A LITTLE HISTORY

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Whilst references to the vine in France go back several thousand years, the creation and development of Champagne as a sparkling wine has really only taken place within the past 350 years.

For a long period of time, a wine that had 'fizz' in it was deemed to be at fault or 'off' and 'vignerons' would go out of their way to avoid any form of sparkle rather than encourage it.

Towards the end of the 17th Century, the legendary Cellar Master from the village of Hautvillers, Dom. Perignon is correctly credited with some of the more significant discoveries and subsequent refinements of the base wines of Champagne. However, the actual idea of a sparkling Champagne originated not as you would imagine in France, but across the channel in England.

The history of this captivating story can be traced back to the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada in 1588. Fortunately, the Spanish were defeated, but the British developed a deep paranoia about being invaded again and decided to strengthen their navy. This dramatic need for more ships led to laws being passed in the reign of James the 1st, forbidding the use of wood in commercial fires. The result of this was that due to the higher temperatures of burning coal, any glass that was manufactured was considerably stronger and therefore more capable of coping with the extra pressures of a sparkling wine, than that produced from the old wood burning fires. In a nutshell, by the early 1660's, the British had stronger bottles (la verre anglaise), ample supplies of cork (which for some reason had thus far not travelled as far as the Champagne region) and a much sweeter tooth than the French. When the wines arrived in cask from Champagne, they were bottled with copious amounts of sugar or molasses and then placed on a shelf in an inn, where further fermentation took place in the bottle, thus creating a sparkling wine. It was an immediate big hit in London society.

The first mentions of Champagne as sparkling wine appear in a British scientific paper from 1662 and then in an English play from 1667. The first reference in France comes from 1718 and refers to the Champenois producing wine with 'les boules' some 20 years earlier. The conclusion to this is that the true 'birth' of Champagne happened in France sometime between 1695 and 1698.