But First Champagne

When Louis XIV died in 1715, the dozen-plus children he fathered through various mistresses weren’t eligible for the crown—and most of his immediate family had perished. So the crown went to his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV.

The King was too young to rule, obviously, so his great uncle, Philippe II d’Orléans, became Regent of France. Philippe preferred Paris over Versailles, and governed from the Palais Royal, where he opened his gates to artists, musicians, writers, and other intellectuals. Under his rule, the Palais Royal became a center of hedonistic diversion. The regent’s nightly petits soupers—debaucherous, orgiastic dinner parties—quickly became the talk of the town. These parties always started with the new effervescent champagne, so fashionable elites in Paris began seeking fizzy wine for their own gatherings.

If they want bubbles, we’ll give them bubbles. Winemakers in Champagne followed the money and began moving away from still wine. But getting just enough and the right kind of bubbles wasn’t easy. Each grape harvest was different and cellar masters didn’t yet know enough chemistry to generate bubbles with precision. They knew, though, that the bubbles were best captured in glass; whatever bubbles you could capture in a big cask would dissipate shortly after the bung, or stopper, was removed.

So glass, but not just any glass. English glass was clearly superior since French glassblowers were only beginning to transition away from lower-temperature wood-fired ovens. Most French bottles weren’t strong enough to withstand the high internal pressures of fizzy wine.

Transporting wine in bottles, however, was against French law, since authorities believed bottles—more difficult to tally—hindered tax collections. Finally, in 1728, King Louis XV gave his consent for wines from Champagne to be shipped in bottles and in an instant, vast new markets opened for the region’s sparkling wines.

The first person to take advantage of the decree was Nicolas Ruinart, a wealthy fabric merchant in Épernay. His uncle, