production and popularity of sparkling wine. Champagne was born. With the creation of successful houses such as Ruinart, Moët, Veuve Clicquot, and Pommery, the amber nectar would conquer all comers and become the single most famous wine in the world, a by-word for elegance, celebration and luxury.
The Long Road to Perfection
It was the Romans who introduced the vine to northern Gaul in the 1st century CE and they were already accomplished viticulturists, fully aware of the benefits of maximising climatic and soil conditions. Pruning, grafting, and training vines were common practice and all of these skills would be needed to grow quality grapes in the cool northern climate of the Champagne region of north-west France. It was not until the 9th century, though, that the wines of the region, still not yet sparkling of course, took off in popularity, helped in no small measure by the growing importance of Reims where French kings were crowned.
In the 13th century Champagne wine acquired an international reputation thanks to the great trade fairs held annually in the region. The Counts of Champagne knew that by endorsing these fairs, which sometimes lasted six weeks, and by providing trade incentives, they could encourage English, Spanish and Italian merchants to import Champagne to new markets. By the following century most of the area around Reims was planted with vines. Wine had become big business.
The wine being produced in the Champagne region might have been popular but it was still the murky drink common everywhere. By the mid 17th century, though, winemakers were beginning to experiment with wine made only from white grapes and various methods to make clearer wine, an endeavour helped by Champagne's climatic tendency to produce black grapes which only lightly colour the wine. The first attempts to deliberately produce sparkling wines were also being made, as opposed to the somewhat accidental production which resulted from winemakers trying, in fact, to avoid fizzy wine but bottling before fermentation was complete. These two approaches would be combined by the monks of Hautvillers, amongst them one of the most famous names in world wine, one Dom Pérignon.
Dom Pérignon
Dom Pérignon has acquired the legendary status as the inventor of the sparkling Champagne we know and love today but the mythology surrounding him has obscured the contributions made by those who came before and his contemporaries, both in France and England. The celebrated monk has also been cleverly marketed ever since Moët & Chandon bought the Abbey of Hautvillers in 1823. What we do know is that Pérignon lived from 1638 to 1715 and, following his admission into the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Vanne in 1658, he quickly impressed and over the next decade acquired both the honorary title of Dom and the second most prestigious post at the abbey: cellar master. In a career which spanned 47 years the wine this meticulous monk produced became famous not as the produce of the Hautvillers Abbey but as the vins de Pérignon.
Without doubt Dom Pérignon was a master of blending wines from different vineyards to produce a distinctive and consistent blend or cuvée, still an essential - perhaps the essential - component of the complex process of producing Champagne. Although he may not have been the one to invent true sparkling wine, indeed his brief was probably the very opposite and to try and eliminate the undesirable bubbles from red wine, the monk did speed the process along towards the drink we know and love today. He is credited, in a treatise written by his star pupil and successor Frère Pierre, with producing the first real red wine. He also created the traditional Champagne press which was lighter and faster, thus reducing the time the skins were in contact with the juice, greatly increasing the wine's final clarity. Dom Pérignon returned to using cork stoppers which were a much better seal than the previous wood and hemp plugs, ensuring less carbon dioxide and so sparkle escaped. He employed stronger English glass bottles to ensure far fewer exploded from the pressure of fermentation and high cellar temperatures, the frequent nightmare of all wine producers of the period. Finally, and most important of all, he perfected the process of producing clear white wine using black grapes. All of the key components were now in place to produce a reliable and more appealing clear sparkling wine. By the next century Champagne production and storage would be further perfected by such legendary figures as Jean-Rémy Moët and Madame Clicquot-Ponsardin, the widow known as the Veuve Clicquot. This and masterful marketing would ensure that Champagne was ready to conquer the world.
Making Champagne
Before we continue our story let us first take a moment to examine exactly how Champagne is produced. The procedure was, until relatively recently, known as Méthode Champenoise but is now referred to as méthode traditionelle. As we have seen, the method took centuries to perfect but by the 19th century the techniques were in place which would be religiously adhered to thereafter and which distinguished Champagne from its less illustrious competitors. The process is long and meticulous and is one of the reasons why Champagne remains significantly more expensive than other wines.
