FOOD HISTORY: Champagne Part 2: Dom Perignon

Enter Dom Perignon. He did NOT invent Champagne, but he did make significant contributions to its development. He was born Pierre Perignon in 1640, joined the Benedictine Order at age 19 and was appointed cellarmaster at the Abbey of Hautvelliers in about 1670. He remained there until his death in 1715. His wines were made for both the church itself and sold to make money for the Abbey. In his time, wine bubbles were something to be avoided, as described above, and he tried to avoid them. He knew that wines made from white grapes fermented more easily than wines made from wines made from red grapes. Further, he understood the effects of climate on grape growth. One of the first things he addressed was climate issues. He developed wine using the red Pinot Noir grape which was more resistant to cold. He pressed the red Pinot Noir grapes very gently to extract the white juice and immediately separated the juice from the red skin before the skins could color the juice red. Further, he blended it with juice from the white Chardonnay grape in case there was a less favorable climate year for one of the two grape varieties. He made other changes in the blending process, as well. He blended wines from different years to avoid climate hazards and blended batches from different vines to obtain the best quality using the knowledge that vines with greater exposure to the sun made sweeter wines while those with less produced more acidic flavors. These changes ensured consistent quality. He reinforced the ability of his bottles to withstand their pressure buildup by using the harder glass introduced by English glassmakers for his bottles. Also, it was Dom Perignon who introduced cork as a stopper in Champagne bottles. At that time, bottles were plugged with a wooden bung (plug) wrapped in oiled hemp, which kept popping out under pressure. On a visit to Catalonia, Dom Perignon discovered the elasticity of cork and decided to use cork as a stopper for his bottles. He wrapped a cord around the cork stopper to help keep it in place to help withstand the buildup of pressure in the bottles. It was not until 1844, however, that Adolphe Jaqueson invented the “muselet, the first wire cage in the shape we know it today to cover the bottle cork and help it retain the pressure in the bottle.  As an aside, most sparkling wines from whichever country they are made use the muselet. For reasons not clear, all require six half turns to be fully unwound from the bottle. However, the Champagne wines of that time still contained sediment from the dead yeasts after secondary fermentation which left the wine cloudy, with off flavors if the wine was shaken.  Some producers would decant their wines into new bottles but the loss of CO2 from doing that made the wines less bubbly. At some court banquets, servers would pour Champagne into a fresh glass, leaving the sediment in the bottle. All that changed with the arrival of the Veuve Clicquot on the scene.