March 1, 2017 • 48 mins
In just 400 years, sparkling wines have gone from a dangerous mistake (the famous Dom Perignon was hired to get RID of bubbles in wine) to a symbol of wealth and celebration. We trace the history and explain the science behind champagne.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm more in vogle
bomb and we are your hosts of this a new
show from How Stuff Works. Thank you for joining us. Yes,
thank you. Our pilot topic here is going to be champagne,
which is so overly ambitious. It was a rather ambitious choice. Uh.
(00:28):
We chose it because it's celebratories this first episode, right, yeah, cheers,
salute cheers. It's so sad to do without a glass.
Now are bombed out? We still have a bottle in
the fridge that we can that's true for work purposes, yes,
completely legitimate work purposes. We have drank a great deal
(00:49):
of sparkling wine over the past couple of weeks. But hey,
speaking of I wanted to just say at the top
of the show, drink responsibly, y'all, and according to the
local laws in the place where you exist. Okay, So
while you're responsibly enjoying or not enjoying, if you're not
of age, your champagne or sparkling wine. What is sparkling wine?
(01:10):
What does champagne? What makes the difference? It's kind of
like a like a square rhombus sort of situation, right, um,
Champagne is a type of sparkling wine that is produced
in the Champagne region of France under very particular circumstances.
Um and to to actually take it back a step
further than that, like, all right, so, what's what's sparkling wine?
Does it contain glitter? No? It does not. That would
(01:33):
be that would be I would totally drink that edible glitter.
And oh, I'm giving away way too much about myself
right now. A sparkling wine is a wine that is carbonated,
meaning that it contains dissolved carbon dioxide gas in it,
which bubbles up out of the liquid unless it is
kept under kind of tremendous pressure. This is also why
you sometimes burp when you drink bubbly or or soda
(01:56):
or beer, because although your stomach is kind of pressurized,
it's not pressure. It's enough to keep carbon dioxide dissolved,
so it escapes as a gas. Not for me, I'm lady, like, yeah, never, never, no, no,
I belch no all the time. I mean, it's natural,
it is, come on, it's important better out than in. Um. So,
so other sparkling wines technically should not be called Champagne.
(02:19):
I like to pronounce it Champania. Champana. Is that the
official pronunciation or is that just like what you like
saying I like to say Champania. I won't because I'm
sure it'll get annoying very fast. But but you're one
of the two of us who actually speaks French. So theory,
whether you call it Champania or Champagne. Uh, in some countries,
(02:43):
you legally cannot call it that unless it is from
that region of France. Um. Although technically that's that's like
for for legal and marketing kind of purposes, not for
like table discussion. Yeah, and when I was researching into this,
I went down a whole rabbit hole of very interesting
trademark and copyright laws because I've never really thought about
(03:03):
how difficult it would be to copyright something in so
many different countries at once. Yeah, maybe a different episode,
but it is very interesting. And the Champagne region they
take this really seriously, and they should because it's how
they make their money. It's what they're known for. To
the point, in nine eleven the loss of up to
nineties six of their cop resulted done something called the
(03:26):
Champagne Riots. Champagne riots. That sounds delightful and refreshing in
a variety way. It wasn't. Oh well, vineyards were burned,
wine bar barrels were destroyed, and eventually the army had
to be called in. It caused a lot of destruction
and I almost resulted in a civil war. Wow but
but but no civil war. And everyone is back to
(03:48):
producing delicious pubblic beverages these days. And that is all
done under the regulation, these very serious regulations. And I'm
gonna let you say the words, since you hypothetically know
how to stay them better than I do. That's so
kind of you. Thank you anytime. Annie. Okay, here we go,
Here we go, dojin contry probably and for AOC which
(04:12):
we can say much better. And our American yes, and
we all need so many acronyms in our life. You're
going to get a lot more just you wait for it.
Oh yeah, yeah, what one more, Kevin right at you.
The group that creates these rules is the Institute Nacional
Deregine de la Quality. Yes ish ish and also acronym
(04:36):
n a O yes um. They they they're the regulatory
group that controls the quality and the branding of agricultural
products like cheeses and wines. Over in France, so for
a champagne to be labeled Champagne, it has to be
produced both the grapes and the process in the Champagne
region from one or a blend of just three types
(04:59):
of great rittles ye, chardonnay, noir, and and then there
are a whole bunch of different rules about how you're
allowed to handle the grapes, um, how they can be
planted and pruned, how much fruit can be produced per
acre or hector, and how much juice can be obtained
from the fruit by the weight, and how it can
(05:19):
be fermented and stored, and the process of making it
uh in this correct way is called the myth old
champagnoire yes or the mythold classique or the method classical. Basically,
what goes what goes into this technique is you produce
(05:40):
bottles of still wine that have undergone a primary fermentation,
aka turning grape juice into wine juice. You've added sugar
and yeast to grape juice um grape juice being called
must in the industry in these giant tanks, and yeast
being a microscopic organism that eats glucose and excre eats
(06:00):
carbon dioxide and ethanol. Um starts turning the sugar and
the natural sugars in the juice into alcohol. Yeah. Um,
the carbon dioxide is released from that liquid as a gas,
and the ethanol is the alcohol that is in the
final product of the wine. Um. Apparently we talked to
some to some people at a winery and they said
(06:21):
that so much carbon dioxide is released from the tanks
when they're doing this that they can't just like open
up the brewery door or the winery door and like
go in in the morning. They have to vent the
entire building for or else anyone who walked in there
and suffocate. Yeah, which is which is so wine making
is terrifying. Yeah, it kind of is. There's a lot
(06:46):
of dangers that I did not realize, especially with sparkling wine. Um.
So so yeah, So so once once you've got this, once,
once the yeast is done, it's work and the pH
level hits a certain point on on on the acid
end of the scale, you strain out the yeast and
you bottle the wine. That's where you would stop. Yeah,
if you're creating still wine. But if you're a crazy
(07:07):
person and you're like, hey, how can I make this
more hazardous and I know, let's do that fermentation thing again. Yes,
it's a secondary fermentation. Um so, so you create a
secondary fermentation inside each bottle by adding a little bit
more yeast and sugar and where the carbon dioxide was
(07:27):
a byproduct and that primary fermentation, it's basically the point
of the secondary fermentation. To keep all of that happening
in the bottles, you seal them up tightly with a
crown cap er exactly, and after a couple of months,
when the wine maker feels like it's good sparkly, the
caps are removed and the the yeast is the lea's
(07:47):
they're called, are taken out in a process called called rittling.
Or I just looked at that French word and looked
at Annie and skipped right over it. More on that
one later. I think that's your favorite part of this
entire thing. Yeah, I got really excited reading about it. Also,
I just like riddling. That sounds so like an evil villain,
(08:11):
like like riddle be this. Yeah, it's also it's also
the opposite of like what I would want to do
it Like I it's such as science, and I want
everything about it to be the most science e like,
let's let us not in fact riddle in the champagne world,
this is that's that way lies danger um. Let's say
riddle all the time, baby, And then and then comes
(08:35):
the dosage. Um. The next step in the process is
once you've got those that that nasty yeast stuff out
of the bottle, it looks looks real gross um. Each
bottle is topped up with a little bit more still
wine and usually a little bit of sugar to taste.
And then, in the most terrifying part of the process,
these giant corks, like like almost twice as big as
(08:57):
a normal wine cork, are inserted in to the neck
of the bottle and then backed up by a a
wire cage cap called a today you need me slate
to to hold in these now highly pressurized contents. Are
talking five to seven times the pressure we experience just
hanging out on sea level a k A five to
(09:18):
seven atmospheres. This is also I hear very frequently described
as m three times the pressure and a bus tire
oh in one bottle. I don't have I don't have
a really strong concept of bus tires, but that sounds
very pressurized. I blow out of bus tire it's pretty serious,
frightening enough. Yeah, it's like being inside the bottle would
(09:40):
be like diving fifty to seventys down into the ocean, which,
for those of you who don't think in meters like me,
that's about a hundred and sixty to two thirty feet.
I did not just do that math in my head.
I looked it up earlier. Um. But that's also known
as like the depth at which you don't generally want
to dive to because the nitrogen in your blood starts
(10:02):
dissolving and it can be hazardous. So don't dive into
a champagne bottle lesson of the podcast. I'm glad you
said it. And that is not all for these bottles.
They the final the final product, once it has been
wrapped up, has to be aged for at least fifteen
(10:24):
months um. That's for for a typical blended champagne, or
at least three years for a single vintage when they're
really good and fancy also called It also has to
have a minimum alcohol content. But basically all wines made
by the mid old Champla exceed in quality. These kind
(10:45):
of things that it's just sort of like a ground level, like, hey, guys,
like if we're we're keeping it nice sort of a reputation. Yeah, yeah,
and that's the that's the entire point of these of
these regulations, so that you know, if if someone buys
a bottle that has labeled Champagne, they will know what
to expect from it, right. And part of why they
want to set that expectation like that and and keep
(11:08):
it is because of this amazing history of Champagne. There's
so many legends about how Champagne came to be, and
we will get into talking about those right after this
word from our sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. Uh.
