A fascinating story is told by the guide on a tour of perhaps the most famous champagne house in the world. Moet et Chandon in Reims is the producer of Dom Perignon, the king of bubblies. The traditional saucer shaped champagne glasses, the guide explains, were actually modeled after the shape of Madame de Pompadour's breasts.
Louis the fifteenth's favorite paramour, as the fable goes, commissioned a glassblower to make the glasses in order to please the king who was so enamored of her bosom. The story goes down well with the tourists, probably better than champagne goes down from the saucer-shaped glasses.
Whatever the real etiology of the glasses, one thing is for sure. They are the wrong shape for drinking champagne. Without a doubt, the greatest appeal of this exalted beverage is the presence of the bubbles; some five million in every glass. A tremendous amount of effort goes into keeping them in the beverage. Unfortunately, a saucer shaped glass provides a large contact surface with the air, maximizing the rate at which the bubbles escape. Ideally, therefore, champagne should be sipped from a tall narrow glass!
But why should we attach so much importance to the way champagne should be consumed? Seeing that we probably paid a king's ransom for a bottle of "the king of wines and the wine of kings," we might as well benefit from the full intended effect. The bubbles should burst in the mouth, not in the hand.
The solubility of carbon dioxide decreases as temperature increases. Serving the champagne cold therefore minimizes the amount of gas that escapes before we raise the glass and ensures that delightful tingling sensation when the drink comes into contact with a warm mouth.
It is also important to drink champagne from a high quality glass, one with few imperfections. Tiny air bubbles can get trapped in these nicks as the drink is poured, and the dissolved carbon dioxide then vaporizes into these bubbles. Since the carbon dioxide is less dense than the surrounding solution, the bubbles stream to the surface. For the same reason, swizzle sticks, which can have many surface blemishes are obviously contraindicated for champagne.
So much for the bubbles. What about the drink itself? This regal beverage is produced mainly from black grapes in the Champagne region of France. From the moment the Pinot noir grapes are pressed in the vineyard, where almost fanatical care is taken to ensure that not even a trace of black skin ends up in the white juice, to the moment the cork pops, champagne receives more care and attention than any other wine in the world.
Dom Perignon, a blind monk, got the ball rolling in the 18th century. He discovered that if a bottle of wine were tightly sealed before the fermentation was complete, the bubbles of carbon dioxide could not escape and an effervescent drink would be produced. His keen sense of smell, the result of his blindness, allowed him to maximize the flavor of the wine through judicious blending of different juices. To this day, champagne is produced by the methods initiated by Dom Perignon.
The blended juices are fermented, filtered and bottled. In the case of pink champagne, a touch of red wine is added. Then before a cork is inserted and secured with a wire cage, some extra sugar and yeast are added to provide for the so-called "secondary fermentation" which takes place in the bottle over the next several years. During this period a sediment consisting mostly of expired yeast cells is produced and has to be removed through an ingenious procedure.
The bottles are stored with their necks tilted down in racks which can be adjusted to slowly increase the angle of the tilt. To make sure the sludge accumulates in the neck, the "remueur," walks up and down the aisles of racks giving each bottle a little twist to the right and then to the left. He can do about 30,000 bottles a day. This is not very stimulating work. The remueur has to be richly compensated, as is reflected in the final cost of the champagne.
After the secondary fermentation is complete, the bottle is ready for the "degorgement." The neck is dipped into a freezing brine solution until the wine and sediment in the neck solidify. In the classic process, a highly skilled "degorgeur" uncorks the bottle, allowing the frozen plug to burst out. These days, except for the real premium champagnes, machines perform the task. Sugar is then added, with the amount determining whether the champagne will be brut, sec or demi-sec. The bottle is then quickly resealed. A few years of aging, and we are ready to pop the cork!
Contrary to the North American passion, it is poor form to allow the cork to smash against the ceiling. It is also gauche to drink from a shoe. The cork should be grasped and the bottle gently twisted so the bubbles end up in the glass, not on the floor. For the dexterity-impaired, a French inventor has come up with a cork that incorporates a tab which can be pulled to release the pressure. The wire cage can then be safely removed and the cork easily pulled out.
Traditionalists are of course reviled by this development but it could help avert some calamities. A couple of examples pop to mind. A few years ago, a British beauty queen was almost blinded by a flying cork and in another instance a cork sailed right through an expensive Victorian oil painting at the opening of an art exhibit in Bristol.
Now that we know all about bubbles and corks and secondary fermentation, there is still one nagging question about champagne that begs for an answer. Is it true that it leads to faster inebriation? In a word, yes.
Carbon dioxide accelerates the passage of alcohol into the bloodstream. The release of the gas from the champagne in the stomach causes the valve between the stomach and the small intestine to open. Since absorption from the intestine is quicker than from the stomach, the effect of the alcohol is sensed faster than with a non-bubbly beverage. This is especially true when champagne is consumed in an airplane where due to lower pressure bubbles are even more quickly released.
And finally what about that old story about preserving the fizz in an unfinished bottle of champagne by suspending a silver spoon from the neck? Nonsense! It will just introduce nucleation sites and cause more rapid bubble loss.
Just one more comment. Shaking a bottle of champagne before opening is definitely uncouth. It is only acceptable if the contents are destined to be poured into the Stanley Cup. But if all we are doing is celebrating a New Year, the dramatics are uncalled for.
Just strike up the band, let Auld Land Syne ring out, and enjoy the science behind that tall, thin glass of the bubbly!
