The countdown to the New Year traditionally begins with a festive glass filled with bubbling champagne. Sparkling wine has become a symbol of joy, celebration, romance, and a successful start, as its vibrant energy has been proven over centuries.
The Product of Prayers
Careful researchers have found evidence of sparkling wine consumption dating back to the times of Virgil and Homer. However, producers have been chronicling champagne since 1668, when the oversight of the wine cellars of the Benedictine monastery in the Champagne region was entrusted to a blind monk named Pierre Pérignon. Would the world know this name if it weren’t for the mishap that befell the 30-year-old cellar master, who left a stash of bottles filled with young wine in his cell? One day, his “prayer supplies” all exploded at once, causing panic among the brethren.
After receiving a reprimand from the abbot for allowing the wine to ferment, the head of the Ouvilliers cellars offered to let everyone taste the “flavor of the stars” and treated them to the explosive drink. Soon, the entire monastery was able to appreciate the “divine nectar.” The brothers realized the power of prayer and hard work: for such a heavenly gift, it was worth renouncing the pleasures of life and dedicating oneself to the arduous task of growing vines.
A Strict Secret
Since then, the raw material for producing champagne has come from the entire harvest of wine grapes from the monastery’s vineyards. Some of the grapes were lost due to the unpredictable nature of the process: the frothy liquid would loudly pop corks and shatter bottles. Initially, the corks of champagne were wrapped in foil to protect against rats that threatened the wine; winemakers believed this would deter the cellar’s inhabitants from attempting to steal the cork. Since then, this iconic packaging element has remained on the bottle as a nod to tradition.
Statue of Pierre Pérignon at the historic winery Moët & Chandon. Victor Grigas
As he refined the technology, Pierre Pérignon discovered a reliable method for sealing bottles with a cork and established optimal blending proportions for wines made from grapes harvested in different years and varieties. The improvements required significant investment and effort, so the production of sparkling wine remained a closely guarded secret for a long time. The vow of silence was broken in 1718 when the abbot of Reims Cathedral, Godin, first revealed the secret of champagne production in a printed book. A few decades later, the first champagne production facility opened.
A Feminine Touch
Winemaking is often considered a man’s domain; however, women have made the most significant contributions to the production of champagne. The most notable example occurred in 1805 when a 27-year-old widow of a winemaker from Reims, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, boldly took over her late husband François Clicquot’s business and became a legend in the culture of sparkling wine production. Initially, no one believed in the business acumen of the young heiress. Colleagues dismissed her right to winemaking, holding the prejudice that when a woman enters a wine cellar, the wine turns to vinegar. But, in reality, the opposite happened: the brand “Veuve Clicquot” became a benchmark for champagne quality worldwide.
Portrait of the founder of the “Veuve Clicquot” brand, Madame Clicquot-Ponsardin
Madame Clicquot’s successors even adopted her invention, the “muselet”—a wire cage that holds the cork in place on the bottle. Not coincidentally, its length is 52 centimeters, the same length as a piece of wire from Josephine Clicquot’s dress corsage, which she used to seal her own name’s bottles (before this invention, corks were tied with string).
In the mid-19th century, the successful example set by Madame Clicquot inspired another widow, Madame Pommery, to enter the business. By the early 20th century, two more widows of winemakers, Madame Bollinger and Madame Roderer, followed suit.
A Drink for the Worthy
The Crimean wine enthusiast Lev Golitsyn considered champagne a wine for the worthy and took great care in ensuring the quality of his sparkling products. The prince repeatedly chaired tasting juries in various countries and was well-versed in elite beverages. He famously stated that “for a worthy person, wine is precious,” and he heeded the professional advice of winemakers from Champagne. By his own example, he proved that Crimean sparkling wines could compete with the finest French varieties.
The estate purchased by the prince in 1878 on the shores of the Black Sea became a model winemaking enterprise with advanced agricultural technologies. The factories in the New World and the village of Abrau-Durso near Novorossiysk produced wines that held their own in international competitions. Golitsyn’s sparkling wine from the 1899 harvest (with a production run of 60,000 bottles) was unanimously recognized as the best at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. For the first time in winemaking history, esteemed experts awarded the Grand Prix not to a world-renowned French firm.
“Soviet Champagne”
Sparkling wine became widely accessible during the Soviet era. In the early 1920s, Anton Frolov-Bagreyev, the head of the “New World” factory, developed and implemented an accelerated method of champagne production that reduced the fermentation process from three years to just one month. Unlike the classic production method, the wine ferments not in bottles but in 500-decaliter tanks (acratophores), and on the 25th to 27th day, the reaction is halted with cold, and the finished sparkling wine is bottled. This revolutionary technology was recognized as a national economic asset and awarded the State Prize. Later, Frolov-Bagreyev’s method was improved by his student, Professor G.G. Agabalyants, who invented a continuous flow method for champagne production in a system of interconnected tanks.
Overall, during the Soviet era, over 5,000 inventions and rationalization proposals were submitted in the technology of champagne production. Many ideas found application in new factories that produced affordable and quality wine under the brand “Soviet Champagne.” At prestigious international competitions, Soviet sparkling wines won 230 medals, 103 of which were gold.
Conditions and Rules
“Soviet Champagne” was exported under the names Soviet sparkling wine and Sovjetische sekt, as the exclusive right to the brand “Champagne” was legally defined by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. Officially, only sparkling wine from Champagne can be called champagne, made from local grape varieties Chardonnay (white) and Pinot Noir (red). Emphasizing the sophistication of “proper” wine, champagne made from Chardonnay is referred to as blanc de blancs (“white from white”) or blanc de noirs (“white from black”).
Grapes for champagne are typically harvested while still unripe to prevent the sugar in the berries from compromising the drink’s lightness. To preserve the flavor of the berries and prevent winemakers from being tempted to increase production at the expense of quality, Champagne has prohibited harvesting more than 13 tons of grapes per hectare. Naturally, artificial acceleration of the fermentation process and the infusion of foreign gases and impurities are forbidden: authentic champagne can only be produced through natural secondary fermentation, with a minimum bottle aging of 18 months.
For Aristocrats and Degenerates
Champagne is mostly bottled in a standard bottle (750 ml), but a magnum bottle (1.5 l) is considered premium, as it contains less oxygen. In special cases, exclusive bottles for this wine are produced.
Specifically for Winston Churchill, the Pol Roger company bottled champagne in a 0.6 l (imperial pint) bottle. The expensive wine was served to the aristocratic alcoholic in the morning instead of coffee. The British Prime Minister would wake up at 11:00 AM and immediately “fuel up” with sparkling wine. Interestingly, despite the claim that “champagne in the morning is only for aristocrats or degenerates,” connoisseurs do not object to a glass of bubbly at breakfast, provided one follows the rule: light varieties are acceptable in the morning, while more robust options may be suitable in the afternoon, and “cuvée” in the evening.
Although champagne is often considered a “feminine” wine, many notable men have been its admirers: Churchill and Eisenhower, Peter the Great and Louis XIV, Pushkin and Fleming, Khrushchev and Pasteur. The latter called champagne the most beneficial of alcoholic beverages, and he can be trusted: a microbiologist knows best…