(11:30):
So let's talk about some of these legends of how
Champagne came to be. One of them is that um,
dom Perignon a a monk. Did I say that anywhere
near correctly? You crimiced, I did, but not because of
your pronunciation perfect? And the taste is also fine, don't
That wasn't why the dom Perignon uh invented Champagne, and
(11:55):
that that is why his name is on some bottles
and why those bottles are expensive ones. But that's only
not that's probably not what happened, um, that's almost in fact,
that's definitely not what happened. It's almost the opposite of
what happened in a weird way. Yes, getting into that
in a second, but um, first of all, just just
to lay out like no one invented champagne on purpose,
(12:16):
when like the first time that someone drank a sparkling wine. Um,
the first sparkling wines we're probably accidental, Yeah, very probably.
Wine industry representatives from region claim I'm sorry I did that. Anyway.
They they claim that they were producing abub as early
as the mid fifteen hundreds. But this is another thing
(12:39):
that is difficult to prove. History can be tricky in
that way. Absolutely, I have such mad respect for our
coworkers on this stuff you missed in history podcast. This
is I'm used to talking about like technology in the future,
which has the benefit of all existing on the Internet,
and this is this is a little bit more difficult.
According to the Internet, the first sparkling wines probably came
(13:03):
from England. Um. The first records we have of it anyway,
in sixteen sixty two in English scientists named Christopher Merritt
one or possibly two teas no one knows. See how
tricky the mysteries of history. Mr merrit one or two
teas presented a paper to the Royal Society about how
some wine humans at the time we're adding sugar molasses
(13:25):
to finished wine barrels to create a second fermentation. That
the litta and thus bubbles ciders were very popular in
England at the time, and that's how they were made
using the same kind of process, and that first time
we have a real record historical record of making sparkling
wines on purpose, because like we said earlier, a lot
(13:46):
of times it was an accident and a terrifying one. Yeah.
What the monk dom Perignon, Pierre Parignon, who became Dom Perigneon,
what he was doing was not creating Champagne. He was
assigned to stop Champagne from happening, a sparkling wine from
from happening. Um. It was it was called at the
(14:07):
time live in the Devil's Wine um because the temperatures
in the Champagne region would get cold enough early enough
that cellared bottled still wine would stop fermenting in winter
before the yeast was done doing all of its yeast thing,
and then when the when the temperatures warmed up again
(14:28):
in the spring, the wine would undergo that secondary fermentation,
which would dramatically raise the pressure inside the bottles and
make them go fizzy and make them explode. Yeah, and
this was like really big scary problem the workers when
they would go down into the cellar, they had to
wear heavy iron mask and padding. That's how likely this
(14:53):
possibility of explosion was. And according to some things we found, uh,
it could you could lose four to ten percent, like
like regularly yeah, uh, due to bursing or exploding more dramatically.
And that if there was a bad warm front, you
could lose up to thirty And according to others, you
(15:15):
could lose a lot, like the majority of your seller.
Again history historical numbers are hard, but but certainly like
a single bottle going off and a seller could start
a chain reaction around the whole rest of the seller.
And oh man, that's I don't want that. That sounds bad.
(15:36):
Um And we're put on armor to code out there
the devil's one, um and and and this is what
the dude was working on. He never really worked it out,
but he did a couple other cool things, which will
mention later on. And the things that did sort it out,
(15:56):
we're One of them was back in Britain again, a
bold dudes in Britain by the names of Sir Robert
Mansell and James Howell worked out how to make glass
with relatively super hot coal fueled furnaces by about sixty three.
That was pretty amazing because traditionally charcoal was the like, safer,
cooler fuel of choice for for firing up glass ovens,
(16:20):
but charcoal was commonly produced from oak trees at the time,
and King James the First and his navy needed a
whole lot of oak for ships. So thanks King James.
Without you, we might not have had technical technological improvements
in glassware, and we wouldn't have been able to create
these these thicker, um stronger bottles that uh don't explode
(16:44):
so easy. I thought you were being sarcastic at first, Like,
thanks King James, You're serious and as you should be.
Thanks Thanks King James. Just my sarcasm voice is really
close to my regular vos, I understand. The other improvement
that came along was the wire cap that that mus
let um, because before it was invented, corks were held
(17:07):
in with like string, I mean like really really tight
woven string, but still uh yeah. Around eight four a
member of the Oh I looked this one up and
I don't remember a member of the Jack CUIs Ja.
That's totally it is it it is? Which are the
owners of a famous house in champagne or a champagne
(17:31):
house a a organization of growers and producers? Is that
about the definition of champagne house? Yes? Cool, excellent to
this dude. Um Adolf patented a cap that was held
on by a strong wire that that hooks down under
the lip of a bottle and secures the cork, which,
(17:52):
if you've ever opened a bottle of sparkling wine is
probably something that you're familiar with. Yeah, we still use
this to this day. And the thicker glass. These are
the two things, like the main two things that helps
stop all those exploding bottles. And and once we stopped
all those exploding bottles, uh, a bunch of other innovations
(18:12):
would come along that would make champagne a lot um
a lot easier and less expensive to produce. Here we
get to one of my favorite things, really really during
the secondary fermentation, dead used to build up in the
bottom of the bottle and it was like gross looking.
To get rid of all this gross, easty stuff they
used to pour the champagne from bottle to bottle. Along
comes Bob Nicole. Bob Nicole was born in the years
(18:37):
leading up to the French Revolution and she married Francois Chicole,
which some of you may recognize the name. If you don't,
they will be a nice surprise ending at the end
of the store for you. At first, this was kind
of a business deal, as a lot of marriages were
at the time, but they did make the lovely transformation
to real partnership. They invested in a sparkling wine, part
(19:00):
because Barbe Nicole had some knowledge of it, but unfortunately
feel ill and died suddenly. There were rumors that his
death was due to his failing investment in wine, but
barbed Nicole was not willing to give up on this,
so she went to her father in law and asked
to put her inheritance in the wine business, and father
(19:23):
in law greed. She went through an apprenticeship. She was
really determined to figure this thing out and to make
this successful. The money thing kept coming up. She had
asked for more money. She was about to go bankrupt.
It's also they were getting together in the years leading
up to the French Revolution, So so this was this
was the end of the Napoleonic Wars by this time, yes,
(19:43):
and there were a lot of obviously difficulties in trade
because of that. Bart Nicole had a sense that the
Russian market would be really receptive to having some show
pain at the end of the wars. But those black
aides we were talking about, they were in the way.
She was will smuggle some of it to Amsterdam, and
after the war it did make its way to Russia, where, sorry,
(20:06):
Alexander the First told the world it was all he
would drink. She went from a nobody to someone everyone knew,
and someone everyone knew and wanted her product. And none
of this has to do with yeast yet no, I know,
see how exciting riddling is. Everyone else was like my
God finished his story, all right, here we go. Demand
(20:28):
for her champagne was so high she had to come
up with a better way to manufacture it. Instead of
pouring the champagne from bottle to bottle and losing its bubbles,
the thing everybody wants, the sparkling wine barb Nicole invented
a method of turning the bottle upside down and letting
the stuff settle all the settled at the neck, and
(20:49):
this allowed her to produce better champagne much faster because
she wasn't losing all the bubbles and she didn't have
to wait around for the east. For the east to
settle so much. By the time she died, Vuko enjoyed worldwide,
and it is still enjoyed today. If if you guys
are not familiar with the brand name out loud, it's
it's that bright yellow rectangular label that's that's sometimes seen
(21:11):
on champagne that I don't purchase because it's very expensive.
I hope to one day have a taste of could go,
you know. I think it's good to dream. Yeah, And
these days riddling is even easier yet, um. And that's
because of the invention of encapsulated yeast, which settled down
(21:32):
into the neck of a bottle in a matter of
seconds rather than a matter of like days. Um. And
also by by using machines to quick freeze. I said
quick in in little air quotes that you can't see
because you're not in the studio with us. Um. Annie
enjoyed them very much, I can tell. I can attest
she did do it uh to to quick freeze and
(21:54):
in a matter of like twelve minutes the leaves in
the in the bottles next, so that they could just
sort of ploop right out when you when you take
off that crown cap. And there is some shade that
some champagne houses throw up people who use encapsulated east
Oh really, all the older, more traditional houses claim that
(22:17):
they don't use it, and they might not use it,
but a lot of people who do use it claim
that the old traditional houses are lying and they only
have like the old tiny riddling equipment front for show,
as with most of these kind of very controlled, very
niche markets. Yeah, there's a lot of stories about um,
(22:40):
who's doing it right and who's doing it better and
what it means to actually make the thing. So I
don't know. I I couldn't find anything either way. This
is just all in the rumor mill. No, I love.
I love a champagne rumor mill, best kind of rumor mill, right,
it's one of the best. It's up there. So riddling um,
which was the point of that of that story, UM
(23:04):
was very useful for for champagne houses to be able
to produce more and also, as it turned out, really
helped to make to make champagne the celebratory thing that
it has become because of that Russian czar thing and
getting it out to more people to be able to
celebrate with it. It's it's up there. It's what you do.
(23:27):
You hit ships with it. You you cheers with it
at your wedding. It's in a lot of rap songs.
It's in so many rap songs. How how did that happen?
It happened with coronations, royal coronations going all the way
back to four nineties six CE. Clovis, King Clovis of
(23:48):
Northern France, promised his wife, who was a princess from Burgundy,
that he convert to Christianity if he won his next battle.
That's not a Betton matter for most people, but okay,
sure absolutely of us. So lucky for him, I guess
and his wife. He won and he was baptized in
the Champagne region, and Champagne's capital, Raims, became viewed as
(24:08):
a religious and spiritual center in France. He had a
couple of hundred years to seven Hugh could pay his
coornation kicks, started a tradition that lasted centuries of kings
being coordinated in Champagne. It was quite the journey from Paris.
