Champagne Day

Today is Champagne Day according to twitter, not that I needed an excuse to regale you with the wonders of champagne.

I drink champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty. ~ Madame Lilly Bollinger

As such, here are some random facts and history about our favourite drink.


i. 
Veuve Clicquot was named after widow Barbe-Nicol Clicquot who took over her husband's company when she was widowed at 27. She was also known as La Grande Dame of Champagne.
Veuve Clicquot were the first to sell Rose champagne in 1775.


ii. 
Sabering the bottle
It's a French tradition that if you have a stubborn cork, you should not give up: if you can't dislodge a recalcitrant cork from a bottle of good champagne, you can do what the "Hussards" (French mounted soldiers of the Napoleonic era) did: they used the reverse edge of their saber to break the neck of the bottle. Hence, the French expression "sabrer la bouteille"- literally "saber the bottle" came about, illustrating the French belief that it is better to destroy a bottle than to do without champagne!

iii.
Contrary to legend and popular belief, Dom Perignon did not invent sparkling wine. The oldest recorded sparkling wine is Blanquette de Limoux, which was apparently invented by Benedictine Monks in the Abbey of Saint Hilaire near Carcassonne in 1531. Over a century later, the English scientist and physician Christopher Merret documented the addition of sugar to a finished wine to create a second fermentation six years before Dom Perignon set foot in the Abbey of Hautvillers and almost 40 years before it was claimed that the famed Benedictine monk invented Champagne. Merret presented the Royal Society with a paper in which he detailed what is now called méthode champenoise in 1662.


iv. 
While champagnes usually tend to be blends of the white Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier grapes, Blanc de Blancs champagnes are made purely from white Chardonnay grapes. Krug's Clos du Mesnil is a fine example, being a single vineyard and single vintage.
 In April 2008, Krug released the 1995 Clos d'Ambonnay, its debut of a Blanc de Noirs Champagne, made entirely from Pinot Noir from a single 0.685 hectares (1.69 acres) vineyard.


v. 
On 18 April 2007, the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published the results of a recent joint study by the University of Reading and University of Cagliari that showed moderate consumptions of Champagne may help the brain cope with the trauma of stroke, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's disease. The research noted that the high amount of the antioxidant polyphenols in sparkling wine can help prevent deterioration of brain cells due to oxidative stress. 

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane. Honore de Balzac