Champagne: history and birth of effervescence

"Champagne!" we say when the time has come to celebrate good news. These small bubbles are indeed today so anchored in our culture that they have become synonymous for all of us with celebration and prestige.

But how did this wine reach the pinnacle of French and global gastronomic culture? What is his story ? How is it made? What makes it different from other effervescents? As many questions for which I invite you to discover the answers in this series of two articles.

Champagne: a royal history

The history of wine in Champagne begins with the Romans who were the first to plant vines in the region in the 3rd century. At the fall of the Empire, Clovis was subsequently the first king to make it a wine region worthy of interest. Thus, in 496, during the festivities for the coronation of the Franks in Reims, the wines of Champagne (at the time not sparkling) flowed freely. This will be the first identification of the famous beverage with royalty.

During the Middle Ages, it was The Church that mainly took care of the vineyard: wine was consecrated and drunk during the mass and these were therefore the monks who maintain the French vineyard. During this period and until the beginning of the 19th century, very many kings of France were crowned in Reims with each time, festivities dubbing the local wines. Over the centuries, the image of Champagne would be permanently marked and the region's wine would become definitively synonymous with celebration and prestige, to the point of being recognized in 1654 under the reign of Louis XIV as the official coronation wine.

During the Revolution and in the decades that followed, the vineyards left the religious fold to become the property of wealthy traders and merchants. Thus, if some houses like Gosset (1584), Ruinart (1729) or Moët & Chandon (1743) already existed before, other big houses emerge like Billecart-Salmon (1818), Mumm (1827), Deutz (1838) or even Charles Heidsieck ( 1851), It was the moment of the international boom.

While the reputation of Champagne wines had already crossed borders in the 12th century, it was during the 18th and 19th centuries that its export developed rapidly, particularly to England and the United States. United, a country still today being the leading foreign markets for Champagne.

The Oyster Breakfast, Jean-François de Troy (1735).Painted at the request of Louis XV, the painting has the historical particularity of representing the first bottle of champagne painted

As mentioned above, for many centuries, Champagne wines were not sparkling. Indeed, if the phenomenon of "sparkling" of wines was already known to men since Antiquity, this chemical reaction was not really understood and was neither regular, nor voluntarily provoked or even desired.

It was only in the years 1670-1690 that we witnessed the real birth of sparkling champagnes, in total rupture with the tradition of past centuries.The beginnings were also quite laborious: the producers did not really understand the mechanisms of this effervescence, many bottles exploded and the stability of the product was not there. Progress was made during the 18th and 19th centuries thanks to the efforts of many winegrowers, implementing techniques allowing better control of bubbles (more resistant glass, corking, stability of storage temperatures, etc.).) It was only thanks to the work of Louis Pasteur on fermentation during the 19th century that we really began to understand effervescence.

You will understand, so we can definitively dispel the received idea presenting the monk Dom Pérignon (1638-1715) as the inventor official of modern Champagne! A talented winemaker, he has contributed to the wine-growing influence of the region, but it is probably not he who really unlocked the secrets of effervescence (sorry Dom Pé').

Finally, Champagne is not France's leading sparkling wine either! Indeed, it would seem that the Blanquette de Limoux is considered as such thanks to written traces dating from 1531. The Champagne monks were therefore probably inspired by their Languedoc colleagues, having themselves at that time had a fairly approximate mastery of the bubbles.

Be that as it may, it has been proven that sparkling Champagne is indeed the first sparkling wine to have been produced in a specific territory and on a regular basis by local producers.

Always a symbol of celebration and luxury, Champagne has now become widely available throughout the world. The official AOC was created in 1927 and the sector is now present in more than 190 countries. The latter puts nearly 320 million bottles on the market each year (more than half exported). We are a long way from the 8 million bottles produced in 1850 or even the 100 million bottles of 1970!

The market has also largely concentrated. While there are more than 300 Champagne houses, some large groups have considerable weight in the region, such as Pernod Ricard ( Mumm, Perrier-Jouët), Vranken-Pommery ( Vranken, Pommery, Heidsieck & Co Monopole etc.) but especially LVMH (Dom Pérignon, Ruinart, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot etc.) If these great houses are the main image of Champagne in France, this is even more the case abroad: almost 75% of the volumes of Champagne intended for export are indeed from these renowned brands.

Thus, if as you know, La Cave Éclairée tends to highlight small producers (such as Champagnes Veuve Fourny, Franck Bonville or even La Borderie), we must not forget that the international resonance of Champagne owes a lot to these prestigious big names and their impressive marketing power.

Stay connected! Next week, we'll uncover the mysteries of how Champagne is made, the reasons behind its often high price, and how to taste it well.