It was a it was a real trick, a wine trek. Yes.
(24:29):
Once they were out there, they were like, let's chill
for a while and maybe drink some of these Champagne wines, right,
because if you spend all that time getting out there,
might as well enjoy what the region has the offer.
Although that they weren't producing sparkling wines on purpose at
the time, No, we should say that they were still
and often liked kind of good from what I've heard. Yeah,
(24:51):
they weren't very good. They were flat flabby. Flabby. That's
that's a word. It is a word, and it's a
word she used to describe. Why what's a flabby wine?
It just has nothing going on? Oh I see. Okay.
Other historical note on Champagne's rise to the success that
it is has something to do with healthcare. Yes, And
(25:15):
this is one of my favorite things that I found
sixteen seventy four is the art of healing. Herald of
Champagne's wines as those that would quote at least incumber
the stomach, incumber the stomach. Okay, so appetizing, I'm not
going to incumber my stomach. Okay. It was common practice
(25:35):
at the time for the king's position, not just in
France but in countries all around Europe, to recommend a
specific wine for purported health benefits, and this trickled down
to the aristocracy, writers, poet's artist. Yeah, it's a big
deal to be like the recommended wine of the king,
(25:58):
because we're going to drink a lot wine. If this
one's healthier, might as well drink even more. The king
has given it his seal. Champagne was the most frequently prescribed.
This did not sit well with the local wine making
rival region of Burgundy, right, yes, and a lot of
(26:19):
you probably heard of Burgundy wines still a thing. Wanting
to cash in on Champagne's success, they began espousing the
help and ifits of their wine and hiring physicians and
artists and poets and authors to talk about their wine
and help benefits of it. So we're talking about bribery. Yeah,
(26:40):
oh yeah, they were bribing medical students, doctors. They're hilarious
fake ads that you can find and and all. Okay,
So so it's not just that this wine is more healthy,
it's that it has actual health benefits, like like, what
would this wine do for you? I'm glad you asked.
This swine could be used to treat gout, aninia, indigestion,
(27:05):
kidney stones, epidemic disease, morning sickness, and malaria malaria. D
have a glass of Champagne that malarial clear right up.
That's terrific health advice. Champagne pretty much one in this
battle of the finest healthiest wine to drink. According to
(27:25):
the King, Burgundy decided to focus shift to focus too.
They're largely regarded as superior red wines. They had a
clearer flavor, they had a better color, and this was
mostly due to temperature and the soil. Champagne decided to
focus sley on white wines, and that's one of the
reasons we have the Champagne we know at Champagne today
(27:48):
helping along with that. One of those things that our
dear friend Dom Perignon did was developed a successful technique
for making and blending and clarifying white wine from red grapes. Yeah,
because to two of those two of those grapes that
are the primary ones that go into Champagne are red
red grapes. Another reason that Champagne came to be associated
(28:12):
with royalty, aristocracy and thus kind of celebration is because
of where Champagne is located. It's on a trade and
military route. This meant that there were a lot of
soldiers going through and they were either looking to celebrate
victory or drink away their sorrow at their loss. And
(28:33):
Napoleon himself is a rumored to have said Champagne exclamation
point in victory one deserves it and defeat one needs.
That was as terrible. I should have used that opportunity
to try and pull in impersonation, but it's probably best
for everyone that I did not. Yeah, and we we
we have no way of going back now, so we must,
(28:53):
we must forged proudly ahead. If only I had a
glass of champagne to drink away my disappointment in the
fact that we can't go backwards. I know it's going
to be okay, Annie. And one of the reasons that
it's going to be okay is that, thanks to all
of that industrialization that I believe we mentioned earlier, Uh,
Champagne became more and more accessible to more and more,
(29:16):
not monarchs, the common people began to be able to
afford to drink it. You know, maybe not every day,
but for um, for for special occasions like like weddings
and New Year's and marketing is probably one of the
biggest reasons for this. Although they obviously wanted you to
drink it all the time, they knew that this wasn't
(29:38):
a thing most people could afford, so they advertised it
as an aspirational drink, and advertisements promised things like drinking
Champagne would enhance women's beauty and men's wit. Oh well,
those are the two most important things for those groups
of people, so that that's a huge relief. And since
more people were able to buy it for these special occasions,
that's how it became kind of the drink you had
(30:02):
to toast at weddings and what you had to ring
in the New Year, to the point that in seven
million bottles were shipped from Champagne in anticipation of the
New Millennium. Yes, but one thing that Lauren and I
heard from the people we talked to about this is
that it is not like that in Champagne at all. Yeah,
(30:23):
it's just it's just a wine. It's just wine that
you drink because you like it. Yes. I also read
on the other end of that that some people think
it's the bubbles and the popping of the cork like
adds this feeling of celebration, and that the bubbles are
kind of the happiness and excitement you feel about whatever
(30:45):
you're celebrating. That the joy they're so joyful, they're joyful
in your nose. Yeah, and there's that like ceremony to it.
Oh and there is that other ceremony that involves breaking
the mopen with the sword, because that's the same thing
to do obviously. Yeah, sobran um. And it's not it's
not cutting it is it is breaking with a dull edge.
It turns out that that it's not the sharpness of
(31:06):
the sword at all. It's it's you can use anything
you can use like a lighter or like a stapler,
your cell phone. Maybe that would be a poor decision,
but uh, you could argue that the saber is afforded decision.
It's it's still terrifying, and we have footage to prove it.
I will say that my my heart sped up a
bit when the saber was pulled out of it's very
(31:30):
ceremonial looking box. Yeah. Yeah, we got to talk to
a to a master subruar. Harry Constantinescu I came to
find out that there's a certain window where you can
safely perform suburbe. First of all, the temperature is very important.
The point where you hit the bottle it's also very important.
Every bottle will have two seams, one seam on one side,
one on the other side, and then there's a glass
(31:52):
lip where the bottle is closed. But the point where
you want to hit it, it's where the seam. It's
this glass lip. This is where you want to hit it.
In Lord to have a clean cut, they used the
capital of Champagne to crown the kings of France. Appoleon
himself went to military school close to that region, and
this is where he met with Rami Moet, which later
will take over the Chandoon house. And he would stop
(32:14):
with his generals prior to a battle in the Champagne
region just celebrate with Champagne. And the young officer from
Napoleon's army, frustrated with the fact that he couldn't control
his horse with one hand, and opened a bottle of
champagne with the other one. After a night of party,
he pulled his sword and beheaded the bottle with a
stroke of a blade. Everybody thought that This is a
great way to open a bottle of champagne. Did you
(32:38):
did you ever catch back up with Harry. You said
that you were going to try to go get him
to teach you how to do this. That is a
work in progress. I actually, thanks to this episode, just
overcame my fear of opening champagne bottles. Lauren taught me
the proper way to open it. Opening a bottle champagne
is quite easy. You just you just kind of grabbed
(32:59):
the putt towel over the bottle and grab the cork
and sort of wiggle it until it just comes out. Yeah,
my previous method was closing my eyes and going outside
and pointing it away and just hoping nothing went wrong.
You don't have to You don't have to live that
(33:19):
life anymore. And now apparently opening like a regular person
for me is not enough anymore, because yes, I am
in talks with Masters Brewer Harry about maybe learning to
do it with all kinds I mean, he was listing
all kinds of objects you could do it with. Maybe
we'll have an update, hopefully a positive one, in the future.
(33:42):
He did say that there was that there was only
a very low chance. Was it like one percent. His
personal example was he once did a hundred bottles. Sitting
is not the right word, but one go and only
two of them. Two. If you're a master cigar, yes,
(34:04):
and you're dealing with the best champagne bottles. Yes, you
received an honorary knighthood for this, y'all. It's it's really fascinating. Um.
But let us let us move on and debunk some
myths about champagne because along the way of becoming this
cultural institution, there have been a whole lot of things
(34:26):
out there. There's a whole lot of misinformation out there.
What do you do with it? How is it best?
We'll get into some of those right after the second
break from our lovely sponsor and we're back. So hey, Annie, Champagne,
should you age it? The answer depends on the vintage, right,
(34:50):
I mean, that's the best what I read most places.
If you're asking me, the answer is no. But that's
because I can't afford vantage wine, and I'm impatient for
people like you and me, Lauren, we don't have the
fancy wine settlers to age it in. I hear that
properly aged wine, vintage sparkling wine, uh, is amazing. So yeah,
(35:16):
if you have the opportunity, don't turn it down to
do it. Okay. Other myth if you if you put
a silver spoon in the bottleneck of an open bottle
of sparkling wine, will it preserve the bubbles? Short answer,
more vigorous answer maybe. The longer answer is this also
(35:42):
seems to depend on taste and just a lot of
other factors. Really, this is one that I was sure
had to have been complete, like like, like, how would
that work? I know that sounds ridiculous. I know, um
I read somewhere why people thought that is I've forgot it,
of course. But researchers at Stanford University and the Interprofessional
(36:05):
Committee of Champagne c v i C tested this out
by measuring the pressure of open bottles, some that had
spoons in them, some that have those wine stoppers in them,
and some where they were recorked with the cork and
others completely open. And they found that the pressure and
all the bottles was relatively the same. They also did
(36:26):
taste test with these different types of bottles and it
seemed to just very wildly. The most important factor they
found was temperature in preserving bubbles. Does glass shape matter?