Wine with the right to carry the name Champagne is exclusively produced in the Champagne region of north-east France. The grape varieties used are the black grapes Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, and the white grape Chardonnay. The particularities of the region - vine-friendly hills, cool climate, quantity of rainfall, excellent drainage, and chalky soil - make the terroir of Champagne ideal for the production of sparkling wine.
When the grapes are harvested, usually in October, they are gently squeezed in presses. The first juice squeezed from this pulp (marc) is the best, known as the cuvée, rich in sugar and acids. The next pressing extracts a murkier juice (must) called the taille, as the skins, pips and stalks discolour it. The juice is then allowed to ferment for up to 10 days in large vats, typically of stainless steel but sometimes too, of oak. Then, in the case of non-vintage Champagne, the juices of different sources and years (perhaps as many as 40) are expertly blended in a process known as assemblage which gives the house Champagne its unique character. A fining of the wine is achieved by adding a substance such as gelatine or clay which attracts remaining impurities and these then settle to the bottom of the vat. The wine is then racked, that is poured from one vat to another, perhaps several times to ensure a minimum of sediment remains. Finally, the wine is poured into bottles which are temporarily capped.
The next step in the process, and one which begins to distinguish Champagne from other wines is to experiment with the composition of the wine inside the bottle. Adding a mix of sugar, yeast and wine (liqueur de tirage) after the first fermentation is an age-old practice which reduces the tartness of the wine and promotes a second fermentation in the bottle to create the magic bubbles. A more modern technique, first employed in 1801, is to add sugar to the must during pressing (chaptalisation), thus ensuring that during fermentation more alcohol would result. An important regulation here is that the bottle in which the second fermentation takes place is the same as the one the customer buys.
Adding sugar can be very risky, though, as too much might burst the bottle and too little does not create the desired level of fizz. Indeed, since antiquity wineskins had been bursting prematurely because of the pressure built up by the wine continuing to ferment in storage and early glass bottles fared little better in keeping the magic drink safe until required. The problem was that wine was bottled or stored in the autumn and the fermentation was very often not quite finished. Winter would interrupt the process where the yeast cells in the wine converted the sugars to alcohol but, come the warmer temperatures of spring, the yeast would resume its work - the second fermentation or prise de mousse. With this second fermentation came the agreeable by-product of additional bubbles in the form of carbon dioxide but what was less desirable was the increase in pressure which made the wine either burst its weak glass container or simply escape if stored in wooden casks. What was needed was stronger glass and, on top of that, a more secure way of closing the bottle. The solution came with the invention of thicker glass in England and corks secured by cord, and later, today's familiar wire cage.
When ready for the prise de mousse the bottles are piled in their thousands in the deepest parts of the chalk cellars. The cooler the storage temperature (10-12 Celsius), the slower the fermentation process which then creates the most sophisticated flavours and smaller bubbles of the finest Champagnes. The bottles are then left for several weeks or even months. After this time they are transferred to sloping boards or pupitres with each bottle placed in a hole at 90 degrees. Then, over the coming weeks, each bottle is turned every day in the process known as remuage. Every day the bottles are turned a mere eighth of a revolution and nudged a little downwards. This helps prevent the sediment which results from the fermentation sticking to one area of the bottle's interior and move it towards the neck. The more ordinary Champagne is now ready for the sediment to be removed but finer wines are left in storage a little longer. Placed vertically upside down (sur pointes) these bottles will mature further, from one to five years or even more, in order to develop a richer flavour and bouquet.
