Champagne! The Beverage Of Celebrations

"I only drink Champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty." (Lily Bollinger)

At Drexelbrook Catering we take Champagne and all spirits very seriously. Our goal at Drexelbrook Catering is create the ultimate in Food, Beverage and Service Experience for our guests and clients.

That being said here is an introduction to the world of Champagne from its origin and history to the serving  of this incredible beverage. Drexelbrook Catering loves to work with Frank Pagilaro of Franks Union Wine Mart. If you have a question or need a Spirit, wine or sparkling for any celebration we strong suggest you contact Frank@frankswine.com 

Champagne, is a sparkling wine produced by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of the wine to effect carbonation. The term "Champagne" is used to refer to wine produced exclusively within the Champagne region of France

The primary grapes used in the production of Champagne are Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. Champagne appellation law only allows grapes grown according to appellation rules in specifically designated plots within the appellation to be used in the production of Champagne.

Champagne first gained world renown because of its association with the anointment of French kings. Royalty from throughout Europe spread the message of the unique sparkling wine from Champagne and its association with luxury and power in the 17th, 18th and 19th century.

"Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it." (Madame De Pompadour)

Contrary to legend and popular belief, Dom Perignon did not invent sparkling wine.The oldest recorded sparkling wine is Blanquette de Limoux, which was apparently invented by Benedictine Monks in the Abbey of Saint Hilaire near Carcassonne in 1531. Although Dom Perignon did not invent Champagne, he did develop many advances in production of the drink, including holding the cork in place with a wire collar (muselet) to withstand the fermentation pressure. In France, the first sparkling Champagne was created accidentally; its pressure led it to be called "the devil's wine" (le vin du diable) as bottles exploded or the cork jolted away. Even when it was deliberately produced as a sparkling wine, Champagne was for a very long time made by the méthode rurale, where the wine was bottled before the only fermentation had finished. Champagne did not utilize the méthode champenoise until the 19th century. Dom Pérignon was originally charged by his superiors at the Abbey of Hautvillers to get rid of the bubbles since the pressure in the bottles caused many of them to burst in the cellar. As sparkling wine production increased in the early 18th century, cellar workers had to wear heavy iron mask that resembled a baseball catcher's mask to prevent injury from spontaneously bursting bottles.The disturbance caused by one bottle's disintegration could cause a chain reaction.

Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

There are more than one hundred Champagne houses and 19,000 smaller vignerons (vine-growing producers) in Champagne. The type of producer can be identified by abbreviations following the initial number on the bottle. They include:

NM: Négociant manipulant. These companies (including the majority of the larger brands) buy grapes and make the wine

CM: Coopérative de manipulation. Cooperatives that make wines from the growers who are members, with all the grapes pooled together

RM: Récoltant manipulant. (Also known as Grower Champagne) A grower that also makes wine from its own grapes (a maximum of 5% of purchased grapes is permitted). Note that co-operative members who take their bottles to be disgorged at the co-op can now label themselves as RM instead of RC

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 and label

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

Champagne is typically drunk during celebrations. For example British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a Champagne reception to celebrate London winning the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games.] It is also used to launch ships when a bottle is smashed over the hull during the ship's launch. If the bottle fails to break this is often thought to be bad luck.

As a general rule, grapes used must be the white Chardonnay, or the dark-skinned "red wine grapes" Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier. Due to the gentle pressing of the grapes and absence of skin contact during fermentation, the dark-skinned varieties also yield a white wine. Most Champagnes are made from a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, for example 60%/40%. Blanc de blanc ("white from white") Champagnes are made from 100% Chardonnay. Possibly the most exquisite of these is grown in a single Grand cru vineyard in Le Mesnil-Sur-Oger for Salon. Blanc de noir ("white from black") Champagne is pressed from Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier or a mix of the two.

