The French take their champagne very seriously. How seriously? So much so that at the end of World War I, while a tenth of their people were still underground, they insisted on inserting Article 275 (out of 440) into the Treaty of Versailles, which required all countries to recognize that only wines from the Champagne region of France could be called Champagne (this is why there is no Italian or German champagne, but there is actually Californian champagne, since the United States never ratified the Treaty of Versailles). Still, one can understand the French fear of losing the famous brand, after all, they invented the champagne we drink today? So, as Shimon Peres once said, yes and no.
I taste the stars.
According to the classic version, Champagne was invented in 1668 by a Benedictine monk named Pierre, known to us as Dom Perignon (Dom is an honorific title given to monks, taken from the Latin word domus – lord). That monk, who was in charge of the wine cellar at a monastery near Epernay in the Champagne region, accidentally discovered that a fermentation process inside a bottle of wine is responsible for the bubbles, which turn Champagne into a special lacquer (legend has it that the first time he drank the sparkling wine, he said “I taste the stars”). However, what we are less told is that Dom Perignon devoted most of his time to reducing the “bubbliness” of Champagne because the fermentation process caused the thin French bottles to explode and the wine cellar to look like an early version of a Hamas explosives laboratory…
While Dom Perignon tried to reduce the amount of bubbles in the bottle, trying to turn Champagne into a regular white wine, at the same time in England an unknown man named Christopher Merret was trying to do exactly the opposite. Wine from the Champagne region became very popular in England in the early 60s and was imported by the French adventurer Saint Evermond, who was forced to flee there after getting into trouble with the law in France. The wine he imported to England was supposed to be without bubbles, but the fermentation process in barrels made the English discover the magic of bubbles as well. Unlike Dom Perignon, who was afraid of fermentation, the English, who at the same time invented thick and durable glass bottles, actually liked the bubbles and tried to increase them. And here comes Meret, who was born in 17 and educated at Oxford (a place already known as an excellent training ground for drinkers). As an amateur chemist, Meret studied the phenomenon of fermentation and wrote a paper describing how fermentation could be increased in the bottle by adding sugar, at the same time that Dom Pérignon was trying to do exactly the opposite. Ultimately, Meret's method was very successful and the French adopted it along with the thick bottles, which allowed for increased effervescence without causing an explosion. Louis XIV, who was very fond of the new wine, adopted Champagne and made it the official wine of the French royal family, and the rest is history.
Naturally, the French did everything they could to forget these historical facts and, to be honest, after drinking a few glasses of champagne, this task becomes extremely easy… However, if you are going to toast champagne in honor of the New Year, raise a glass to Christopher Mert, he deserves it 🙂