The Story of Champagne

Did you know the bubbles in Champagne were first considered a flaw?

Early winemakers of the Champagne region of France didn’t want effervescent wine. They considered bubbles a defect, a corruption of the still, fizz-free wine they were trying to make.

These bothersome bubbles came about unintentionally, when the wine failed to complete fermentation before being run into bottles. The weather was the culprit. Being so far north, the temperature in Champagne sometimes turned too cool too soon, stopping the fermentation process short.

Once placed into bottles, this partially fermented wine became little glass time-bombs. When temperatures warmed up again in the spring, fermentation rebooted--only this time inside the bottle. The build-up of carbon dioxide (a byproduct of fermentation) created intense pressure inside the bottles and turned the tranquil cellars of Champagne into war zones of exploding bottles--and presumably led to a tremendous boon for the eye patch industry around Reims.

Of course, when the bottles didn't burst, this secondary fermentation created bubbles, which were released harmlessly when the bottles were uncorked.

Faced with a potentially defective product, there was only one thing to do: call in the marketers! The marketing pros took what was essentially a flaw and turned it into a fabulous selling point! They positioned Champagne as a fun, festive wine. Today, of course, the very word "Champagne" is practically a synonym for celebration.

And job one for the marketers of Champagne? No doubt it was to build a better bottle, one that wouldn’t explode shards of glass into the customer’s face! (Such a thing was not considered particularly festive even by early marketing standards.) You’ll notice that today's sparkling wines come in thick, unexploding glass bottles.

In this way, Champagne signals the first modern wine, certainly the first mass-marketed wine. It also requires quite the industrial process. To produce Champagne, or sparkling wine, in modern times, a syrupy sugar mixture (dosage de tirage) is added to still wine to ensure a reliable secondary fermentation in the bottle. This secondary fermentation creates sediment called lees (dead yeast cells), which settle and collect in the neck of the bottle (the bottles are placed tilting forward). After a time, the bottles are uncorked, the lees are removed, and the bottles are topped off with a dosage d'expedition--a splash of extra wine to fill the gap. The lees give flavor. When disgorged, there will likely not be further quality development. So the more "time on lees" the better.

As you can see, the process of making champagne is time consuming and requires a lot of labor. And that's the rub! Good champagne is usually pretty pricey. Excellent champagne can be stratospheric--truly the stuff for special occasions.

Another interesting thing about Champagne is it is often made with black grapes. Specifically, Pinot Noir (also Meunier). Often Champagne is a blend of both white and black grapes. When only black or only white grapes are used, the label will let you know:

• Champagne made with only black grapes will be labeled blanc de noir (white from black).
• Blanc de blanc (white from white) means the grapes are all white grapes, specifically Chardonnay. 
• Interestingly, a blanc de noir wine does not mean it will be rosé in color. The wine might be a little more golden than a blanc de blanc, but it will still be white. Rosé champagne gets its color from still red wine being added to the bottle.

When it comes to bubbles, size does seem to matter. Small bubbles generally suggest better quality in a sparkling wine. Larger bubbles can indicate that the wine was fermented in a giant vat instead of inside the bottle according to the dictates of the vaunted Champagne method. Done correctly, you will find millions upon millions of tiny bubbles in each bottle.