Most of the Champagne produced today is "Non-vintage", meaning that it is a blended product of grapes from multiple vintages. Most of the base will be from a single year vintage with producers blending anywhere from 10–15% (even as high as 40%) of wine from older vintages. If the conditions of a particular vintage are favourable, some producers will make a "Vintage" wine that must be composed of at least 85% of the grapes from vintage year.

Prestige cuvéeA cuvée de prestige is a proprietary blended wine (usually a Champagne) that is considered to be the top of a producer's range. Famous examples include Louis Roederer's Cristal, Laurent-Perrier's Grand Siècle, Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon, Duval-Leroy's Cuvée Femme and Pol Roger's Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. Perhaps the original prestige cuvée was Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon, launched in 1936 with the 1921 vintage

Blanc de noirs A French term (literally "white of blacks") for a white wine produced entirely from black grapes. Black, or red, grapes have a white flesh and grape juice obtained after minimal possible contact with the skins produces white wine, the colour of which is offset by the small amount of red skin pigments and turns into lighter shades of yellow, often described as white-yellow, white-grey, or silvery. It is often encountered in Champagne, where a number of houses have followed the lead of Bollinger's prestige cuvée Vieilles Vignes Françaises in introducing a cuvée made from either Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier or a blend of the two (these being the only two black grapes permitted within the Champagne AOC appellation). Although Bollinger's wine is famed for its intense richness and full-bodied nature, this has more to do with the way the grapes are planted and when they are harvested than any intrinsic property of blanc de noirs Champagne, which is often little different from cuvées including a proportion of Chardonnay.

 Blanc de blancs A French term that means "white of whites", and is used to designate Champagnes made exclusively from Chardonnay grapes. A famous example is Ruinart. The term is occasionally used in other sparkling wine-producing regions, usually to denote Chardonnay-only wines rather than any sparkling wine made from other white grape varieties.

 Rosé Champagne The rosé wines of Champagne (also known as Pink Champagne) are produced either by leaving the clear juice of black grapes to macerate on its skins for a brief time (known as the saigneé method) or, more commonly, by adding a small amount of still Pinot noir red wine to the sparkling wine cuvee. Champagne is typically light in colour 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 gives red wine its colour. Rosé Champagne is one of the few wines that allows the production of Rosé by the addition a small amount of red wine during blending. This ensures a predictable and reproducible colour, allowing a constant Rosé colour from year-to-year

The amount of sugar (dosage) added after the second fermentation and aging varies and will dictate the sweetness level of the Champagne.

Brut Natural or Brut Zéro (less than 3 grams of sugar per litre)

Extra Brut (less than 6 grams of sugar per litre)

Brut (less than 12 grams of sugar per litre)

Champagne is usually served in a Champagne flute.The Victorian coupe (according to legend, designed using a mould of the left breast (signifying a giving from the heart) of Marie Antoinette as a birthday present to her husband, Louis XVI) is not recommended as it disperses the nose and over-oxygenates the wine. Champagne is always served cold, its ideal drinking temperature at 7 to 9 °C (45 to 48 °F). Often the bottle is chilled in a bucket of ice and water before opening, which also ensures the champagne is less gassy and can be opened without spillage. Champagne buckets are made specifically for this purpose, and often have a larger volume than standard wine-cooling buckets

Opening Champagne bottles To reduce the risk of spilling or spraying any Champagne, open the Champagne bottle by holding the cork and rotating the bottle at an angle in order to ease out the stopper. This method, as opposed to pushing the cork out, prevents the cork from flying out of the bottle at speed. A sabre can be used to open a Champagne bottle with great ceremony. This technique is called sabrage (the term is also used for simply breaking the head of the bottle).

 Pouring sparkling wine while tilting the glass at an angle and gently sliding in the liquid along the side will preserve the most bubbles, as opposed to pouring directly down to create a head of "mousse".

Champagne is the wine of civilization and the oil of government." (Winston Churchill)

Happy New Years from the Drexelbrook Catering Family