This is another one where depending on who you ask,
you might get a different answer. Okay, yes, the glass.
The shape of a glass you put a sparkling wine
(36:48):
into will matter, but what glass type you use will
depend on what you're looking to get out of it.
The bubbles in champagne are are created by UH or
they're seated off of imperfects in the glass, either little
little bits of dust or whatever. Or if there's a
little flaw in the glass, then then bubbles will will
nucleate there and UH and fly up to the surface
(37:12):
of the wine. Lauren is doing excellent hand gestures right now,
all again to the waist. I'm just gesturing harder of
all of you all at home. Um. But according to
Uncorked the Science of Champagne, these bubbles form at a
rate of thirty per second, meaning that each glass contains
about two million bubbles if you just let it hang
(37:34):
out until it goes totally flat, which you shouldn't do.
You should just drink it. So those bubbles aren't going
to last very long in most glass shapes because because
because they're they're going places. But certain types of glasses
will keep those bubbles going longer. UM, and the flute
glasses have been traditionally used because they will keep those
bubbles just going and going, and they'll really showcase how
(37:58):
elegant and beautiful and joyful they are. It will also
keep it cool a little bit longer, which, as we
said above, helps with the bubbles staying bubbler. Yes, so
flute glass is kind of more for looks, kind of
aesthetic because, as it turns out, the narrow mouth opening
of a flute glass prevents you from from getting your
(38:20):
getting your nose all up in it. So you're going
to be missing out on that perfume of the wine.
Wines um as as many fancy people will tell you,
have a kind of separate smell component and taste component,
and you're denying yourself the beauty of that smell if
you use a flute. So some people who are serious
(38:41):
about sparkling wine like just never drink it out of
a flute. I drink mine out of a jam jar.
I drink mine out of a mason jar because I
can see an ounces watches in there. Right. Let's see,
this is very practical advice, uh, less less fancy perhaps
than like a coope glass, which are also popular for
shampagne san um that those are those if you've never
(39:02):
seen one before or heard them referred to. There those
a little short, wide cups that are said to be
based on the shape of Marie Antoinette's left breast as
a gift for Louis the fourteenth, which experts say is
probably apocryphal. Um. They are super cute and they're really
good for the wines smell, but terrible at keeping bubbly
cool and you know, bubbily, so generally not recommended unless
(39:26):
you just like it and then do it um. At tastings,
you might be poured sparkling wines in a white wine glass,
which are bad for the bubbles but good for the
temperature and the nose. And some glassmakers have recently been
touting these tall tulip shaped flutes as being the best
for bubbily because they're they're they're cool, and they showcase
(39:48):
the bubbles. Um, but they have a little bit more
room for your schnas up there at the top of
the glass. So basically the myth is rameral and you
should drink out of whatever you like to drink out of. Yeah,
pretty much. Yeah. Also, while we're debunking Miths, Dompignon probably
didn't say come quickly and tasting the stars. But speaking
(40:11):
of tastes, Oh, yes, so Champagne, what does it taste like?
I did not know until recently. I'll admit it can.
It can taste like a number of different things. Obviously
that you know. Not not all champagne is the same,
and certainly all sparkling wine is not the same. But
like all wine, um, the taroire, the climate and soil
type and uh and whether you're using oak barrels or
(40:33):
steel barrels, the farming technique, the germs that are floating
around in the region, all of that have to do
with the final taste of the wine. One of the
reasons Champagne's Champagne has such a specific taste is largely
due to it's terre are and specifically the soil aspect
of it, because Champagne has the region, not the clarity Champagne.
(41:01):
The region has a lot of limestone in its soil,
and the sedimentary rock in the area is a mix
of limestone, moral and chalk, and these are excellent reservoirs
of water. They're great for draining, and it also adds
a minerally flavor. Two that is a thing that I
(41:22):
that I've noticed in our recent champagne adventures that yes,
the whole two kinds that I've tried now both did
have a have a very dirt kind of component in
the best way and in a terrific in a way
that I enjoyed. I love. I love a flavor, any
any flavor will do. Champagne is also sparkling wine in general,
(41:43):
is I should say, is is known for being sweeter
than a lot of still wines. And this doesn't necessarily
have to be true, but um, it frequently is due
to that dosage that you that you add in towards
towards the end of the bottling process there to kind
of even out the flavor of the wine. And Philip Fillip,
(42:03):
bottle back up after you've taken out all of the
dirty yeast stuff. It's not dirty. It's a perfectly clean
and natural process. And if you if you like dryer
champagne um or sparkling wine, the thing is to look
for the extra brute. Dry usually means not sweet in
the wine world, but extra dry sparkling wine is sweeter
(42:26):
than brute and extra brute. I'm not sure why they
want to make sure you did your research like me personally, right, Yeah,
so yeah, going from the driest, the least sweet to
the most sweet. Uh if it just just if you're
looking for it, y'all, Um, go for the dry. Is
(42:48):
an extra brute than brute, than extra dry, than sec
than demi sec then do sweet? Yeah that they add
fifty grams of sugar to a bottle of dow. Yeah.
And this is something else that I found very interesting.
Champagne used to be way way sweeter. Oh yeah, like
(43:10):
like dessert wine level, like like Porto kind of level sweet.
And it's actually the English. They played a larger role
in sparkling wine Champagne than I realized. They preferred this
dry a k A brute Champagne sparkling wine. And once
that whole industrialization thing happened and France could export more,
(43:32):
the Champagne region could export more, they made a version
specifically for the English. Well, thank you England, and it
was that extra brute root version most of us know today.
But Champagne used to be very sweet. Yeah no, no, no, no, yeah,
any and he just made a shutter and I was like,
oh yep, they'll buy right there with you. Um. And
(43:54):
as we've said before, in order to preserve those bubbles.
You you want champagne to be properly chilled, and that
properly chilled is between and forty eight degrees fahrenheit, which
is so specific. Who came up with this? I love it?
Which is about seven to nine degrees celsius. Yes, And
according to the things I read, rapid chilling as the
(44:16):
way to go, not in a freezer, terrible for flavor,
but experts recommend putting champagne in ice water for fifteen
to twenty minutes and then refrigerating for three to four hours.
This seems to be the consensus, but again a lot
of preference involved. I think, yeah, that's that's basically what
all of this comes down to is do do what
you like. Although for sure, um, after after you've opened
(44:40):
a bottle of champagne, there's a time limit on when
it's the most enjoyable. Immediately within within twenty four hours
is best. I mean, the bubbles are probably going to
go away before then, but yes, that's something I can
get behind, yeah quickly. And speaking of something else I
can get behind, yes, food impairing your champagne or sparkling
(45:02):
wine with delicious treats. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be.
I feel like a champagne is frequently served like during
a dessert course in America, and I'm not sure why
we do that, because I mean, I mean not that
it can't be lovely, but but with the sweetness of
the wine, sometimes it can be. It's nice to have
a little bit of sweet and savory combination. Um. Sparkling
(45:26):
wines pair very well with cheeses. Uh. Cheese, by the way,
legit improves the taste of wine according to science, something
about how the cheese affects the tannins in the wine
and kind of smooths out a wine that's maybe not
as good. So if you get that too, buck chuck,
then a pair with some cheese for sure. Um. But
(45:48):
other stuff gra raw oysters, sushi, and other seafood um.
Harry specifically recommended scallops and stuff mushrooms if you are
going to go forward dessert. Um, you found some specific
recommendations for for types of dessert to pair champan with.
I did. I think it's kind of things that a
(46:10):
lot of people would expect, like strawberries, tarts, crumbles, short bread,
kind of the lighter, readier baked goods I guess, yeah, yeah, no,
but bretty makes sense because champagne Um does have her
or some some kinds of it do have a very
like yeasty kind of note to them. But again, but basically,
(46:31):
everyone that we talked to who's a professional in the
sparkling wine industry recommended eating whatever you want. Yeah, specifically
the the winery that we went to in North Georgia,
because there are wineries in North Georgia. There's wine in them,
their hills. Even the cups say that we're not making
that up. That is the actual slogan of the region.
(46:52):
I love living in Georgia. Um the lady. They recommended
specifically fried chicken, which we are determined to try. Yes,
before we totally wrap up, I wanted to just give
a shout out to to some of these places that
have been instrumental around Atlanta in helping us produce this
episode and the interviews that they've done with us, and
(47:13):
they've been so welcome and giving Harry Constantinescu Three Sisters
Winery in Delonaga, you on a mountain winery out in Cleveland,
Murphy's here in Atlanta. Is there anything else before we
before we sign off? I would just like to say,
I'm very sorry we didn't get to touch on all
the ship related history Champagne. As it turns out, bottles
of champagne can be well preserved on shipwrecks for like
(47:36):
hundreds of years and due to a lot of that
smuggling that was happening at various times during like war
tour in France. That's absolutely a thing that just sometimes
people are like, oh, look another shipwreck with another hundred
bottles of this incredible vintage of champagne. It's a wonderful
world we're living in. UM. Thank thank you guys so
much for tuning in and listening. And uh, maybe maybe
(47:58):
will in the future get a chance to talk to
do another episode and and talk about some of those
ship related things. UM, I would look that. And also
if you're interested in seeing what sabroach looks like, and
or Lauren and I trying sparkling wine with fried chicken.
