The birth of champagne
According to legend, it was the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon who discovered effervescence and created champagne:
He reportedly used beeswax to seal the bottlenecks of the wine bottles, so that they could be transported to England without the risk of the wine evaporating, and so that they would remain airtight during the ship’s voyage.
After a few weeks, most of the bottles exploded. As the sugar contained in the beeswax fell into the wine, it triggered a second fermentation, resulting in effervescence: bottled carbon dioxide.
All kings and emperors were enthusiastic about this effervescent wine, making it the wine of celebration and good mood. As a result, champagne became increasingly famous, and the champenoise method a success.
The steps of champagne making
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- Pressing : the grapes are manually pressed to burst the berries.
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- Fermentation : the grape juice is put into vats. It lasts around fifteen days. Kept at a constant temperature of 18-20° degree C, this 1st alcoholic fermentation activates the natural yeasts present in the grape juice, transforming the sugars into a mixture of alcohol and carbon dioxide.
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- Clarification : this stage rids the wine of yeast and other solid particles that can alter its flavor.
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- Blending : the winemaker blends “still” (non-sparkling) wines from different harvests to achieve a consistent final flavor. This stage is the real “signature” of a cuvée of champagne.
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- Bottling : the resulting wine is bottled after the addition of sugar and yeast. This second fermentation transforms it into effervescent wine. At the tirage stage, the wine begins to bubble, and the bottle is corked with a “bidule” (capsule). The wine is left to rest for 15 months for a brut champagne, and 36 months for a vintage
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- Riddling : The bottles are placed on inclined racks. The 2nd fermentation in the bottle leaves a deposit on the wine. After transforming sugar into alcohol, the yeasts die and fall to the bottom of the bottle. These yeasts cloud the champagne and need to be removed. To do this, the bottles are placed on a rack with holes, so that the cork is tilted downwards. Gravity forces the deposit down the neck of the bottle to the cork. With a brisk rotation of a quarter-turn every day for 4 to 5 weeks, tilting the bottles more and more, the deposit gradually falls towards the neck. Stirring can be manual or mechanical, with the help of gyropalettes..
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- Disgorging : the organic deposits that have built up in the neck of the bottle as a result of riddling are frozen and then naturally evacuated. To do this, the neck of the bottle is immersed in a liquid at -25∞C. The bottle is then ready to receive the cork, capsule, wirehood, label and collar that complete the champagne production process.
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- Dosing : At the disgorging stage, a small quantity of wine escapes from the bottle. To replace this void, the winemaker adds a quantity of sugar known as liqueur d’expédition. This liqueur can be “dosed” to varying degrees. Between 33 and 50 grams of sugar produce a demi-sec champagne, between 6 and 15 grams a brut champagne, and between 0 and 6 grams an extra-brut, undosed or nature champagne.
The Champagne AOC “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée”
The Champagne is certified as an AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée). This AOC ( in english Protected Designation of Origin, PDO ) binds a product to its geographical origin, and subjects it to rules of production and elaboration.
Products recognized as AOC are the expression of an intimate link between production and terroir, implemented and perpetuated by human know-how.
The AOC also sets out all the production conditions that define the product’s identity : planting rules, viticulture rules, harvesting rules, pressing rules, packaging rules, rules for each stage in the winemaking process.
To qualify for the “Champagne” AOC label, one must:
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- Produce the wine in a strictly defined area.
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- Use only authorized grape varieties: chardonnay, pinot noir, meunier, pinot blanc, pinot gris, arbane, petit meslier.
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- Respect vine trimming: Royat, Chablis, Guyot, VallÈe de la Marne.
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- Limit grape yield per hectare.
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- Respect the pressing yield.
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- Respect minimum alcohol content at harvest.
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- Second fermentation in bottle and maturation on lees for a minimum of 15 months for non-vintage wines, 3 years for vintage wines
Champagne vineyards
Delimited by law in 1927, the production area of the Appellation of Controlled Origin (AOC) Champagne covers some 34,300 hectares.
Located in France some 150 kilometers east of Paris, it includes 319 different crus (communes) in five departments:
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- Marne (66%),
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- Aube (23%),
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- Aisne (10%)
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- Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne
The vineyards are spread over 4 major regions :
– Montagne de Reims : The Reims Mountain is the kingdom of Pinot Noir, which covers more than half the area. This vigorous, generous grape variety adapts perfectly to limestone soils. Chardonnay, more precocious and therefore sensitive to spring frosts, predominates on the hillsides to the east of the massif, well sheltered from westerly winds, as in Trépail and Villers-Marmery.
