Prolog
The famous legend regarding Dom Perignon is that when he first tasted his invention of Champagne, he exclaimed, “Come! I am drinking stars”. While he may have said that and added greatly to the development of Champagne as we know it today, Dom Perignon DID NOT invented Champagne. More will be said about that later.
Champagne, a northern region of France, lying at a crossroads of northern Europe - south to the Mediterranean Ocean and north to Paris, the English Channel and western Germany – was an important trade route long before it became a wine region. Being crossroads brought trade and gave the region early access to important wine markets. Further, in 987 AD, the cathedral at Reims in Champagne was chosen as the Coronation site of the first French king and, for centuries, the next French kings were crowned at Reims, as well. While the French region of Champagne produced wines for hundreds of years with vineyards present since the Gallo-Roman times, the presence of kings brought economic assistance to the local monasteries to make wine production a serious venture. The Kings and royal courts needed their wine! It is said that these. wines flowed freely at coronation and other royal festivities. The early wines from the region were pale, pinkish, still wines made from the Pinot Noir grape. The Champenois were envious of the reputation of wines made in the further southern region of Burgundy and tried to make wines of similar quality. However, Champagne had a unique set of circumstances due to its northern location; cold winter temperatures halted fermentation in the cellars so the yeasts became dormant until awakened in the warmer weather of the spring and summer. This produced large amounts of CO2 gas, which, trapped in the thin glass bottles used at that time, caused enough pressure to explode many of them causing significant financial loss to the winemakers. The bottles that survived which contained some effervescent bubbles began to gain favor with French royalty in the 17th and early 18th century. Even while that was true, Champanois winemakers were working to depress bubble formation in their wines. While the French winemakers found bubbly wine to be flawed and offensive, the British were rather partial to it. The British bought large quantities barrels of Champagne still wines and bottled it themselves. They liked it when an occasional shipment contained a barrel of wine that “bubbled “after it was bottled. When these effervescent wines became popular, English winemakers became pressured to make more of these kinds of wines to meet the increasing demand. The winemakers of that time knew of fermentation and noticed bubble formation in the process, but they knew nothing about the role of yeasts in the process. The discovery of role yeasts played in the fermentation process did not occur until 200 years later. They did, however, notice that the sweeter the wine, the greater was the chance of it becoming effervescent compared to drier (less sweet) wines. Therefore, probably using trial and error, they added additional sugar and molasses, in varying amounts and at different times during fermentation. Eventually, they found a reproducible method; not by extending the first fermentation but by adding a new, second fermentation. Then came Christopher Merret. Merret was a physician, a very curious scientist, and a founding member of The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge – later The Royal Society. Society was formed, “to make faithful records of the things that come within reach”. One of the things that “came within the reach” of Merrett was his observations and documentation of how English winemakers changed the way sparkling wines were prepared. In 1662, he delivered a paper to the newly formed Royal Society revealing how to add sugar to a wine to create a second fermentation in the bottle, writing, “Our coopers of recent times use vast amounts of sugar and molasses to all sorts of wine to make them drink brisk and sparkling and to give them spirit’. This was the first written description of the “Methode Champenoise” method of making Champagne which, later, became a source of French pride. Other discoveries in the field of glass bottle making were going on in England during the same time. Between 1615 – 1632, several English glassmakers were involved in making strong bottles which would revolutionize the glassmaking industry. In 1615, British admiral sir Robert Mansell, advisor to British King James I, persuaded the king to forbid the use of timber for smelting – glass makers and iron foundries were the biggest users – and use coal instead for them fires. Timber should be reserved for the building of ships was the rationale and that coal burned hotter. Mansell also had another vested interest, since he owned coal mines. In any case, he prevailed, and coal started to be used in glass making. In 1633, Kenelm Digby invented the first wine bottle to withstand the pressure of fermenting wine. He started increasing the ratio of sand to lime and potash in his manufacturing process. Further, he used coal in his furnaces and installed a wind tunnel to blow into the furnace, both of which made for a hotter fire. Bottles made with this process could withstand the CO2 pressure build-up in bottles filled with wine from Champagne wine makers. His bottles were so superior to the Champenois glass bottles that the French imported them to use for bottling of their wines where they were called “Vere Anglaise. (English glass).The next phase in the evolution of Champagne to the sparkling Champagne that we drink today had to wait for the arrival of Dom Perignon.