The clarity of the finished wine is greatly improved by the last stage of the process: dégorgement. Wines had long been stored neck down in sand so that sediment produced during fermentation within the bottle settled in the neck. Then, when ready for drinking and at the moment of removing the stopper while the bottle was turned downwards, the bottle was quickly jerked upright to ensure only the portion heavy in sediment escaped. This trick, known as dégorgement à la volée, was satisfactory when the Champagne was in the hands of an expert but not much use to the casual drinker. Someone, exactly who is not recorded, then hit on the idea that by topping up the bottle with clear wine and sugar (liqueurd'expédition) and re-corking it after removing the sediment meant that the wine could be opened by anyone without any fancy wrist movements. In a final step towards perfection a new more efficient method of dégorgement was invented in 1884 where the bottle necks were dipped in freezing brine. In dégorgement à la glace the sediment is thus semi-frozen and made easier to remove. In addition, because the wine is at a lower temperature, less gas is lost in the process compared to previous methods. The champagne is now, at last, ready to be labelled and corked, with a metal cap and cage (muselet) added to ensure the cork remains in place.
Conquering the World
By the end of the 18th century, and still not yet known as Champagne, the vins mousseux of the region was growing in popularity, especially amongst the aristocracy of England. To meet this demand new houses were establishing themselves including Ruinart (founded 1729), Chanoine Frère (1730), Forrest Fourneaux (1734 and now Taittinger), Moët (1743), Delemotte (1760 and now Lanson), Dubois Père & Fils (1770 and now Louis Roederer), Clicquot (1772), and Heidsieck (1785). Many of these companies had sprung as secondary enterprises connected to the hugely successful Reims textile industry. The cloth barons had helped spread the name of Champagne's wine by offering freebies to their clients, a practice which soon developed into specific orders.
By the early 19th century the techniques of dégorgement and liqueur de tirage ensured the wine was suitably clear and sparkling but what was now needed was a convincing marketing strategy to ensure wine-lovers worldwide would pay premium prices for the pleasure of drinking it. In addition, the Champagne producers needed to guarantee that the wine arrived at its final destination in the same condition in which it left the vineyards. One figure, in particular, would introduce innovations which finally made Champagne production a hugely profitable business: Madame Nicole Barbe Clicquot-Ponsardin. Losing her husband and partner to typhoid fever, the widow Clicquot would overcome the obstacles of wars, trade embargoes, and the fragility of her product to match and beat her competitors in the male-dominated wine industry.
Madame Clicquot had pioneered the trick of remuage by inventing a board with holes in which bottles could be placed at an angle using her kitchen table top. She insisted that her glass suppliers provide her with taller more elegant bottles and, purchasing 65 million over the years, she got what she asked for. Aside from these practical innovations the widow was an accomplished and daring entrepreneur. Audaciously ignoring a ban on importing Champagne to Russia at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Clicquot sent two shipments of her fabulous 1811 vintage, around 23,000 bottles, and thus cornered one of the most important markets in the world. Veuve Clicquot Champagne, favourite of the Czar himself, became a by-word for luxurious elegance. Jean-Rémy Moët might have long benefitted from the favours of his close friend Napolean but it was Clicquot that was now taking Europe by storm. In the second half of the century another widow, Jean Alexandrine Louise Pommery, aimed her sights at the burgeoning English market and pioneered the now common drier brut Champagne to meet the preferences there. Competitors soon followed in the widow's wake and the wine of Champagne, produced increasingly on an industrial scale but still with personalised attention, became truly big business. Five million bottles of Champagne were being sold each year and by the Jazz Age the figure rose to 20 million.
The success and popularity of Champagne over the following decades was such that imitators soon sprang up producing cheaper and inferior wine appearing in bottles labelled almost exactly like those from real Champagne houses but with small variations of spelling. The fight back began with the formal establishment of the Syndicat du Commerce des Vins de Champagne in 1884 which represented 61 houses and protected the region's exclusive right to produce Champagne. A second syndicat was created in 1912, the Syndicat des Négociants en Vins de Champagne and the two formed a union in 1945. The Champagne name has been vigorously defended against all comers from wine-makers to perfume manufacturers ever since and its position as the world's most famous wine seems assured for many generations to come.
