|
 The name ‘Champagne’ derives from the Latin ‘campus’, ‘campania’, meaning ‘field’. This evolved to ‘Champaign’ in Old French and finally to ‘Champagne’ in modern days.
Fossil evidence shows that in the area around Epernay wild wines already flourished naturally over a million years ago! However, it was the Romans who, as well as developing the vineyards and the art of winemaking, also quarried the chalky hillsides up to three hundred feet deep, in search of chalk blocks for building, thus creating those now familiar underground cellars for millions of bottles of Champagne and an ideal soil for vineyards. The conditions they created then proved perfect for sparkling wine production.
 Champagne wines were given a unique destiny when the paths of geography and history crossed. It was Saint Rémi, bishop of Rheims, whilst living in a villa surrounded by vineyards near to the present town of Epernay, who baptised Clovis when he converted to Christianity. The first King of France was anointed with wine from the Champagne region one Christmas evening in 496 AD. Several centuries later, the marriage of Jeanne de Navarre, heiress of Champagne, to the heir to the French throne, later Philip the Fair, linked the destiny of the Lords of Champagne to the crown of France. Between 898 and 1825, the kings of France were crowned in Rheims, at the heart of the Champagne region. At the accompanying festivities, Champagne flowed freely. The wines were appreciated for their taste and finesse, and were to become the wines offered in homage to any visiting monarchs.
“The priest has just baptised you a Christian with water, and I baptise you a Frenchman, darling child, with a dewdrop of Champagne on your lips.”
Paul Claudel
 The Champenois, especially Brother Pierre (1639—1715), made fundamental advances in wine-making techniques. Dom Pérignon, as history knows him, recognised that low grape yields were allied to quality. He stressed the importance of healthy fruit, and of a speedy and careful harvest.
 As he was producing clear white wine from black grapes, he perfected the art of delicate pressing, and was one of the first to set aside the juice from different stages of the pressing process. The pressing of black grapes to produce white wine enabled the Champenois to produce a white wine of extreme purity and shine, as well as prolonging the life of the wine (up to 3–4 years). A slow but progressive pressing was needed, the general principals of which are still in use today.
Dom Pérignon started using stronger glass bottles (from England) and corks (from Spain) to produce vintage wines that would improve, rather than deteriorate, with age. When bottles replaced barrels, the wine’s natural sparkle remained imprisoned until they were opened. This is how Champagne wines found their sparkle.
However, Dom Pérignon’s method of storing the bottles upside down in sand was an imperfect process.  Nicole-Barbe Clicquot, also known as ‘La Veuve Clicquot’, hit on the refinement that provided the perfect solution: cutting a wooden board with holes at different angles. This meant that the bottles could be placed in holes almost horizontally (the position in which they had acquired their sparkle) and gradually moved up to the vertical, a twist and jolt at a time.
 There are few wines as complicated to make as Champagne. At certain stages of its life it needs to be left alone, and at others it needs to be fussed over. It is blended, fermented twice, and has sticky lees that must be removed from inside the bottle without letting its precious sparkle escape. The stratagems for overcoming these problems are varied and ingenious, the result of several centuries spent in the pursuit of perfection. Collectively, these solutions and techniques are known as the champagne method, the famous ‘méthode champenoise’.
The end result is the finest sparkling wine in the world.
“The effervescence of this fresh wine reveals the true brilliance of the French people.”
Voltaire
|
