Ryan Chartrand“Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient Champagne.” This was spoken by Dorothy Parker and I really can’t say I disagree.
If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then Champagne must be everyone else’s. Doesn’t it always seem that when something great happens, Champagne is always around? But where does it come from? How do they make it? And where do the bubbles come from? All these questions will be answered by effervescent means. So please hold on, we’re going for a bubbly ride.
Champagne is made in the Champagne Region of France. The French are very particular about who can call Champagne, well Champagne. If you buy a bottle of bubbly from a California winery (or anywhere besides France), it is called a sparkling wine. The history of this bubbly delight dates back to the late 17th century. Despite popular belief, Don P‚rignon, a local monk in this region, was not the inventor of Champagne.
It was a natural process that happened because the first fermentation that the wine was put through had not been completed at the time of bottling. The standard equation for fermentation is sugar + yeast = carbon dioxide + alcohol. It’s simple; by bottling early, it becomes fizzy wine.
P‚rignon was merely the one responsible for minding the sometimes unruly cellars. Bottles of Champagne would burst quite frequently and cause serious injury as shards of glass exploded in the cellar. The French rectified this situation by using stronger glass made by the English. They also began using cork from Spanish Oak trees and heavy thread as a cage to hold the cork in the bottle.
Champagne is picked using a combination of grapes. The combination is two red grapes and one white varietal. The first two are Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes. How do they become white though? It’s a simple process where the wine makers solely press the clear juices and have little or no contact with the deep red skins. In France, making a wine only from these grapes is called a “Blanc de Noir.” Conversely, the other way Champagne can be made is only with white grapes, called a “Blanc de Blanc.” The only white grape used for this process is Chardonnay.
Today, Champagne is made using a method called “M‚thode Champenoise.” This means, the wine is fermented normally and when it comes time to bottle it, they add a small amount of yeast and sugar to the wine. This is most often called the “dosage.” Then, they play the waiting game. It takes anywhere from 1 1/2 years to three years to produce the product. After this period, they collect the dead yeast by turning the bottlenecks down, collecting this product at the bottom. The sediment finally is ready to be collected. The tops of the bottles are frozen and the sediment flies out in a frozen mass, while the bottles are quickly re-corked to keep the bubbles.
The type of sweetness produced really is a product of the “dosage.” The ones with the most residual sugar are called doux (this is the sweetest Champagne). From there, it is a sliding scale of sweetness to dryness. Demi-sec is a little more dry, then comes sec and extra-sec. These are followed by the most popular type in the United States, brut. Brut is almost completely dry. But there are drier wines including extra brut, brut nature and brut zero. I find this to be a bit too dry for me, so let’s move on, shall we?
Since the holidays are among us, it’s understandable that people like to entertain a little more this time of year. So in the spirit of giving, I have some doctored up recipes, guaranteed to go straight to your head. Cheers!
Geri’s Bellini
2 oz Peach juice or puree
4 oz Champagne
Add juice to flute and slowly add champagne
Rasberry Delight
2 oz Rasberry Liquor
4oz Champagne
Garnish with Raspberries
Feel free to submit any recommendations, accolades, favorite wines or recipes to laurenjeter@gmail.com
Lauren Jeter is a 2005 wine and viticulture graduate and is currently pursuing a master’s in agribusiness.