|
CHAMPAGNE
Champagne is a sparkling wine produced by inducing
the secondary fermentation of wine. It is named
after the Champagne region of France. While the term
"champagne" is often used by makers of sparkling
wine in other parts of the world, such as California
and Canada, it should properly be used to refer only
to the wines made in the region of Champagne,
France. The community, under the auspices of the
Comité Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne has
developed a comprehensive set of rules and
regulations for all wine that comes from the region.
These rules are designed to ensure that the highest
quality product is produced and include a
codification of the most suitable places for grapes
to grow, the most suitable types of grapes – all
Champagne is produced from one or a blend of up to
three varieties of grapes: chardonnay, pinot noir,
and pinot meunier – and has identified a lengthy set
of requirements that specify most aspects of
viticulture. This includes vine pruning, the yield
of the vineyard, the degree of pressing applied to
the grapes, and the time that bottles must remain on
the lees. Only if a wine meets all these
requirements may the name Champagne be placed on the
bottle. The rules that have been agreed upon by the
CIVC are then presented to the INAO for final
approval.
In Europe and most other countries, the name
"champagne" is legally protected as part of the
Treaty of Madrid (1891) to mean only sparkling wine
produced in its namesake region and adhering to the
standards defined for that name as an Appellation
d'Origine Contrôlée. This right was reaffirmed in
the Treaty of Versailles following World War I. Even
the term méthode champenoise, or champagne method
is, as of 2005, forbidden in favour of méthode
traditionelle. There are sparkling wines made all
over the world, and many use special terms to define
their own sparkling wines: Spain uses Cava, Italy
calls it spumante, and South Africa uses Cap
Classique. A sparkling wine made from Muscat grapes
in Italy uses the DOCG Asti. In Germany, Sekt is a
common sparkling wine. Even other regions of France
are forbidden to use the name Champagne; for
example, wine-makers in Burgundy and Alsace produce
Crémant.
Other sparkling wines not from Champagne sometimes
use the term "sparkling wine" prominently on their
label. While most countries have labeling laws that
protect wine producing locations such as Champagne,
some – including the United States – continue to
allow U.S. wine producers to utilize the name
“Champagne” on the label of products that do not
come from Champagne. To allow this practice, the
U.S. Congress passed a law claiming that the term
"champagne" is semi-generic. This often leads to
consumer confusion about genuine Champagne and is
seen as deceptive by some consumers and wine
experts. While some U.S. companies ironically claim
that their long usage of the term prevents them from
dropping the word champagne on the bottle, many
quality U.S. sparkling winemakers have ceased use of
the term, instead favoring "sparkling wine" as their
identifier.
Champagne's sugar content varies. The sweetest level
is doux (meaning sweet), proceeding in order of
increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec
(dry), extra sec (extra dry), brut (almost
completely dry), and extra brut / brut nature / brut
zero (no additional sugar, sometimes ferociously
dry.).
The Champagne wine-growing region
The plots of land in each wine-growing commune are
meticulously classified into numerous parcels. The
vineyard as a whole does not form a single block but
is divided into several zones of equal importance.
The area of wine production is strictly defined in
accordance with the law of 22 July 1927 and accounts
for approximately three per cent of the total area
under vine in France.
The Montagne de Reims is a large, fairly flat
plateau, thickly carpeted with vineyards that slope
gently towards the valleys of the Vesle and the
Ardre to the north and the Marne to the south.
The Marne Valley extends 100kms, from
Saâcy-sur-Marne in the département of Seine-et-Marne
to Tours-sur-Marne beyond Epernay. The vineyards
line the flanks of the valley that slope more or
less gently towards the banks of the river and
nestle into smaller valleys on either side.
The Côte des Blancs, so-called because it is almost
exclusively devoted to white grapes, is a cliff at
right angles with the Montagne de Reims south of
Epernay.
South of the département of the Marne, you can catch
glimpses of vineyards to the north and south of
Sézanne.
The area under vine in the region of Vitry-le-François,
remains confined to a few communes only.
The Côte des Bar extend the wine-growing area to the
south. Those around Villenauxe-la-Grande are in
effect the continuation of the southern section of
the Marne vineyard, but Montgueux in the immediate
vicinity of Troyes also cultivates a few dozen
hectares of vines. Mainly, however, they lie
clustered around Bar-sur-Seine and Bar-sur-Aube plus
a few dozen hectares of plantings to the east in the
département of the Haute-Marne.
Champagne Regions
This isn't vital information, unless you are a true
Champagne expert, so I'll deal with it quickly.