Bibliography
Fadiman, C. (1962) Dionysus: A Case of Vintage Tales About Wine, McGraw-Hill, New York
Marrison, L.W. (1962) Wines and Spirits, Penguin, London
Mazzeo, T.L. (2008) The Widow Clicquot, HarperCollins, New York
Stelzer, T. (2016) The Champagne Guide 2016-17, Hardie Grant Books, London
Stevenson, T. (1988) Champagne, Sotheby's Publications, London
Tardi, Alan. (2016) Champagne Uncorked, Public Affairs, New York
The Long Road to Perfection
It was the Romans who introduced the vine to northern Gaul in the 1st century CE and they were already accomplished viticulturists, fully aware of the benefits of maximising climatic and soil conditions. Pruning, grafting, and training vines were common practice and all of these skills would be needed to grow quality grapes in the cool northern climate of the Champagne region of north-west France. It was not until the 9th century, though, that the wines of the region, still not yet sparkling of course, took off in popularity, helped in no small measure by the growing importance of Reims where French kings were crowned.
In the 13th century Champagne wine acquired an international reputation thanks to the great trade fairs held annually in the region. The Counts of Champagne knew that by endorsing these fairs, which sometimes lasted six weeks, and by providing trade incentives, they could encourage English, Spanish and Italian merchants to import Champagne to new markets. By the following century most of the area around Reims was planted with vines. Wine had become big business.
The wine being produced in the Champagne region might have been popular but it was still the murky drink common everywhere. By the mid 17th century, though, winemakers were beginning to experiment with wine made only from white grapes and various methods to make clearer wine, an endeavour helped by Champagne's climatic tendency to produce black grapes which only lightly colour the wine. The first attempts to deliberately produce sparkling wines were also being made, as opposed to the somewhat accidental production which resulted from winemakers trying, in fact, to avoid fizzy wine but bottling before fermentation was complete. These two approaches would be combined by the monks of Hautvillers, amongst them one of the most famous names in world wine, one Dom Pérignon.
Dom Pérignon
Dom Pérignon has acquired the legendary status as the inventor of the sparkling Champagne we know and love today but the mythology surrounding him has obscured the contributions made by those who came before and his contemporaries, both in France and England. The celebrated monk has also been cleverly marketed ever since Moët & Chandon bought the Abbey of Hautvillers in 1823. What we do know is that Pérignon lived from 1638 to 1715 and, following his admission into the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Vanne in 1658, he quickly impressed and over the next decade acquired both the honorary title of Dom and the second most prestigious post at the abbey: cellar master. In a career which spanned 47 years the wine this meticulous monk produced became famous not as the produce of the Hautvillers Abbey but as the vins de Pérignon.
Without doubt Dom Pérignon was a master of blending wines from different vineyards to produce a distinctive and consistent blend or cuvée, still an essential - perhaps the essential - component of the complex process of producing Champagne. Although he may not have been the one to invent true sparkling wine, indeed his brief was probably the very opposite and to try and eliminate the undesirable bubbles from red wine, the monk did speed the process along towards the drink we know and love today. He is credited, in a treatise written by his star pupil and successor Frère Pierre, with producing the first real red wine. He also created the traditional Champagne press which was lighter and faster, thus reducing the time the skins were in contact with the juice, greatly increasing the wine's final clarity. Dom Pérignon returned to using cork stoppers which were a much better seal than the previous wood and hemp plugs, ensuring less carbon dioxide and so sparkle escaped. He employed stronger English glass bottles to ensure far fewer exploded from the pressure of fermentation and high cellar temperatures, the frequent nightmare of all wine producers of the period. Finally, and most important of all, he perfected the process of producing clear white wine using black grapes. All of the key components were now in place to produce a reliable and more appealing clear sparkling wine. By the next century Champagne production and storage would be further perfected by such legendary figures as Jean-Rémy Moët and Madame Clicquot-Ponsardin, the widow known as the Veuve Clicquot. This and masterful marketing would ensure that Champagne was ready to conquer the world.
Making Champagne
Before we continue our story let us first take a moment to examine exactly how Champagne is produced. The procedure was, until relatively recently, known as Méthode Champenoise but is now referred to as méthode traditionelle. As we have seen, the method took centuries to perfect but by the 19th century the techniques were in place which would be religiously adhered to thereafter and which distinguished Champagne from its less illustrious competitors. The process is long and meticulous and is one of the reasons why Champagne remains significantly more expensive than other wines.