We also have a video component to this. Yeah, so
(48:20):
please check it out. It's gonna be awesome. Do you
have a sign offline? I wish I did, now that
you asked me. I feel like I should have thought
about this long and hard, but instead I didn't And
now we're in this situation, so cheers cheers on our
first episode. Cheers to you for listening. Hopefully many more
(48:43):
good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm more in vogle
bomb and we are your hosts of this a new
show from How Stuff Works. Thank you for joining us. Yes,
thank you. Our pilot topic here is going to be champagne,
which is so overly ambitious. It was a rather ambitious choice. Uh.
(00:28):
We chose it because it's celebratories this first episode, right, yeah, cheers,
salute cheers. It's so sad to do without a glass.
Now are bombed out? We still have a bottle in
the fridge that we can that's true for work purposes, yes,
completely legitimate work purposes. We have drank a great deal
(00:49):
of sparkling wine over the past couple of weeks. But hey,
speaking of I wanted to just say at the top
of the show, drink responsibly, y'all, and according to the
local laws in the place where you exist. Okay, So
while you're responsibly enjoying or not enjoying, if you're not
of age, your champagne or sparkling wine. What is sparkling wine?
(01:10):
What does champagne? What makes the difference? It's kind of
like a like a square rhombus sort of situation, right, um,
Champagne is a type of sparkling wine that is produced
in the Champagne region of France under very particular circumstances.
Um and to to actually take it back a step
further than that, like, all right, so, what's what's sparkling wine?
Does it contain glitter? No? It does not. That would
(01:33):
be that would be I would totally drink that edible glitter.
And oh, I'm giving away way too much about myself
right now. A sparkling wine is a wine that is carbonated,
meaning that it contains dissolved carbon dioxide gas in it,
which bubbles up out of the liquid unless it is
kept under kind of tremendous pressure. This is also why
you sometimes burp when you drink bubbly or or soda
(01:56):
or beer, because although your stomach is kind of pressurized,
it's not pressure. It's enough to keep carbon dioxide dissolved,
so it escapes as a gas. Not for me, I'm lady, like, yeah, never, never, no, no,
I belch no all the time. I mean, it's natural,
it is, come on, it's important better out than in. Um. So,
so other sparkling wines technically should not be called Champagne.
(02:19):
I like to pronounce it Champania. Champana. Is that the
official pronunciation or is that just like what you like
saying I like to say Champania. I won't because I'm
sure it'll get annoying very fast. But but you're one
of the two of us who actually speaks French. So theory,
whether you call it Champania or Champagne. Uh, in some countries,
(02:43):
you legally cannot call it that unless it is from
that region of France. Um. Although technically that's that's like
for for legal and marketing kind of purposes, not for
like table discussion. Yeah, and when I was researching into this,
I went down a whole rabbit hole of very interesting
trademark and copyright laws because I've never really thought about
(03:03):
how difficult it would be to copyright something in so
many different countries at once. Yeah, maybe a different episode,
but it is very interesting. And the Champagne region they
take this really seriously, and they should because it's how
they make their money. It's what they're known for. To
the point, in nine eleven the loss of up to
nineties six of their cop resulted done something called the
(03:26):
Champagne Riots. Champagne riots. That sounds delightful and refreshing in
a variety way. It wasn't. Oh well, vineyards were burned,
wine bar barrels were destroyed, and eventually the army had
to be called in. It caused a lot of destruction
and I almost resulted in a civil war. Wow but
but but no civil war. And everyone is back to
(03:48):
producing delicious pubblic beverages these days. And that is all
done under the regulation, these very serious regulations. And I'm
gonna let you say the words, since you hypothetically know
how to stay them better than I do. That's so
kind of you. Thank you anytime. Annie. Okay, here we go,
Here we go, dojin contry probably and for AOC which
(04:12):
we can say much better. And our American yes, and
we all need so many acronyms in our life. You're
going to get a lot more just you wait for it.
Oh yeah, yeah, what one more, Kevin right at you.
The group that creates these rules is the Institute Nacional
Deregine de la Quality. Yes ish ish and also acronym
(04:36):
n a O yes um. They they they're the regulatory
group that controls the quality and the branding of agricultural
products like cheeses and wines. Over in France, so for
a champagne to be labeled Champagne, it has to be
produced both the grapes and the process in the Champagne
region from one or a blend of just three types
(04:59):
of great rittles ye, chardonnay, noir, and and then there
are a whole bunch of different rules about how you're
allowed to handle the grapes, um, how they can be
planted and pruned, how much fruit can be produced per
acre or hector, and how much juice can be obtained
from the fruit by the weight, and how it can
(05:19):
be fermented and stored, and the process of making it
uh in this correct way is called the myth old
champagnoire yes or the mythold classique or the method classical. Basically,
what goes what goes into this technique is you produce
(05:40):
bottles of still wine that have undergone a primary fermentation,
aka turning grape juice into wine juice. You've added sugar
and yeast to grape juice um grape juice being called
must in the industry in these giant tanks, and yeast
being a microscopic organism that eats glucose and excre eats
(06:00):
carbon dioxide and ethanol. Um starts turning the sugar and
the natural sugars in the juice into alcohol. Yeah. Um,
the carbon dioxide is released from that liquid as a gas,
and the ethanol is the alcohol that is in the
final product of the wine. Um. Apparently we talked to
some to some people at a winery and they said
(06:21):
that so much carbon dioxide is released from the tanks
when they're doing this that they can't just like open
up the brewery door or the winery door and like
go in in the morning. They have to vent the
entire building for or else anyone who walked in there
and suffocate. Yeah, which is which is so wine making
is terrifying. Yeah, it kind of is. There's a lot
(06:46):
of dangers that I did not realize, especially with sparkling wine. Um.
So so yeah, So so once once you've got this, once,
once the yeast is done, it's work and the pH
level hits a certain point on on on the acid
end of the scale, you strain out the yeast and
you bottle the wine. That's where you would stop. Yeah,
if you're creating still wine. But if you're a crazy
(07:07):
person and you're like, hey, how can I make this
more hazardous and I know, let's do that fermentation thing again. Yes,
it's a secondary fermentation. Um so, so you create a
secondary fermentation inside each bottle by adding a little bit
more yeast and sugar and where the carbon dioxide was
(07:27):
a byproduct and that primary fermentation, it's basically the point
of the secondary fermentation. To keep all of that happening
in the bottles, you seal them up tightly with a
crown cap er exactly, and after a couple of months,
when the wine maker feels like it's good sparkly, the
caps are removed and the the yeast is the lea's
(07:47):
they're called, are taken out in a process called called rittling.
Or I just looked at that French word and looked
at Annie and skipped right over it. More on that
one later. I think that's your favorite part of this
entire thing. Yeah, I got really excited reading about it. Also,
I just like riddling. That sounds so like an evil villain,
(08:11):
like like riddle be this. Yeah, it's also it's also
the opposite of like what I would want to do
it Like I it's such as science, and I want
everything about it to be the most science e like,
let's let us not in fact riddle in the champagne world,
this is that's that way lies danger um. Let's say
riddle all the time, baby, And then and then comes
(08:35):
the dosage. Um. The next step in the process is
once you've got those that that nasty yeast stuff out
of the bottle, it looks looks real gross um. Each
bottle is topped up with a little bit more still
wine and usually a little bit of sugar to taste.
And then, in the most terrifying part of the process,
these giant corks, like like almost twice as big as
(08:57):
a normal wine cork, are inserted in to the neck
of the bottle and then backed up by a a
wire cage cap called a today you need me slate
to to hold in these now highly pressurized contents. Are
talking five to seven times the pressure we experience just
hanging out on sea level a k A five to
(09:18):
seven atmospheres. This is also I hear very frequently described
as m three times the pressure and a bus tire
oh in one bottle. I don't have I don't have
a really strong concept of bus tires, but that sounds
very pressurized. I blow out of bus tire it's pretty serious,
frightening enough. Yeah, it's like being inside the bottle would
(09:40):
be like diving fifty to seventys down into the ocean, which,
for those of you who don't think in meters like me,
that's about a hundred and sixty to two thirty feet.
I did not just do that math in my head.
I looked it up earlier. Um. But that's also known
as like the depth at which you don't generally want
to dive to because the nitrogen in your blood starts
(10:02):
dissolving and it can be hazardous. So don't dive into
a champagne bottle lesson of the podcast. I'm glad you
said it. And that is not all for these bottles.
They the final the final product, once it has been
wrapped up, has to be aged for at least fifteen
(10:24):
months um. That's for for a typical blended champagne, or
at least three years for a single vintage when they're
really good and fancy also called It also has to
have a minimum alcohol content. But basically all wines made
by the mid old Champla exceed in quality. These kind
(10:45):
of things that it's just sort of like a ground level, like, hey, guys,
like if we're we're keeping it nice sort of a reputation. Yeah, yeah,
and that's the that's the entire point of these of
these regulations, so that you know, if if someone buys
a bottle that has labeled Champagne, they will know what
to expect from it, right. And part of why they
want to set that expectation like that and and keep
(11:08):
it is because of this amazing history of Champagne. There's
so many legends about how Champagne came to be, and
we will get into talking about those right after this
word from our sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. Uh.
(11:30):
So let's talk about some of these legends of how
Champagne came to be. One of them is that um,
dom Perignon a a monk. Did I say that anywhere
near correctly? You crimiced, I did, but not because of
your pronunciation perfect? And the taste is also fine, don't
That wasn't why the dom Perignon uh invented Champagne, and
(11:55):
that that is why his name is on some bottles
and why those bottles are expensive ones. But that's only
not that's probably not what happened, um, that's almost in fact,
that's definitely not what happened. It's almost the opposite of
what happened in a weird way. Yes, getting into that
in a second, but um, first of all, just just
to lay out like no one invented champagne on purpose,
(12:16):
when like the first time that someone drank a sparkling wine. Um,
the first sparkling wines we're probably accidental, Yeah, very probably.