There are just five main regions within Champagne
where the grapes are grown, and where the houses
source their grapes will influence the quality and
style of the final product. It's not really of much
use to the general consumer, however, as you won't
find these names on the label.
Firstly, the Montagne de Reims is the most northerly
area, and is planted mainly with Pinot Noir, mainly
on north facing slopes. Wines produced here are firm
and austere. The Côte des Blancs is a mostly
east-facing region south of Epernay. It is almost
entirely planted with Chardonnay, and produces a
wine much less hard than the Montagne de Reims.
There is a little Pinot Noir planted in the very
south of this region. The Vallée de la Marne runs
west-east, and is planted with all three grape
varieties, although the Pinot Meunier dominates.
Furher south is the Côte des Sézanne, primarily
Chardonnay country, and finally the Aube, the
southernmost of all five regions, is planted mainly
with Pinot Noir. This latter region is quite a
distance further south than the other four, and is
thus warmer, so it is planted with mainly Pinot
Noir.
The Wines
What determines how much you pay for a bottle is the
style of wine inside it. A non-vintage (often
abbreviated to NV) wine is a blend of wine from
several different years. They are blended so as to
maintain a house style, and this is the entry level
for Champagne. Vintage wines are produced from a
single year, and most houses will only release a
vintage wine if they deem that the grapes harvested
that year are of sufficient quality. Accordingly,
they are more expensive than the NV wines. They are
identifiable simply by the presence of a vintage
year on the label. Prestige cuvées are released by
some of the top houses, and here quality can be
excellent. Some examples include Dom Pérignon (Moët
et Chandon), Comtes de Champagne (Taittinger), Belle
Epoque (Perrier-Jouët), Dom Ruinart (Ruinart),
Bollinger RD and Grande Année (Bollinger), Cristal (Roederer),
La Grande Dame (Veuve Clicquot), Cuvée Winston
Churchill (Pol Roger - named after the Prime
Minister, who had a penchant for Pol Roger as well
as cigars), among others. I taste many of these
wines in this Prestige Cuvée Champagne tasting.
To be really helpful, acknowledging the fact that NV
wines do taste different from year to year,
regardless of how well the house style is
maintained, the now sadly deceased Daniel Thibault
introduced cellaring dates to the NV wines at
Charles Heidsieck, and I wouldn't be surprised if
more houses follow suit. The wine in the bottle is
still a blend of wines from several years, the year
on the label indicating only the year which the
finished, blended wine was laid down in Heidsieck's
cellars to mature. But the date allows us to
differentiate between bottles containing different
blends, and with different amounts of bottle age. I
once popped in to one wine merchant and found the
1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 on the shelves.
Without the cellaring dates these would have looked
like five bottles of identical NV wine, which in
truth they most certainly were not.
Other points of interest include the rosé
Champagnes, which may be made by either allowing the
wine to stay in contact with the red grape skins for
a while (the saignée method), or by adding in a
little red wine to colour the product. The terms
Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs indicate wines
made solely from white grapes (Chardonnay) and black
grapes (Pinot Noir and Meunier) respectively.
As an aside, you may notice as you are inspecting
the label, the letters NM (most commonly) followed
by a number. There are four levels of producer in
Champagne, and in all cases the level of producer is
indicated on the bottle by the letters NM, RM, CM or
MA, followed by a unique number. The most important
producers are the négociant-manipulants, these being
large companies which buy in, blend and produce very
large quantities of wine. The other three levels are
récoltant-manipulants (growers who make and sell
their own wine), co-opératives-manipulants (the
co-ops) and marque-auxiliaire (used for own label
Champagne).
Vintages
The most recent truly great Champagne vintages were
1996, 1990 and 1985. Other good vintages include
1995, 1989, 1988, 1983, 1982 and 1979.
How is Champagne made?
Grapes used for Champagne are generally picked
earlier, when sugar levels are lower and acid levels
higher. Except for pink or rosé Champagnes, the
juice of harvested grapes is pressed off quickly, to
keep the wine white. The traditional method of
making Champagne is known as the Méthode Champenoise.
The first fermentation begins in the same way as any
wine, converting the natural sugar in the grapes
into alcohol while the resultant carbon dioxide is
allowed to escape. This produces the "base wine".
This wine is not very pleasurable by itself, being
too acidic. At this point the blend is assembled,
using wines from various vineyards, and, in the case
of non-vintage Champagne, various years.