Wine with the right to carry the name Champagne is exclusively produced in the Champagne region of north-east France. The grape varieties used are the black grapes Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir, and the white grape Chardonnay. The particularities of the region - vine-friendly hills, cool climate, quantity of rainfall, excellent drainage, and chalky soil - make the terroir of Champagne ideal for the production of sparkling wine.
When the grapes are harvested, usually in October, they are gently squeezed in presses. The first juice squeezed from this pulp (marc) is the best, known as the cuvée, rich in sugar and acids. The next pressing extracts a murkier juice (must) called the taille, as the skins, pips and stalks discolour it. The juice is then allowed to ferment for up to 10 days in large vats, typically of stainless steel but sometimes too, of oak. Then, in the case of non-vintage Champagne, the juices of different sources and years (perhaps as many as 40) are expertly blended in a process known as assemblage which gives the house Champagne its unique character. A fining of the wine is achieved by adding a substance such as gelatine or clay which attracts remaining impurities and these then settle to the bottom of the vat. The wine is then racked, that is poured from one vat to another, perhaps several times to ensure a minimum of sediment remains. Finally, the wine is poured into bottles which are temporarily capped.
The next step in the process, and one which begins to distinguish Champagne from other wines is to experiment with the composition of the wine inside the bottle. Adding a mix of sugar, yeast and wine (liqueur de tirage) after the first fermentation is an age-old practice which reduces the tartness of the wine and promotes a second fermentation in the bottle to create the magic bubbles. A more modern technique, first employed in 1801, is to add sugar to the must during pressing (chaptalisation), thus ensuring that during fermentation more alcohol would result. An important regulation here is that the bottle in which the second fermentation takes place is the same as the one the customer buys.
Adding sugar can be very risky, though, as too much might burst the bottle and too little does not create the desired level of fizz. Indeed, since antiquity wineskins had been bursting prematurely because of the pressure built up by the wine continuing to ferment in storage and early glass bottles fared little better in keeping the magic drink safe until required. The problem was that wine was bottled or stored in the autumn and the fermentation was very often not quite finished. Winter would interrupt the process where the yeast cells in the wine converted the sugars to alcohol but, come the warmer temperatures of spring, the yeast would resume its work - the second fermentation or prise de mousse. With this second fermentation came the agreeable by-product of additional bubbles in the form of carbon dioxide but what was less desirable was the increase in pressure which made the wine either burst its weak glass container or simply escape if stored in wooden casks. What was needed was stronger glass and, on top of that, a more secure way of closing the bottle. The solution came with the invention of thicker glass in England and corks secured by cord, and later, today's familiar wire cage.
When ready for the prise de mousse the bottles are piled in their thousands in the deepest parts of the chalk cellars. The cooler the storage temperature (10-12 Celsius), the slower the fermentation process which then creates the most sophisticated flavours and smaller bubbles of the finest Champagnes. The bottles are then left for several weeks or even months. After this time they are transferred to sloping boards or pupitres with each bottle placed in a hole at 90 degrees. Then, over the coming weeks, each bottle is turned every day in the process known as remuage. Every day the bottles are turned a mere eighth of a revolution and nudged a little downwards. This helps prevent the sediment which results from the fermentation sticking to one area of the bottle's interior and move it towards the neck. The more ordinary Champagne is now ready for the sediment to be removed but finer wines are left in storage a little longer. Placed vertically upside down (sur pointes) these bottles will mature further, from one to five years or even more, in order to develop a richer flavour and bouquet.
The clarity of the finished wine is greatly improved by the last stage of the process: dégorgement. Wines had long been stored neck down in sand so that sediment produced during fermentation within the bottle settled in the neck. Then, when ready for drinking and at the moment of removing the stopper while the bottle was turned downwards, the bottle was quickly jerked upright to ensure only the portion heavy in sediment escaped. This trick, known as dégorgement à la volée, was satisfactory when the Champagne was in the hands of an expert but not much use to the casual drinker. Someone, exactly who is not recorded, then hit on the idea that by topping up the bottle with clear wine and sugar (liqueurd'expédition) and re-corking it after removing the sediment meant that the wine could be opened by anyone without any fancy wrist movements. In a final step towards perfection a new more efficient method of dégorgement was invented in 1884 where the bottle necks were dipped in freezing brine. In dégorgement à la glace the sediment is thus semi-frozen and made easier to remove. In addition, because the wine is at a lower temperature, less gas is lost in the process compared to previous methods. The champagne is now, at last, ready to be labelled and corked, with a metal cap and cage (muselet) added to ensure the cork remains in place.
