The history of champagne began when the Romans planted vineyards in this region of northeast France in the 5th century, or possibly earlier. Over centuries, champagne evolved from being a pale, pinkish still wine to a sparkling wine. When Hugh Capet was crowned King of France in 987 at the cathedral of Reims, he started a tradition that brought successive monarchs to the region—with the local wine being on prominent display at the coronation banquets. The early wine of the Champagne region was a pale, pinkish wine made from Pinot noir.J. Robinson (ed). The Oxford Companion to Wine, Third Edition. pp 150–153. Oxford University Press, 2006. .
The Champenois were envious of the reputation of the wines made from their Burgundian neighbours to the south and sought to produce wines of equal acclaim. However the northerly climate of the region gave the Champenois a unique set of challenges in making red wine. At the far extremes of sustaining viticulture, the grapes would struggle to ripen fully and often would have bracing levels of acidity and low sugar levels. The wines were lighter bodied and thinner than the Burgundies.
Furthermore, the cold winter temperatures prematurely halted fermentation in the cellars, leaving dormant yeast cells that would awaken in the warmth of spring and start fermenting again. One of the byproducts of fermentation is the release of carbon dioxide gas, which, if the wine is bottled, is trapped inside the wine, causing intense pressure. The pressure inside the weak, early French wine bottles often caused the bottles to explode, creating havoc in the cellars. If the bottle survived, the wine was found to contain bubbles, something that the early Champenois were horrified to see, considering it a fault. As late as the 17th century, Champenois wine makers, most notably the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon (1638–1715), were still trying to rid their wines of the bubbles.
While the Champenois and their French clients preferred their champagne to be pale and still, the British were developing a taste for the unique bubbly wine. The sparkling version of champagne continued to grow in popularity, especially among royalty and the wealthy. Following the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715, the court of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans made the sparkling version of champagne a favorite among the French nobility. More Champenois wine makers attempted to make their wines sparkle deliberately, but did not know enough about how to control the process or how to make wine bottles strong enough to withstand the pressure.
In the 19th century these obstacles were overcome, and the modern champagne wine industry took form. Advances by the house of Veuve Clicquot in the development of the méthode champenoise made production of sparkling wine on a large scale profitable, and this period saw the founding of many of today's famous champagne houses, including Krug (1843), Pommery (1858) and Bollinger (1829). The fortunes of the Champenois and the popularity of champagne grew until a series of setbacks in the early 20th century. Phylloxera appeared, vineyard growers rioted in 1910–11, the Russian and American markets were lost because of the Russian Revolution and Prohibition, and two World Wars made the vineyards of Champagne a battlefield.
The modern era, however, has seen a resurgence of the popularity of champagne, a wine associated with both luxury and celebration, with sales quadrupling since 1950. Today the region's produces over 200 million bottles of champagne with worldwide demand prompting the French authorities to look into expanding the region's Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) zone to facilitate more production.
Early history The Romans were the first known inhabitants to plant vineyards in the Champagne region. The name Champagne comes from the Latin campania and referred to the similarities between the rolling hills of the province and the Italian countryside of Campania located south of Rome. The area was divided into the Champagne pouilleuse—the chalky, barren plains east of Reims—and Champagne viticole, the forested hillside region known as the Montagne de Reims between Reims and the Marne river where the vines were planted. While vineyards were undoubtedly planted earlier, the first recorded vineyard belonged to St. Remi in the 5th century. For most of the region's early history, the wines from Champagne were not known as "Champagne" or even vin de Champagne. Rather they were known as vins de Reims and vins de la rivère in reference to the Marne river which provided a vital trade route via the Seine with Paris. Champagne's location at the crossroads of two major trading routes, one east–west between Paris and the Rhineland and the other north–south between Flanders and Switzerland, would bring the region and its wines much prosperity and notoriety but would also play a pivotal role in Champagne being the site of countless battles and occupations.