The blended wine is put in bottles along with yeast
and a small amount of sugar, called the liqueur de
tirage, and stored in a wine cellar horizontally,
for a second fermentation. During the secondary
fermentation the carbon dioxide is trapped in the
bottle, keeping it dissolved in the wine. The amount
of added sugar will determine the pressure of the
bottle. To reach the standard value of 6 bars inside
the bottle is necessary to have 18 grams of sugar,
and the amount of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae,
is regulated by the European Commission (Regulation
1622/2000, 24 July 2000) to be 0.3 grams per bottle.
The "liqueur de tirage" is then a mixture of sugar,
yeast and still champagne wine.
Champagne Capsules
After ageing (a mimimum from one and a half to three
years), they undergo a process known as riddling (remuage
in French), in which they are rotated a small amount
each day and gradually moved to a neck-down
orientation, so that the sediment ('lees') collects
in their necks and can be removed. The removal
process is called "disgorging" (dégorgement in
French), and was a skilled manual process, where the
cork and the lees were removed without losing large
quantities of the liquid, and a dosage (a varying
amount of additional sugar) is added. Until this
process was invented (reputedly by Madame Clicquot
in 1800) Champagne was cloudy, a style still seen
occasionally today under the label méthode
ancestrale. Modern disgorgement is automated by
freezing a small amount of the liquid in the neck
and removing this plug of ice containing the lees. A
cork is then inserted with a capsule and wire cage
securing it in place.
Wines from Champagne cannot legally be sold until it
has aged on the lees in the bottle for at least 18
months. Champagne's AOC regulations require that
vintage Champagnes are aged in cellars for three
years or more before disgorgement, but most top
producers exceed this minimum requirement, holding
bottles on the lees for 6 to 8 years before
disgorgement.
Even experts disagree about the effects of aging on
Champagne after disgorgement. Some prefer the
freshness and vitality of young, recently disgorged
Champagne, and others prefer the baked apple and
caramel flavors that develop from a year or more of
aging.
The majority of the Champagne produced is
non-vintage (also known as mixed vintage), a blend
of wines from several years. Typically the majority
of the wine is from the current year but a
percentage is made of "reserve wine" from previous
years. This serves to smooth out some of the vintage
variations caused by the marginal growing climate in
Champagne. Most Champagne houses strive for a
consistent "house style" from year to year, and this
is the hardest task of the winemaker.
The grapes to produce vintage Champagne must be 100%
from the year indicated (other sparkling wines in
the EU need only be 85% to be called vintage). To
maintain the quality of non-vintage champagne a
maximum of half the grapes harvested in one year can
be used in the production of vintage Champagne
ensuring at least 50%, though usually more, is
reserved for non-vintage wines. Vintage Champagnes
are the product of a single high-quality year, and
bottles from prestigious makers can be rare and
expensive.
Champagne Varieties
Champagne is a single Appellation d'Origine
Contrôlée. Grapes must be the white Chardonnay, or
the red Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier (a few very rare
other grapes that were historically important are
allowed, but very unusual). Champagnes made
exclusively from Chardonnay are known as blanc de
blancs, and those exclusively from the red grapes as
blanc de noirs. Champagne is typically a white wine
even if it is produced with red grapes, because the
juice is extracted from the grapes using a gentle
process that minimizes the amount of time the juice
spends in contact with the skins, which is what
makes red wine red. Rosé wines are also produced,
either by permitting the juice to spend more time
with the skins to impart a pink color to the wine,
or by adding a small amount of red wine during
blending. The amount of sugar (dosage) added after
the second fermentation and ageing also varies, from
brut zéro or brut natural, where none is added,
through brut, extra-dry, sec, demi-sec and doux. The
most common is brut, although in the early 20th
century Champagne was generally much sweeter.
Most Champagne is non-vintage, produced from a blend
of years (the exact blend is only mentioned on the
label by a few growers), while that produced from a
single vintage is labelled with the year and
Millésimé.
Many Champagnes are produced from bought-in grapes
by well known brands such as Veuve Clicquot or Mumm.
Origins
Wines from the Champagne region were already known
before medieval times. Churches owned vineyards, and
monks produced wine for use in the sacrament of
Eucharist. French kings were traditionally anointed
in Reims. Champagne wine flowed as part of
coronation festivities.
Kings appreciated the still, light, and crisp wine,
and offered it as an homage to other monarchs in
Europe. In the 17th century, still wines of
Champagne were the chosen wines for celebration in
European countries. English people were the biggest
consumers of Champagne wines, and drank a lot of
sparkling wines.
The first commercial sparkling wine was produced in
the Limoux area of Languedoc about 1535. They did
not invent it; nobody knows who first made it,
although the British make a reasonably good claim.