Conquering the World
By the end of the 18th century, and still not yet known as Champagne, the vins mousseux of the region was growing in popularity, especially amongst the aristocracy of England. To meet this demand new houses were establishing themselves including Ruinart (founded 1729), Chanoine Frère (1730), Forrest Fourneaux (1734 and now Taittinger), Moët (1743), Delemotte (1760 and now Lanson), Dubois Père & Fils (1770 and now Louis Roederer), Clicquot (1772), and Heidsieck (1785). Many of these companies had sprung as secondary enterprises connected to the hugely successful Reims textile industry. The cloth barons had helped spread the name of Champagne's wine by offering freebies to their clients, a practice which soon developed into specific orders.
By the early 19th century the techniques of dégorgement and liqueur de tirage ensured the wine was suitably clear and sparkling but what was now needed was a convincing marketing strategy to ensure wine-lovers worldwide would pay premium prices for the pleasure of drinking it. In addition, the Champagne producers needed to guarantee that the wine arrived at its final destination in the same condition in which it left the vineyards. One figure, in particular, would introduce innovations which finally made Champagne production a hugely profitable business: Madame Nicole Barbe Clicquot-Ponsardin. Losing her husband and partner to typhoid fever, the widow Clicquot would overcome the obstacles of wars, trade embargoes, and the fragility of her product to match and beat her competitors in the male-dominated wine industry.
Madame Clicquot had pioneered the trick of remuage by inventing a board with holes in which bottles could be placed at an angle using her kitchen table top. She insisted that her glass suppliers provide her with taller more elegant bottles and, purchasing 65 million over the years, she got what she asked for. Aside from these practical innovations the widow was an accomplished and daring entrepreneur. Audaciously ignoring a ban on importing Champagne to Russia at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Clicquot sent two shipments of her fabulous 1811 vintage, around 23,000 bottles, and thus cornered one of the most important markets in the world. Veuve Clicquot Champagne, favourite of the Czar himself, became a by-word for luxurious elegance. Jean-Rémy Moët might have long benefitted from the favours of his close friend Napolean but it was Clicquot that was now taking Europe by storm. In the second half of the century another widow, Jean Alexandrine Louise Pommery, aimed her sights at the burgeoning English market and pioneered the now common drier brut Champagne to meet the preferences there. Competitors soon followed in the widow's wake and the wine of Champagne, produced increasingly on an industrial scale but still with personalised attention, became truly big business. Five million bottles of Champagne were being sold each year and by the Jazz Age the figure rose to 20 million.
The success and popularity of Champagne over the following decades was such that imitators soon sprang up producing cheaper and inferior wine appearing in bottles labelled almost exactly like those from real Champagne houses but with small variations of spelling. The fight back began with the formal establishment of the Syndicat du Commerce des Vins de Champagne in 1884 which represented 61 houses and protected the region's exclusive right to produce Champagne. A second syndicat was created in 1912, the Syndicat des Négociants en Vins de Champagne and the two formed a union in 1945. The Champagne name has been vigorously defended against all comers from wine-makers to perfume manufacturers ever since and its position as the world's most famous wine seems assured for many generations to come.
Bibliography
Fadiman, C. (1962) Dionysus: A Case of Vintage Tales About Wine, McGraw-Hill, New York
Marrison, L.W. (1962) Wines and Spirits, Penguin, London
Mazzeo, T.L. (2008) The Widow Clicquot, HarperCollins, New York
Stelzer, T. (2016) The Champagne Guide 2016-17, Hardie Grant Books, London
Stevenson, T. (1988) Champagne, Sotheby's Publications, London
Tardi, Alan. (2016) Champagne Uncorked, Public Affairs, New York
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