The Montagne de Reims is the region with the largest number of villages classified as Champagne Grand Cru. This area alone is home to 10 of the 17 villages producing grapes of rare quality, 100% Champagne appellation: Ambonnay, Beaumont-sur-Vesle, Bouzy, Louvois, Mailly-Champagne, Puisieulx, Sillery, Verzenay, Verzy, Tours-sur-Marne.
– The Marne Valley : part of the Champagne region, the Marne Valley stretches from Tours-sur-Marne to Ch‚teau-Thierry, straddling the departments of Marne, Aisne and Seine-et-Marne. As its name suggests, the valley follows the course of the river. It offers a landscape of rolling hillsides, small villages with narrow streets, and vineyards whose color changes with the seasons. Planted on hillsides, vines abound on both banks, with those to the north benefiting from a more favorable south-southeast exposure. Of the more than one hundred communes in this sub-region, only Tours-sur-Marne and Ay have Grand Cru status.
– Côte des Blancs : The Cote des Blancs is one of Champagne’s finest vineyards. It stretches from northeast to southwest, perpendicular to the Marne valley and just a few kilometers from Epernay. As its name suggests, a white grape variety reigns supreme here: the noble Chardonnay. At the southern end, however, the Pinot Noir de Vertus competes with it. It’s mainly on the chalky cliffs of the “Cote des Blancs” that Chardonnay grapes acquire their qualities, producing the famous “blanc de blancs” which, skillfully combined with the “noir” of the “Montagne de Reims” and the “Vallée de la Marne”, make up the remarkable “têtes de cuvée” of the Champagne Houses..
– Côte des Bar : Located in the southern part of the Champagne production area, the Côte des Bar vineyards are composed of Jurassic hillsides, established on Kimmeridgian limestone (a return to muddy sedimentation that pushes the reefs towards the Alpine and Mediterranean regions, where limestone deposits still dominate). Interspersed with lush green valleys that join those of the Seine and Aube rivers, it forms a veritable mosaic of multiple exposures. Thanks to its climatic and agro-geological conditions, its Pinot noir grape varieties nevertheless produce light wines, which some of the Grandes Maisons seek out to enhance the freshness of their cuvées. There are almost 280,000 plots of land, with an average surface area of 12 ares. 17 villages have historically benefited from the “grand cru” appellation, and 42 villages from the “premier cru” appellation.
Vintage champagnes
En œnologie, In oenology, a vintage refers to the year in which the grapes were harvested and the wine made. The indication of the vintage is optional on wine bottle labels, but is frequently used, as it is sought after and appreciated by wine lovers.
A wine’s vintage expresses the year’s climatic conditions.
It’s also an important benchmark for monitoring bottle aging, and for determining the best time to open and enjoy a bottle.
A vintage also provides information on a wine’s level of quality.
There’s one particularity about champagnes. As a general rule, they cannot show a vintage on the label, as they are made from a blend of several wines from different years. A vintage champagne is therefore a great champagne produced in an exceptional year, using only that year’s harvest. The Inter-professional Wine Committee of the Champagne vineyards determines which harvests deserve to be vintage..
The Champagne Avenue in Epernay: an emblem of the Champagne region
The Champagne Avenue is Epernay’s most prestigious road. For over a kilometer, this avenue is lined with Champagne Houses and remarkable private mansions..
With 110 kilometers of cellars beneath the avenue and over 200 million bottles of champagne, it is often referred to as “the richest avenue in the world”.
Every year, over 450,000 people from all over the world visit Epernay and its famous avenue. Since 1994, the Avenue de Champagne has been recognized as a “Site Remarquable du Go˚t”. This label elevates it to the rank of national heritage.
Since July 2015, the “Coteaux, Maisons et Caves de Champagne” property has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the “Living Cultural Landscape” category.
The Avenue de Champagne is one of three sites that are among the most representative of the areas and work involved in producing, making and marketing Champagne wine.
As you can see, not just anyone can produce champagne! This sparkling wine, so dear to our hearts, meets strict production criteria and offers consistent quality year after year to delight wine lovers.
If you’d like to find out more about Champagne, don’t hesitate to book our Champagne tasting workshop in Paris! Enjoy your tasting and see you soon on the Route des Gourmets!