Contrary to legend and popular belief, the French
monk Dom Perignon did not invent champagne, although
it is almost certainly true that he developed many
advances in the production of this beverage.
Somewhere in the end of the 17th century, the
sparkling method was imported in the Champagne
region, associated with specific procedures for
production (smooth pressing, dosage...), and
stronger bottles (invented in England) that could
hold the added pressure. Around 1700, sparkling
Champagne was born.
English people loved the new sparkling wine, and
spread it all over the world. Brut Champagne, the
modern Champagne, was created for the British in
1876. The Russian royalty also consumed huge
quantities, preferring the sweeter styles.
The Comité Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne
All of the over 15,000 growers, cooperatives and
over 300 houses that are central to producing
Champagne are members of the Comité
Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (CIVC). This
organization has a system where both the houses and
the growers are represented at all levels. This
includes a co-presidency where a grower
representative and a representative of the houses
share the running of the organization. This system
is designed to ensure that the CIVC's primary
mission -- to promote and protect Champagne -- is
done in a manner that represents the consensus of
the community. This power structure has played an
important role in the success of Champagne worldwide
and the integrity of the appellation itself.
Champagne producers
The type of champagne producer can be identified
from the abbreviations followed by the official
number on the bottle:
• NM: Négociant manipulant. These companies
(including the majority of the larger brands) buy
grapes and make the wine
• CM: Coopérative de manipulation. Co-operatives
that make wines from the growers who are members,
with all the grapes pooled together
• RM: Récoltant manipulant. A grower that also makes
wine from their own grapes
• SR: Société de récoltants. An association of
growers making a shared Champagne but who are not a
co-operative
• RC: Récoltant coopérateur. A co-operative member
selling Champagne produced by the co-operative under
its own name
• MA: Marque auxiliaire or Marque d'acheteur. A
brand name unrelated to the producer or grower; the
name is owned by someone else, for example a
supermarket
• ND: Négociant distributeur. A wine merchant
selling under his own name
Bubbles
An initial burst of effervescence occurs when the
champagne contacts the dry glass on pouring. These
bubbles may form on imperfections in the glass that
facilitate nucleation. However, after the initial
rush, these naturally occurring imperfections are
typically too small to consistently act as
nucleation points as the surface tension of the
liquid smooths out these minute irregularities.
The nucleation sites that act as a source for the
ongoing effervescence are not the natural
imperfections in the glass, but actually occur
either:
• where the glass has been etched by the
manufacturer or the customer This etching is
typically done with acid, a laser, or a glass
etching tool from a craft shop to provide nucleation
sites large enough for continuous bubble formation
(note that not all glasses are etched in this way);
or
It is interesting to note that Dom Perignon was
originally charged by his wine-making Abbey of
Hautvillers to get rid of the bubbles since the
pressure in the bottles caused many of them to
explode in the cellar and was thought to be the work
of the devil.
Champagne bottles
Side-by-side comparison of champagne bottles. (L to
R) On ladder: magnum, full, half, quarter. On floor:
Balthazar, Salmanazar, Methuselah, Jeroboam
Champagne is mostly fermented in two sizes bottles,
standard bottle (750 mL), and Magnum (1.5 L). In
general, magnums are thought to be higher quality,
as there is less oxygen in the bottle, and the
volume to surface area favors the creation of
appropriately-sized bubbles. However, there is no
hard evidence for this view. Other bottle sizes,
named for Biblical figures, are generally filled
with Champagne that has been fermented in standard
bottles or magnums.
List of bottle sizes:
• quarter bottle (aka. split or piccolo bottle)
(187.5 or 200 ml)
o mainly used by airlines, hotel mini-bars and
nightclubs.
• half-bottle (aka. Demi) (375 ml)
o used in restaurants
• bottle (aka. Imperial) (750 ml)
• Magnum (1.5 L) (equivalent to 2 bottles)
• Jeroboam (3 L) (4 bottles)
• Rehoboam (4.5 L) (6 bottles)
• Methuselah (6 L) (8 bottles)
• Salmanazar (9 L) (12 bottles)
• Balthazar (12 L) (16 bottles)
• Nebuchadnezzar (15 L) (20 bottles)
• Melchior (18 L) (24 bottles)
• Solomon (25 L)
• Primat (27 L) (36 bottles)
• Melchizedek (30 L) (40 bottles)
Sizes larger than Jeroboam are rare. Primat sized
bottles - and as of 2002 Melchizedek sized bottles -
are exclusively offered by the House Drappier. The
same names are used for bottles containing wine and
port; however Jeroboam, Rehoboam and Methuselah
refer to different bottle volumes. On occasion
unique sizes have been made for special occasions
and people. The most notable example perhaps being
the 20 fluid ounce/ 60cl. bottle (Imperial pint)
made specially for Sir Winston Churchill by Pol
Roger. This was served to Mr Churchill by his butler
at 11am as he was getting up.
