Champagne - the best symbol of hedonism in the palm of your hand

All about wedding wine and New Year's kisses, champagne. Origin, varieties, classification, famous "terroir" and vintage of famous bubbles from Champagne.

The process of wine production is basically simple. Ripe grapes are picked and strained. The must from the first squeezing is used for producing high-quality wine. Sectionally, lower quality is obtained by second squeezing.

In addition, the must is then placed in open wooden barrels. Under certain temperature conditions in them, the yeast that is in the grape skin begins to consume fruit sugar. Carbon dioxide goes into the air, while alcohol remains in the barrel. As it usually happens in life, it's not all that simple…

The Orgin

In situations when carbon dioxide had nowhere to go, Champagne was made. Simply put, champagne is a non-sparkling wine left in a bottle to pass the secondary fermentation.

Almost all the stories advise that the men controlled the wine industry. History attributes the discovery of the secret of the bubbles to a blind soldier from the 17th century, the House of Pierre Perignon, who discovered them in the basements of his cellarage on the edge of the village of Otvil, trying to convert table wine into golden, liquid.

Dom Perignon was a master of blending, but his wines did not have bubbles, he even tried to get rid of them. A 19th-century legend has always been a part of marketing, a well thought out but untrue story. The advertising campaign related to the Home followed after the sparkling wine became a hit at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, after which brochures about this "historical data" began to be printed.

It is accurate that the British discovered the secrets of bubbles in the wine, around 1660. Wealthy British buyers bottled Champagne wines to prevent it from turning into vinegar in barrels, accidentally discovering champagne. The champagne industry, however, was saved by a Frenchwoman, Barb-Nicole, the famous widow of Clicquot (Veuve Clicquot).

All traditional methods had their drawbacks. The bottleneck in the production was the sediment in the bottles. Her idea was surprisingly simple. If the bottles were not kept in a horizontal position, but upside down, the precipitate might settle faster in the neck of the bottle. The workers laughed at her in the basement.

After only six weeks, Barb was stunned and delighted when she found out that with a short blow on the cork, the whole sediment hatched with a bang. The process of finishing champagne to the present day was changed by the discovery (remuage), the temporary stopper was removed with a small bent knife, and the bottle would be supplemented with expedient liqueur, a mixture of wine and sugar.

Variety

However, according to strict rules, only three grape varieties can be used for real champagne - Pinot Meunier, Pinot noir, Chardonnay (Chardonnay). After mixing these varieties it determines two styles of wine, blanc de noirs (wine that contains at least one variety of red wine) and blanc de Blancs (carbonated Chardonnay).

Pinot Noir is enchased with elegance before strength. Red grapes from Burgundy can be the rarest and the most expensive in the whole world. It is pretty difficult to find cheap Pinot - thin skin, poor yields, with unsuccessful attempts around the world to imitate these grapes. Most of Pino wine is not expected to be too old, although the historically good Burgundy could last a very long time (Grand Cru for four decades, Premier Cru between 10-15 years).

Producers in Champagne generally did not recognize Pinot Meunier until recently and preferred to emphasize the use of other noble varieties, but for some time now Pinot Meunier has been gaining recognition for the richness that contributes to the body of champagne. Pinot Meunier contains one-third of the grapes planted in Champagne. Grapes were favored by winemakers in northern France because of their ability to bud and ripen more reliably than black Pino.

Chardonnay is a blank canvas. The smooth basic character of grapes magically mutates depending on where it travels and how it is handled. The results are some of the best white wines in the world, these are the white grapes of Burgundy, Chablia, Champagne, and equally cheerful, everyday bottles.

It is easy to grow, it is easy to vinify. So popular that it is almost a brand in itself. Chardonnay is successful in itself as a varietal wine, as in Burgundy, but also in combination with Semillon (with of course champagne). French wines that are completely Chardonnay include white wines from Burgundy - Merso, Macon, Montrachet, Pouilly-Fuisse.