In 987, Hugh Capet was crowned King of France at the cathedral Reims. At the coronation banquet, the local wines of the regions were served. The city became known as the spiritual capital of France and for the next eight centuries, monarchs would follow the tradition of Capet and hold their coronations in Reims. The association of the region with royalty did much to further the reputation of the region's wine. By the 16th century, the village of Ay, located south of Reims, was widely acclaimed for the quality of its wine with King Francis I proclaiming himself to be the "Roi d' Aÿ et de Gonesse"—King of the lands where the country's greatest wines and flour were produced. Such was the reputation of the wines of Ay that they were known as the vins de France, their quality representing the whole of the country rather than just a region. Eventually the name of Ay became a shorthand reference to refer to all the wines of the Champagne region. (Much like Bordeaux or Beaune is used today to refer to the wines of the Gironde and Burgundy regions, respectively.)H. Johnson Vintage: The Story of Wine pp 210–219 Simon and Schuster 1989
During the Middle Ages, the wines of the Champagne region were various shades of light red to pale pink as a bitter rivalry developed between the Champenois and their Burgundian neighbors to the south. The trade route that Flemish merchants used to get to the Burgundy went right through Reims and the Champenois were eager to entice their business with a "cheaper" alternative. Unfortunately the climate of the region made it difficult to produce red wines with the richness and color of the Burgundian wines, even though the Champenois tried to "improve" their wines by blending in elderberries. Eventually their attention moved to produce white wines in an attempt to distinguish themselves from their Burgundian rivals. However, the white wine produced from white grapes were found to have a dull flavor and quickly spoiled. The most sought after wines were those "white wines" made from red wine grapes, such as Pinot noir which had more flavor, aromatics and longevity. Throughout the 16th and early 17th century, Champenois winemakers tried to produce the best "white" wine they could from red wines grapes though the results were often not white at all but ranged from greyish color to a shade of pink known as oeil de perdrix or partridge eye. It was not until a Benedictine monk named Dom Pierre Perignon from the Abbey of Hautvillers perfected his techniques would the Champenois be able to truly make white wine from red grapes.
Blanquette de Limoux, from Languedoc, shows up in writings from as early as 1531 by the Abbey monks of Saint-Hilaire.
Dom Pérignon
After being destroyed during the French Wars of Religion, the Benedictine Abbey at Hautvillers was rebuilt and replanted its vineyards. By 1661, the Abbey had of vineyards, but was also receiving tithes in the form of grapes from nearby villages, including the highly regarded vineyards of Ay and Avenay-Val-d'Or. The Abbot commissioned the construction of a cellar and sought to hire a treasurer and cellar master to help develop the Abbey's growing winemaking operation. In 1668, Pierre Perignon was appointed to the position. Described by his predecessor, Dom Groussard, and Canon Godinot as a perfectionist, Perignon worked diligently to improve the viticultural practices of Abbey's vineyards and the quality of the wines. He was a strong advocate of using only Pinot noir grapes which he believed had the best flavor and potential quality. At the time, the vineyards of the region were planted with a variety of grapes including Pinot noir, Chasselas, Pinot blanc, Pinot gris, Pinot Meunier and perhaps Chardonnay. Most important, in Dom Pérignon's mind, was that red grapes like Pinot noir were less likely to become "volatile" in the spring and produce bubbles as the white grapes sometimes did. The presence of bubbles in his wines was considered a fault and Dom Pérignon set out to develop precise techniques to limit the likelihood of this fault occurring.
Dom Pérignon was a staunch advocate of aggressive pruning, dictating that vines should grow no higher than and produce small yields. Harvesting was to be done early in the morning, when it was very cool, and every care was to be taken to keep the grapes intact. Grapes that were bruised or broken were rejected. Mules and donkeys were favored over horses to transport the grapes to the press houses since they were less likely to get excited and possibly damage the grapes. Dom Pérignon desired the grapes to be pressed as quickly and efficiently as possible to minimize the possibility of the grapeskins leaching into the juice. A distinction was made between the different levels of pressings. The first press, done completely by the weight of the grapes on top of each other, produced the highest quality wine, known as the vin de goutte. The second and third pressings, done with weight being applied, produced wine of good but not exceptional quality. The fourth and fifth pressings, the vin de taille and vins de pressoir, were of darker colors and would not be used at all. In addition to adding the pinkish/grey coloring, Dom Pérignon knew that the skins imparted different flavoring and coarser textures than he wanted in his high quality wines. His emphasis on limiting skin contact helped the Abbey of Hautvillers to produce truly white wine from red wine grapes.
English influences