Wine industry representatives from region claim I'm sorry I did that. Anyway.
They they claim that they were producing abub as early
as the mid fifteen hundreds. But this is another thing
(12:39):
that is difficult to prove. History can be tricky in
that way. Absolutely, I have such mad respect for our
coworkers on this stuff you missed in history podcast. This
is I'm used to talking about like technology in the future,
which has the benefit of all existing on the Internet,
and this is this is a little bit more difficult.
According to the Internet, the first sparkling wines probably came
(13:03):
from England. Um. The first records we have of it anyway,
in sixteen sixty two in English scientists named Christopher Merritt
one or possibly two teas no one knows. See how
tricky the mysteries of history. Mr merrit one or two
teas presented a paper to the Royal Society about how
some wine humans at the time we're adding sugar molasses
(13:25):
to finished wine barrels to create a second fermentation. That
the litta and thus bubbles ciders were very popular in
England at the time, and that's how they were made
using the same kind of process, and that first time
we have a real record historical record of making sparkling
wines on purpose, because like we said earlier, a lot
(13:46):
of times it was an accident and a terrifying one. Yeah.
What the monk dom Perignon, Pierre Parignon, who became Dom Perigneon,
what he was doing was not creating Champagne. He was
assigned to stop Champagne from happening, a sparkling wine from
from happening. Um. It was it was called at the
(14:07):
time live in the Devil's Wine um because the temperatures
in the Champagne region would get cold enough early enough
that cellared bottled still wine would stop fermenting in winter
before the yeast was done doing all of its yeast thing,
and then when the when the temperatures warmed up again
(14:28):
in the spring, the wine would undergo that secondary fermentation,
which would dramatically raise the pressure inside the bottles and
make them go fizzy and make them explode. Yeah, and
this was like really big scary problem the workers when
they would go down into the cellar, they had to
wear heavy iron mask and padding. That's how likely this
(14:53):
possibility of explosion was. And according to some things we found, uh,
it could you could lose four to ten percent, like
like regularly yeah, uh, due to bursing or exploding more dramatically.
And that if there was a bad warm front, you
could lose up to thirty And according to others, you
(15:15):
could lose a lot, like the majority of your seller.
Again history historical numbers are hard, but but certainly like
a single bottle going off and a seller could start
a chain reaction around the whole rest of the seller.
And oh man, that's I don't want that. That sounds bad.
(15:36):
Um And we're put on armor to code out there
the devil's one, um and and and this is what
the dude was working on. He never really worked it out,
but he did a couple other cool things, which will
mention later on. And the things that did sort it out,
(15:56):
we're One of them was back in Britain again, a
bold dudes in Britain by the names of Sir Robert
Mansell and James Howell worked out how to make glass
with relatively super hot coal fueled furnaces by about sixty three.
That was pretty amazing because traditionally charcoal was the like, safer,
cooler fuel of choice for for firing up glass ovens,
(16:20):
but charcoal was commonly produced from oak trees at the time,
and King James the First and his navy needed a
whole lot of oak for ships. So thanks King James.
Without you, we might not have had technical technological improvements
in glassware, and we wouldn't have been able to create
these these thicker, um stronger bottles that uh don't explode
(16:44):
so easy. I thought you were being sarcastic at first, Like,
thanks King James, You're serious and as you should be.
Thanks Thanks King James. Just my sarcasm voice is really
close to my regular vos, I understand. The other improvement
that came along was the wire cap that that mus
let um, because before it was invented, corks were held
(17:07):
in with like string, I mean like really really tight
woven string, but still uh yeah. Around eight four a
member of the Oh I looked this one up and
I don't remember a member of the Jack CUIs Ja.
That's totally it is it it is? Which are the
owners of a famous house in champagne or a champagne
(17:31):
house a a organization of growers and producers? Is that
about the definition of champagne house? Yes? Cool, excellent to
this dude. Um Adolf patented a cap that was held
on by a strong wire that that hooks down under
the lip of a bottle and secures the cork, which,
(17:52):
if you've ever opened a bottle of sparkling wine is
probably something that you're familiar with. Yeah, we still use
this to this day. And the thicker glass. These are
the two things, like the main two things that helps
stop all those exploding bottles. And and once we stopped
all those exploding bottles, uh, a bunch of other innovations
(18:12):
would come along that would make champagne a lot um
a lot easier and less expensive to produce. Here we
get to one of my favorite things, really really during
the secondary fermentation, dead used to build up in the
bottom of the bottle and it was like gross looking.
To get rid of all this gross, easty stuff they
used to pour the champagne from bottle to bottle. Along
comes Bob Nicole. Bob Nicole was born in the years
(18:37):
leading up to the French Revolution and she married Francois Chicole,
which some of you may recognize the name. If you don't,
they will be a nice surprise ending at the end
of the store for you. At first, this was kind
of a business deal, as a lot of marriages were
at the time, but they did make the lovely transformation
to real partnership. They invested in a sparkling wine, part
(19:00):
because Barbe Nicole had some knowledge of it, but unfortunately
feel ill and died suddenly. There were rumors that his
death was due to his failing investment in wine, but
barbed Nicole was not willing to give up on this,
so she went to her father in law and asked
to put her inheritance in the wine business, and father
(19:23):
in law greed. She went through an apprenticeship. She was
really determined to figure this thing out and to make
this successful. The money thing kept coming up. She had
asked for more money. She was about to go bankrupt.
It's also they were getting together in the years leading
up to the French Revolution, So so this was this
was the end of the Napoleonic Wars by this time, yes,
(19:43):
and there were a lot of obviously difficulties in trade
because of that. Bart Nicole had a sense that the
Russian market would be really receptive to having some show
pain at the end of the wars. But those black
aides we were talking about, they were in the way.
She was will smuggle some of it to Amsterdam, and
after the war it did make its way to Russia, where, sorry,
(20:06):
Alexander the First told the world it was all he
would drink. She went from a nobody to someone everyone knew,
and someone everyone knew and wanted her product. And none
of this has to do with yeast yet no, I know,
see how exciting riddling is. Everyone else was like my
God finished his story, all right, here we go. Demand
(20:28):
for her champagne was so high she had to come
up with a better way to manufacture it. Instead of
pouring the champagne from bottle to bottle and losing its bubbles,
the thing everybody wants, the sparkling wine barb Nicole invented
a method of turning the bottle upside down and letting
the stuff settle all the settled at the neck, and
(20:49):
this allowed her to produce better champagne much faster because
she wasn't losing all the bubbles and she didn't have
to wait around for the east. For the east to
settle so much. By the time she died, Vuko enjoyed worldwide,
and it is still enjoyed today. If if you guys
are not familiar with the brand name out loud, it's
it's that bright yellow rectangular label that's that's sometimes seen
(21:11):
on champagne that I don't purchase because it's very expensive.
I hope to one day have a taste of could go,
you know. I think it's good to dream. Yeah, And
these days riddling is even easier yet, um. And that's
because of the invention of encapsulated yeast, which settled down
(21:32):
into the neck of a bottle in a matter of
seconds rather than a matter of like days. Um. And
also by by using machines to quick freeze. I said
quick in in little air quotes that you can't see
because you're not in the studio with us. Um. Annie
enjoyed them very much, I can tell. I can attest
she did do it uh to to quick freeze and
(21:54):
in a matter of like twelve minutes the leaves in
the in the bottles next, so that they could just
sort of ploop right out when you when you take
off that crown cap. And there is some shade that
some champagne houses throw up people who use encapsulated east
Oh really, all the older, more traditional houses claim that
(22:17):
they don't use it, and they might not use it,
but a lot of people who do use it claim
that the old traditional houses are lying and they only
have like the old tiny riddling equipment front for show,
as with most of these kind of very controlled, very
niche markets. Yeah, there's a lot of stories about um,
(22:40):
who's doing it right and who's doing it better and
what it means to actually make the thing. So I
don't know. I I couldn't find anything either way. This
is just all in the rumor mill. No, I love.
I love a champagne rumor mill, best kind of rumor mill, right,
it's one of the best. It's up there. So riddling um,
which was the point of that of that story, UM
(23:04):
was very useful for for champagne houses to be able
to produce more and also, as it turned out, really
helped to make to make champagne the celebratory thing that
it has become because of that Russian czar thing and
getting it out to more people to be able to
celebrate with it. It's it's up there. It's what you do.
(23:27):
You hit ships with it. You you cheers with it
at your wedding. It's in a lot of rap songs.
It's in so many rap songs. How how did that happen?
It happened with coronations, royal coronations going all the way
back to four nineties six CE. Clovis, King Clovis of
(23:48):
Northern France, promised his wife, who was a princess from Burgundy,
that he convert to Christianity if he won his next battle.
That's not a Betton matter for most people, but okay,
sure absolutely of us. So lucky for him, I guess
and his wife. He won and he was baptized in
the Champagne region, and Champagne's capital, Raims, became viewed as
(24:08):
a religious and spiritual center in France. He had a
couple of hundred years to seven Hugh could pay his
coornation kicks, started a tradition that lasted centuries of kings
being coordinated in Champagne. It was quite the journey from Paris.
It was a it was a real trick, a wine trek. Yes.