Opening Champagne bottles
The deliberate spraying of Champagne has become an
integral part of sports trophy presentations and
locker room celebrations, though Champagne
enthusiasts sometimes cringe at the waste. To reduce
the risk of spilling Champagne and/or turning the
cork into a projectile, open a Champagne bottle as
follows:
• Remove the foil and pull down the wire loop;
• Drape a towel over the bottle:
• Place your hand over the cork;
• Loosen but don't remove the wire cage;
• Grasp the cork and the cage firmly with your hand,
then rotate the bottle (rather than the cork) by
holding it at the base; this should allow the cork
to come out on its own accord.
The desired effect is to ease the cork out with a
sigh or a whisper rather than a pop or to shoot the
cork across the room or produce a fountain of foamy
wine. Most wine connoisseurs insist that the ideal
way to open a bottle of Champagne is to do it so
carefully and gently that very little sound is
emitted at all.
Serving Champagne
Champagne is usually served in a champagne flute,
whose characteristics include a long stem with a
tall, narrow bowl and opening. The wider flat glass
(cup) commonly associated with Champagne is no
longer preferred by connoisseurs because it does not
preserve the bubbles and aroma of the wine as well.
But Champagne is better for tasting with a big red
wine glass (i.e. a glass for bordeaux), as the aroma
spreads better in the large area of the glass, but
contrary to the cup, the aroma stays in the glass.
Don't try to fill the glass: flutes shall be filled
only 2/3 of the glass, and big red wine glasses not
more than 1/3 of the glass.
Champagne is always served cold, and is best at the
temperature 7C° (43 to 48°F). Often the bottle is
chilled in a bucket of ice and water before and
after opening. Champagne buckets are made
specifically for this purpose.
Champagne Types
Non Vintage (N.V.)
Blended from wines of several years to achieve a
constant "style de maison" House style. This blend
will depend on the art and history behind the house
and its Chef du Caves. Many NV Champagnes are a
blend of thirty or forty different wines.
A non-vintage Champagne cannot be sold until it is
15 months old, although most reputable houses will
age the wine in their cellars for longer periods. An
NV wine will often improve in the bottle after
purchase, if it is kept in the right conditions,
ideally a cellar, but failing that, in a cool dark
place. As the bottle ages the Champagne will become
softer on the palate, richer in taste. However, it
is not recommended to keep Champagne longer than it
was originally cellared by the maker.
Vintage
Vintage Champagne is a blend of wines from a
particular year, when the quality of the harvest was
sufficient to declare a "Vintage". Obviously, not
every year is a vintage year, but the vintage is
left to the individual houses themselves to declare.
Therefore, some houses declare a vintage Champagne
in a year where others did not feel the quality
justified it.
Vintage Champagne must be 39 months old before it is
sold, i.e. 3 years after the 1st January following
the harvest around September. Again, many Marques
will age their wines for longer than this legal
minimum.
Rosé
Rosé Champagne can be made in one of two ways: First
by maceration of black grapes during pressing, so
that the colour leeches out from the skins (the
juice from black grapes is white) or by adding a
small proportion of the red wine form the Champagne
region (often Bouzy Rouge) to give the wine a rose
tint. The former method (de saignée) is more
expensive and difficult to control, but many would
say produces the better Champagne. An excellent Rosé
is Laurent-Perrier, produced de saignée.
Prestige Cuvées
Most Champagne houses produce a special bottle in a
vintage year and these are normally deemed to be
"Prestige or Deluxe cuvées". Probably the most
famous of these is Moët's Cuvée Dom Pérignon. In
fact Moët invented the Cuvée Prestige with D.P. in
1921.
Prestige cuvées represent the pinnacle of a house's
achievement and can be a vintage or occasionally a
blend of vintages. They cost around three times more
than a Non-Vintage, and around double the price of a
Vintage.
BRAND NAMES
ABELE
AYALA
KRUG
BESSERAT de BELLEFON
BILLECART-SALMON
BOLLINGER
LANSON
LAURENT-PERRIER
MERCIER
CHARLES HEIDSIECK
MERCIER
MOËT & CHANDON
G.H. MUMM & Cie
PERRIER JOUET
PIPER-HEIDSIECK
Louis ROEDERER
|
