Wine 101: Champagne

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare shares her experiences as a beginner in the World of Wine.

So, the holidays are upon us, a time for celebration and sharing fun times with our friends and families, a perfect time of the year to enjoy some bubbly.

True Champagne is only made in Champagne, a cold region in Northern France. Champagne is where sparkling wine was born, and where techniques were perfected. In fact, European standards forbid any wine, sparkling or otherwise, not made in the region to be called "champagne" at all. Elsewhere, however, the term "champagne" is used for any sparkling wines, mostly as a marketing tool. This blog is focused on true Champagne.

Most Champagnes are made with three grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay. Because Champagne (the region) is so cold, it's very difficult to grow grapes there, and the grapes that are grown are very high in acidity. For regular (still) wine these don't work, but for Champagne they're perfect because of a special fermentation process that makes the bubbly, well... bubbly.

Most Champagnes actually go through two fermentations. The first turns the grape juice into still wine. The second fermentation is where the bubbles happen. The winemaker adds yeasts and sugars to the still wine. When yeasts ferments sugar, carbon dioxide is a natural by-product. When the second fermentation happens in a sealed, pressurized container (can be a tank or a bottle), the CO2 has nowhere to go but in the wine itself, creating bubbles.

You'll probably notice that a great majority of Champagnes have no year, or vintage, on the bottle. This is generally because of the cold climate of the region - it's a rare occurrence that there are enough grapes in one year to make a large enough batch of vintage Champagnes. However, there are some vintage Champagnes... and they're generally more expensive than non-vintage.

Wine Manager Mark Ricca and I were discussing Champagne, and he mentioned that the opinion that Champagne is not as delicate as people may think, and that some younger vintages of Champagne would benefit from aeration. He mentioned that he recently decanted a 2002 Dom Perignon that was spectacular after being aerated. (I also questioned how an eight year-old Champagne could be considered "young," and that's because of the acidity of the wine - due to the acidic nature of the grapes of the region, Champagnes need a longer time to age to become sweet enough to drink.)

On Champagne's sweetness, you can tell how sweet the wine will be based on the label. The terms are misleading, however. See below:
-Extra brut: Very dry
-Brut: Dry
-Extra dry: Medium dry
-Sec: Semi-sweet
-Demi-sec: Fairly sweet
-Doux: Sweet

I mentioned to co-workers recently that I've been in the mood for a nice sparkler, but don't really have anything to celebrate. They all said that you don't have to celebrate anything special to enjoy a nice bottle of bubbles! To quote Madame Lily Bollinger, famous widow Champagne maker, "I only 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 am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty."

So pop the cork, and enjoy some Champagne to celebrate, or for no reason at all!