(24:29):
Once they were out there, they were like, let's chill
for a while and maybe drink some of these Champagne wines, right,
because if you spend all that time getting out there,
might as well enjoy what the region has the offer.
Although that they weren't producing sparkling wines on purpose at
the time, No, we should say that they were still
and often liked kind of good from what I've heard. Yeah,
(24:51):
they weren't very good. They were flat flabby. Flabby. That's
that's a word. It is a word, and it's a
word she used to describe. Why what's a flabby wine?
It just has nothing going on? Oh I see. Okay.
Other historical note on Champagne's rise to the success that
it is has something to do with healthcare. Yes, And
(25:15):
this is one of my favorite things that I found
sixteen seventy four is the art of healing. Herald of
Champagne's wines as those that would quote at least incumber
the stomach, incumber the stomach. Okay, so appetizing, I'm not
going to incumber my stomach. Okay. It was common practice
(25:35):
at the time for the king's position, not just in
France but in countries all around Europe, to recommend a
specific wine for purported health benefits, and this trickled down
to the aristocracy, writers, poet's artist. Yeah, it's a big
deal to be like the recommended wine of the king,
(25:58):
because we're going to drink a lot wine. If this
one's healthier, might as well drink even more. The king
has given it his seal. Champagne was the most frequently prescribed.
This did not sit well with the local wine making
rival region of Burgundy, right, yes, and a lot of
(26:19):
you probably heard of Burgundy wines still a thing. Wanting
to cash in on Champagne's success, they began espousing the
help and ifits of their wine and hiring physicians and
artists and poets and authors to talk about their wine
and help benefits of it. So we're talking about bribery. Yeah,
(26:40):
oh yeah, they were bribing medical students, doctors. They're hilarious
fake ads that you can find and and all. Okay,
So so it's not just that this wine is more healthy,
it's that it has actual health benefits, like like, what
would this wine do for you? I'm glad you asked.
This swine could be used to treat gout, aninia, indigestion,
(27:05):
kidney stones, epidemic disease, morning sickness, and malaria malaria. D
have a glass of Champagne that malarial clear right up.
That's terrific health advice. Champagne pretty much one in this
battle of the finest healthiest wine to drink. According to
(27:25):
the King, Burgundy decided to focus shift to focus too.
They're largely regarded as superior red wines. They had a
clearer flavor, they had a better color, and this was
mostly due to temperature and the soil. Champagne decided to
focus sley on white wines, and that's one of the
reasons we have the Champagne we know at Champagne today
(27:48):
helping along with that. One of those things that our
dear friend Dom Perignon did was developed a successful technique
for making and blending and clarifying white wine from red grapes. Yeah,
because to two of those two of those grapes that
are the primary ones that go into Champagne are red
red grapes. Another reason that Champagne came to be associated
(28:12):
with royalty, aristocracy and thus kind of celebration is because
of where Champagne is located. It's on a trade and
military route. This meant that there were a lot of
soldiers going through and they were either looking to celebrate
victory or drink away their sorrow at their loss. And
(28:33):
Napoleon himself is a rumored to have said Champagne exclamation
point in victory one deserves it and defeat one needs.
That was as terrible. I should have used that opportunity
to try and pull in impersonation, but it's probably best
for everyone that I did not. Yeah, and we we
we have no way of going back now, so we must,
(28:53):
we must forged proudly ahead. If only I had a
glass of champagne to drink away my disappointment in the
fact that we can't go backwards. I know it's going
to be okay, Annie. And one of the reasons that
it's going to be okay is that, thanks to all
of that industrialization that I believe we mentioned earlier, Uh,
Champagne became more and more accessible to more and more,
(29:16):
not monarchs, the common people began to be able to
afford to drink it. You know, maybe not every day,
but for um, for for special occasions like like weddings
and New Year's and marketing is probably one of the
biggest reasons for this. Although they obviously wanted you to
drink it all the time, they knew that this wasn't
(29:38):
a thing most people could afford, so they advertised it
as an aspirational drink, and advertisements promised things like drinking
Champagne would enhance women's beauty and men's wit. Oh well,
those are the two most important things for those groups
of people, so that that's a huge relief. And since
more people were able to buy it for these special occasions,
that's how it became kind of the drink you had
(30:02):
to toast at weddings and what you had to ring
in the New Year, to the point that in seven
million bottles were shipped from Champagne in anticipation of the
New Millennium. Yes, but one thing that Lauren and I
heard from the people we talked to about this is
that it is not like that in Champagne at all. Yeah,
(30:23):
it's just it's just a wine. It's just wine that
you drink because you like it. Yes. I also read
on the other end of that that some people think
it's the bubbles and the popping of the cork like
adds this feeling of celebration, and that the bubbles are
kind of the happiness and excitement you feel about whatever
(30:45):
you're celebrating. That the joy they're so joyful, they're joyful
in your nose. Yeah, and there's that like ceremony to it.
Oh and there is that other ceremony that involves breaking
the mopen with the sword, because that's the same thing
to do obviously. Yeah, sobran um. And it's not it's
not cutting it is it is breaking with a dull edge.
It turns out that that it's not the sharpness of
(31:06):
the sword at all. It's it's you can use anything
you can use like a lighter or like a stapler,
your cell phone. Maybe that would be a poor decision,
but uh, you could argue that the saber is afforded decision.
It's it's still terrifying, and we have footage to prove it.
I will say that my my heart sped up a
bit when the saber was pulled out of it's very
(31:30):
ceremonial looking box. Yeah. Yeah, we got to talk to
a to a master subruar. Harry Constantinescu I came to
find out that there's a certain window where you can
safely perform suburbe. First of all, the temperature is very important.
The point where you hit the bottle it's also very important.
Every bottle will have two seams, one seam on one side,
one on the other side, and then there's a glass
(31:52):
lip where the bottle is closed. But the point where
you want to hit it, it's where the seam. It's
this glass lip. This is where you want to hit it.
In Lord to have a clean cut, they used the
capital of Champagne to crown the kings of France. Appoleon
himself went to military school close to that region, and
this is where he met with Rami Moet, which later
will take over the Chandoon house. And he would stop
(32:14):
with his generals prior to a battle in the Champagne
region just celebrate with Champagne. And the young officer from
Napoleon's army, frustrated with the fact that he couldn't control
his horse with one hand, and opened a bottle of
champagne with the other one. After a night of party,
he pulled his sword and beheaded the bottle with a
stroke of a blade. Everybody thought that This is a
great way to open a bottle of champagne. Did you
(32:38):
did you ever catch back up with Harry. You said
that you were going to try to go get him
to teach you how to do this. That is a
work in progress. I actually, thanks to this episode, just
overcame my fear of opening champagne bottles. Lauren taught me
the proper way to open it. Opening a bottle champagne
is quite easy. You just you just kind of grabbed
(32:59):
the putt towel over the bottle and grab the cork
and sort of wiggle it until it just comes out. Yeah,
my previous method was closing my eyes and going outside
and pointing it away and just hoping nothing went wrong.
You don't have to You don't have to live that
(33:19):
life anymore. And now apparently opening like a regular person
for me is not enough anymore, because yes, I am
in talks with Masters Brewer Harry about maybe learning to
do it with all kinds I mean, he was listing
all kinds of objects you could do it with. Maybe
we'll have an update, hopefully a positive one, in the future.
(33:42):
He did say that there was that there was only
a very low chance. Was it like one percent. His
personal example was he once did a hundred bottles. Sitting
is not the right word, but one go and only
two of them. Two. If you're a master cigar, yes,
(34:04):
and you're dealing with the best champagne bottles. Yes, you
received an honorary knighthood for this, y'all. It's it's really fascinating. Um.
But let us let us move on and debunk some
myths about champagne because along the way of becoming this
cultural institution, there have been a whole lot of things
(34:26):
out there. There's a whole lot of misinformation out there.
What do you do with it? How is it best?
We'll get into some of those right after the second
break from our lovely sponsor and we're back. So hey, Annie, Champagne,
should you age it? The answer depends on the vintage, right,
(34:50):
I mean, that's the best what I read most places.
If you're asking me, the answer is no. But that's
because I can't afford vantage wine, and I'm impatient for
people like you and me, Lauren, we don't have the
fancy wine settlers to age it in. I hear that
properly aged wine, vintage sparkling wine, uh, is amazing. So yeah,
(35:16):
if you have the opportunity, don't turn it down to
do it. Okay. Other myth if you if you put
a silver spoon in the bottleneck of an open bottle
of sparkling wine, will it preserve the bubbles? Short answer,
more vigorous answer maybe. The longer answer is this also
(35:42):
seems to depend on taste and just a lot of
other factors. Really, this is one that I was sure
had to have been complete, like like, like, how would
that work? I know that sounds ridiculous. I know, um
I read somewhere why people thought that is I've forgot it,
of course. But researchers at Stanford University and the Interprofessional
(36:05):
Committee of Champagne c v i C tested this out
by measuring the pressure of open bottles, some that had
spoons in them, some that have those wine stoppers in them,
and some where they were recorked with the cork and
others completely open. And they found that the pressure and
all the bottles was relatively the same. They also did
(36:26):
taste test with these different types of bottles and it
seemed to just very wildly. The most important factor they
found was temperature in preserving bubbles. Does glass shape matter?
This is another one where depending on who you ask,
you might get a different answer. Okay, yes, the glass.
The shape of a glass you put a sparkling wine
(36:48):
into will matter, but what glass type you use will
depend on what you're looking to get out of it.