Terroir

The great importance is in soil, position and altitude, exposure to the sun, wind direction, microclimate, as well as the specificity of a particular vineyard, which the French call terroir. The closest thing that could be said is that terroir is everything that surrounds wine. This also includes of course knowing where the grapes of the wine you bought come from. Another important fact, assuming that the grapes are healthy, is the technique with which the grapes are treated. A good wine is, after all, the wine that overcomes the imperfections of nature.

Champagne is primarily a product of mixing different grape varieties, harvests, from different vineyards - with a typical non-harvest blend consisting of grapes from up to 80 different vineyards.

However, prestigious champagne producers, such as Dom Perignon, Moet et Chandon, Cristal Louis Roederer, Veuve Clicquot, limit the sources of grapes they use exclusively to Grand Cru vineyards (and sometimes Premier Crus). Even though champagnes with one vineyard are rare, they do exist, such as the Circle Clos du Mesnil, which comes from the Grand Cru vineyard near the town of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.

A product of a single producer and vineyard owner, a champagne grower, located in the villages of Grand Cru, will often label their wines "100% Grand Cru" if their wines qualify for this label.

What are Grand and Premier Cru?

Cru is a wine term used to denote a high-quality vineyard or group of vineyards.

The name grand cru, top-quality cultivation, is awarded only to carefully selected wine-growing positions in France, where grapes that have a rating of 100% on the scale thrive. In France, there are a total of 33 Grand Cru appeals from which champagne and chardonnay are excluded.

Recall, by 1985, when it comes to champagne, twelve villages had received this status, to be increased to seventeen. Only 9% of all vineyards in the Champagne area have this complimentary status. Among the most famous are Verzenay, Verzy, Ambonnay, Chouilly.

The second category is Premier cru, (43 locations) with a rating of 90/99%.

Each wine has its own special noise, which chemists tell us is the result of a dizzying series of volatile phenomena, which react with each other and with the air, and their aromas are largely responsible for our taste experience when we drink wine. Lactones give the wine a nutty taste, phenols bitter and spicy. Sulfur gives a grassy note to a cold summer glass of Sauvignon Blanc, for example.

Classification - Echelle des Crus

The French composition Echelle des Crus (growth scale) which ranks the position of champagne vineyards is a tradition that is respected even today when determining the quality of grapes. The classification is based on the location and position of the vineyards themselves. Accordingly, vineyards with a higher rating will charge more for their grapes than those with a lower rating.

The classification was originally established as a fixed price structure. The price of grapes per kilogram was determined and the owners of the vineyards would receive a part of the price depending on their location. Vineyards in villages marked with Grand crus would receive 100% of the price, while villages with Premiers crus with a score of 95 would receive 95% of the price.

To this day, the business dynamics between champagne houses and vineyard owners are not so strictly regulated, but the classification system still serves to help determine prices, with Grand and Premier Cru vineyards getting significantly more for their grapes than vineyards in villages with ratings below 90%.

Vintage

The vintage years are special vintages, in which the winemaker does not have to rely on stocks of fine wine prepared from previous vintages in order to complete the desired mixture. The best vintage bottles of champagne are appreciated for their complex notes and investment potential - which mainly stem from the scarcity and meticulous practice of wine production.

Therefore, champagne qualifies as vintage only if all the grapes come from a one-year harvest, and the rest include a mixture of three to five harvests.

Aging: vintage champagne is aged for at least three years on lees (dead yeast), compared to 15 months for other wines.

Prices can be dizzying, but doesn't champagne hit your head directly when you overdo it? A bottle of Juglav Cuvee from 1820 reached a price of $ 44,000, followed by Dom Perignon from 1959, which costs $ 42,500, and Veuve Clicquot from 1841, with a price of $ 34,000.

Too much or too little, passion or exaggeration, one thing is for sure, the status of champagne as a symbol of hedonism will hardly ever be surpassed. And how would you?

Invocation of luxury, celebration, and very often the possibility of a love story. Champagne, wine for weddings, and New Year's kisses. Lord Byron said that "lobster salad and champagne are the only things women should be allowed to eat in public", and Madame De Pompidour, the mistress of the French king, "that champagne is the only wine that makes a woman even more beautiful". According to the legend, shallow champagne glasses are known as "coupes" are shaped for instance as that lady’s chest. Not enough, is it?