“Health!” Exclamation point of the birthday or Christmas Eve meal, champagne is essential for any celebration worthy of the name. Enough the aperitif like dessert, the communion of flutes is synonymous with majesty, elegance, celebration … In short, a certain French art of living that the whole world envies us. But would this sparkling wine have obtained its letters of nobility without the decisive contribution of the English?
Fleury of the tricolor heritage, Champagne makes the prestige of our wine terroirs. Often imitated – just to the comrade Stalin, who tried to create a “socialist champagne” in the 1930s – but never equaled, he is today mainly consumed abroad and is invited to the tables of powerful.
The legend argues that it is Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk of the XVIIe century, which would have mastered the “recipe” at the monastery of Hautvillers, in the Marne. Ted up by numerous advertising campaigns, this myth has entered history. “There is only champagne of champagne”insists the interprofessional committee of champagne wine, which is laired by reducing Brazilian Californian and sparkling wines to the rank of pale imitations without past or flavor … However, the region cannot only receive the credit of the invention of champagne which is today renown and its fortune.
Damn “devil’s wine”
Consumed since the Middle Ages, champagne wine is first of all a “quiet” wine (that is to say non-sparkling), acidic and poor in sugars. Coming from a less sunny terroir than his neighbors, taken from a clay and limestone plain, he does not have the delicacy of a Burgundy wine and therefore finds himself marginalized of royal or papal tables. It is an honest, unpretentious liquor that the powerful sulks without moods.
Local producers sometimes note that this wine broke out in the cellars where it is stored. Indeed, the harsh winters of champagne interrupt the fermentation, which once resumes the first frosts. We then speak of “devil’s wine”: the second fermentation produces carbon dioxide which accumulates in the barrels and blows up the tingling of the barrels. At the time, the traffic jams were simple pieces of lubricated wood which do not have the waterproofing of cork and the bottles remain too fragile to contain the effervescent drinks.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the English Channel, the English somehow tame the merits of effervescent beverages. Very fond of cider and beer, they import barrels of French wine and quickly find that their flavor deteriorates during long journeys at sea. They then have the idea of adding sugar or molasses to improve its taste before putting it into bottles … sugar which, through the fermentation process, converts to carbon dioxide and alcohol. But how can we keep these unstable elixirs?
The British push the cap
The first innovation of the English is the production of stronger containers that allow you to store this oh so restless wine. Various glass bottles appear in the British Islands at the beginning of the XVIIe century, impromptu consequence of a decree of 1615 decreed by Jacques IerKing of England and Ireland (and Scotland), who prohibited the use of wood for the heating of ovens, in order to reserve the forests of the kingdom for shipbuilding. Consequently, the stoves of the glassmakers are no longer doped with wood, but in coal, a much more calorific fuel which produces thicker bottles.
The second British innovation is based on chemical observation. As early as 1662, a doctor and naturalist by the name of Christopher Merret (1614-1695) appeared before the Royal Society of London. “Our winegrowers use large amounts of molasses for all kinds of wines, in order to make them lively and sparkling”he explains in front of the audience of scientists. He found that adding sugar in a sealed bottle would cause a second fermentation. This principle will be widespread using sugar imported from the Caribbean colonies and cork corks produced in the Iberian Peninsula. All the ingredients in Champagne are united.
Christopher Merret’s thesis was pronounced six years before Pierre “Dom” Pérignon, propelled “inventor” of Champagne by the advertising of the XIXe century, did not arrive at the monastery of Hautvillers. Admittedly, the Benedictine monk popularized the practice of assembly – the selection of grape varieties to produce a delicate and tasty wine – and extended the influence of the Champagne terroir in the great century, during the reign of Louis XIV. But Dom Pérignon was above all producer of non -effervescent wines and first tried to fight this damn foam.
No offense to the English, the growing popularity of champagne on French tables will eclipse the crucial contribution of our neighbors from across the Channel to its development. Advertising will do the rest. “From this fresh wine the sparkling foam / of our French is the brilliant image”enthuses Voltaire in the Age of Enlightenment. The drink has become a national treasure cherishing tricolor identity. Vin de l’Elite, fine parts and bourgeois festivals, Champagne sees its price exploding and international markets open up to its delicate foam and fine bubbles.
While waiting for Dom Pérignon to fall back from his pedestal, one last thing: if you unclog a bottle during this holiday season, take the opportunity to ventilate this nationalist fable which is seriously starting to feel the cap.