The bubbles in champagne are are created by UH or
they're seated off of imperfects in the glass, either little
little bits of dust or whatever. Or if there's a
little flaw in the glass, then then bubbles will will
nucleate there and UH and fly up to the surface
(37:12):
of the wine. Lauren is doing excellent hand gestures right now,
all again to the waist. I'm just gesturing harder of
all of you all at home. Um. But according to
Uncorked the Science of Champagne, these bubbles form at a
rate of thirty per second, meaning that each glass contains
about two million bubbles if you just let it hang
(37:34):
out until it goes totally flat, which you shouldn't do.
You should just drink it. So those bubbles aren't going
to last very long in most glass shapes because because
because they're they're going places. But certain types of glasses
will keep those bubbles going longer. UM, and the flute
glasses have been traditionally used because they will keep those
bubbles just going and going, and they'll really showcase how
(37:58):
elegant and beautiful and joyful they are. It will also
keep it cool a little bit longer, which, as we
said above, helps with the bubbles staying bubbler. Yes, so
flute glass is kind of more for looks, kind of
aesthetic because, as it turns out, the narrow mouth opening
of a flute glass prevents you from from getting your
(38:20):
getting your nose all up in it. So you're going
to be missing out on that perfume of the wine.
Wines um as as many fancy people will tell you,
have a kind of separate smell component and taste component,
and you're denying yourself the beauty of that smell if
you use a flute. So some people who are serious
(38:41):
about sparkling wine like just never drink it out of
a flute. I drink mine out of a jam jar.
I drink mine out of a mason jar because I
can see an ounces watches in there. Right. Let's see,
this is very practical advice, uh, less less fancy perhaps
than like a coope glass, which are also popular for
shampagne san um that those are those if you've never
(39:02):
seen one before or heard them referred to. There those
a little short, wide cups that are said to be
based on the shape of Marie Antoinette's left breast as
a gift for Louis the fourteenth, which experts say is
probably apocryphal. Um. They are super cute and they're really
good for the wines smell, but terrible at keeping bubbly
cool and you know, bubbily, so generally not recommended unless
(39:26):
you just like it and then do it um. At tastings,
you might be poured sparkling wines in a white wine glass,
which are bad for the bubbles but good for the
temperature and the nose. And some glassmakers have recently been
touting these tall tulip shaped flutes as being the best
for bubbily because they're they're they're cool, and they showcase
(39:48):
the bubbles. Um, but they have a little bit more
room for your schnas up there at the top of
the glass. So basically the myth is rameral and you
should drink out of whatever you like to drink out of. Yeah,
pretty much. Yeah. Also, while we're debunking Miths, Dompignon probably
didn't say come quickly and tasting the stars. But speaking
(40:11):
of tastes, Oh, yes, so Champagne, what does it taste like?
I did not know until recently. I'll admit it can.
It can taste like a number of different things. Obviously
that you know. Not not all champagne is the same,
and certainly all sparkling wine is not the same. But
like all wine, um, the taroire, the climate and soil
type and uh and whether you're using oak barrels or
(40:33):
steel barrels, the farming technique, the germs that are floating
around in the region, all of that have to do
with the final taste of the wine. One of the
reasons Champagne's Champagne has such a specific taste is largely
due to it's terre are and specifically the soil aspect
of it, because Champagne has the region, not the clarity Champagne.
(41:01):
The region has a lot of limestone in its soil,
and the sedimentary rock in the area is a mix
of limestone, moral and chalk, and these are excellent reservoirs
of water. They're great for draining, and it also adds
a minerally flavor. Two that is a thing that I
(41:22):
that I've noticed in our recent champagne adventures that yes,
the whole two kinds that I've tried now both did
have a have a very dirt kind of component in
the best way and in a terrific in a way
that I enjoyed. I love. I love a flavor, any
any flavor will do. Champagne is also sparkling wine in general,
(41:43):
is I should say, is is known for being sweeter
than a lot of still wines. And this doesn't necessarily
have to be true, but um, it frequently is due
to that dosage that you that you add in towards
towards the end of the bottling process there to kind
of even out the flavor of the wine. And Philip Fillip,
(42:03):
bottle back up after you've taken out all of the
dirty yeast stuff. It's not dirty. It's a perfectly clean
and natural process. And if you if you like dryer
champagne um or sparkling wine, the thing is to look
for the extra brute. Dry usually means not sweet in
the wine world, but extra dry sparkling wine is sweeter
(42:26):
than brute and extra brute. I'm not sure why they
want to make sure you did your research like me personally, right, Yeah,
so yeah, going from the driest, the least sweet to
the most sweet. Uh if it just just if you're
looking for it, y'all, Um, go for the dry. Is
(42:48):
an extra brute than brute, than extra dry, than sec
than demi sec then do sweet? Yeah that they add
fifty grams of sugar to a bottle of dow. Yeah.
And this is something else that I found very interesting.
Champagne used to be way way sweeter. Oh yeah, like
(43:10):
like dessert wine level, like like Porto kind of level sweet.
And it's actually the English. They played a larger role
in sparkling wine Champagne than I realized. They preferred this
dry a k A brute Champagne sparkling wine. And once
that whole industrialization thing happened and France could export more,
(43:32):
the Champagne region could export more, they made a version
specifically for the English. Well, thank you England, and it
was that extra brute root version most of us know today.
But Champagne used to be very sweet. Yeah no, no, no, no, yeah,
any and he just made a shutter and I was like,
oh yep, they'll buy right there with you. Um. And
(43:54):
as we've said before, in order to preserve those bubbles.
You you want champagne to be properly chilled, and that
properly chilled is between and forty eight degrees fahrenheit, which
is so specific. Who came up with this? I love it?
Which is about seven to nine degrees celsius. Yes, And
according to the things I read, rapid chilling as the
(44:16):
way to go, not in a freezer, terrible for flavor,
but experts recommend putting champagne in ice water for fifteen
to twenty minutes and then refrigerating for three to four hours.
This seems to be the consensus, but again a lot
of preference involved. I think, yeah, that's that's basically what
all of this comes down to is do do what
you like. Although for sure, um, after after you've opened
(44:40):
a bottle of champagne, there's a time limit on when
it's the most enjoyable. Immediately within within twenty four hours
is best. I mean, the bubbles are probably going to
go away before then, but yes, that's something I can
get behind, yeah quickly. And speaking of something else I
can get behind, yes, food impairing your champagne or sparkling
(45:02):
wine with delicious treats. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be.
I feel like a champagne is frequently served like during
a dessert course in America, and I'm not sure why
we do that, because I mean, I mean not that
it can't be lovely, but but with the sweetness of
the wine, sometimes it can be. It's nice to have
a little bit of sweet and savory combination. Um. Sparkling
(45:26):
wines pair very well with cheeses. Uh. Cheese, by the way,
legit improves the taste of wine according to science, something
about how the cheese affects the tannins in the wine
and kind of smooths out a wine that's maybe not
as good. So if you get that too, buck chuck,
then a pair with some cheese for sure. Um. But
(45:48):
other stuff gra raw oysters, sushi, and other seafood um.
Harry specifically recommended scallops and stuff mushrooms if you are
going to go forward dessert. Um, you found some specific
recommendations for for types of dessert to pair champan with.
I did. I think it's kind of things that a
(46:10):
lot of people would expect, like strawberries, tarts, crumbles, short bread,
kind of the lighter, readier baked goods I guess, yeah, yeah, no,
but bretty makes sense because champagne Um does have her
or some some kinds of it do have a very
like yeasty kind of note to them. But again, but basically,
(46:31):
everyone that we talked to who's a professional in the
sparkling wine industry recommended eating whatever you want. Yeah, specifically
the the winery that we went to in North Georgia,
because there are wineries in North Georgia. There's wine in them,
their hills. Even the cups say that we're not making
that up. That is the actual slogan of the region.
(46:52):
I love living in Georgia. Um the lady. They recommended
specifically fried chicken, which we are determined to try. Yes,
before we totally wrap up, I wanted to just give
a shout out to to some of these places that
have been instrumental around Atlanta in helping us produce this
episode and the interviews that they've done with us, and
(47:13):
they've been so welcome and giving Harry Constantinescu Three Sisters
Winery in Delonaga, you on a mountain winery out in Cleveland,
Murphy's here in Atlanta. Is there anything else before we
before we sign off? I would just like to say,
I'm very sorry we didn't get to touch on all
the ship related history Champagne. As it turns out, bottles
of champagne can be well preserved on shipwrecks for like
(47:36):
hundreds of years and due to a lot of that
smuggling that was happening at various times during like war
tour in France. That's absolutely a thing that just sometimes
people are like, oh, look another shipwreck with another hundred
bottles of this incredible vintage of champagne. It's a wonderful
world we're living in. UM. Thank thank you guys so
much for tuning in and listening. And uh, maybe maybe
(47:58):
will in the future get a chance to talk to
do another episode and and talk about some of those
ship related things. UM, I would look that. And also
if you're interested in seeing what sabroach looks like, and
or Lauren and I trying sparkling wine with fried chicken.
We also have a video component to this. Yeah, so
(48:20):
please check it out. It's gonna be awesome. Do you
have a sign offline? I wish I did, now that
you asked me. I feel like I should have thought
about this long and hard, but instead I didn't And
now we're in this situation, so cheers cheers on our
first episode. Cheers to you for listening. Hopefully many more
(48:43):
good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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