Making Champagne

Champagne is synonymous with luxury and wealth, and it is no surprise that this beautiful drink has a rich history to go with it.

The history of champagne can be dated back as far as the 5th century when the Romans planted the first vineyards in the north-east Champagne region of France. Champagne back then was not sparkling, but began as a light pink wine made from pinot noir grapes.

The Champenois (those living in Champagne) were jealous of the great reputation of the wine produced in the southern French region of Burgundy. They then sought to create as equally high quality wines. Due to their colder climate in the north, the Champagne region struggled to produce high-quality red grapes to produce red wine like that from Burgundy, their wines instead were a lot less full-bodied and lighter. The cold weather also caused many bubbles to form in the bottles during fermentation in the cellars, which at the time they considered to be a fault.

In Britain, this new unique sparkling wine became popular especially with the royal family and aristocrats. Later on it became increasingly popular with the French nobility, so the Champagne wine makers started to try and come up with a way to deliberately create the bubbles and also to make bottles strong enough to withstand the pressure of the process.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that the problems were over come and the first modern champagne began to be processed en masse.

One of the key people credited with the creation of modern day champagne is monk Dom Perignon. He worked incredibly hard to try and rid champagne of bubbles, but his pioneering techniques that meant that white wine could be created from red grapes influenced the development of the modern day sparkling champagne.

It was during the industrial revolution that champagne techniques and technology improved dramatically. It was the French scientist Jean-Antoine Chaptal that first discovered why and how the bubbles formed in champagne. He told how it was the sugar in the wine that began the fermentation process which resulted in bubbles. The main problem was preventing the bottles from exploding from the pressure.

Pharmacist Andre Francois created formulas that precisely measured how much sugar can be added to a wine to make it bubble without creating too much pressure to make the bottle burst.

One of the most important advancements in champagne’s history was the new method of removing sediment from the bottle during the second phase of fermentation without losing any of the precious carbon dioxide.

A worker at the Veuve Clicquot champagne house created the new method of removing sediment, called riddling. This technique involved turning the bottles numerous times until the sediment settled in the neck of the bottle and then using the pressure of the wine to eject the sediment. This also led to popularity in adding extra sugar to the champagnes during this process to adjust it’s sweetness.

During the 19th century, most champagne was very sweet. This was often done to hide errors by the winemakers by covering up the bad tastes with sugar. Over time, different people enjoyed different levels of sweetness which led to different varieties of champagne ranging in sweetness. These days the most popular type of champagne is Brut, which has less than 15 grams of sugar per liter.

Veuve Clicquot also created the modern method of champagne making - methode champenoise. This meant that champagne could be created on a large profitable scale and was the start of the modern champagne industry.

The methode champenoise is used in nearly all champagne houses these days, as well as in other countries that produce sparkling wines similar to champagne. Instead of ejecting the sediment by hand and risking losing some of the carbon dioxide, the new method involves the same riddling process, but the neck of the bottle is frozen and then the pressure of the bottle forces out the lees (sediments), it is then quickly corked to retain the rest of the carbon dioxide.

During this period many of the largest and most prominent champagne houses began to emerge, including: Krug, Pommery and Bollinger. Although champagne sales increased drastically during the 1800’s, there were several setbacks in the early 20th century. Phylloxera appeared killing many of the crops, as well as the Russian Revolution and both of the world wars meant that the Champagne region became a battlefield for several years.

Since the wars however, champagne has seen a huge resurgence, and is a hugely popular drink in the 21st century. Since 1950, champagne sales around the world have quadrupled. Every year over 200 million bottles are produced in the Champagne region and exported around the world.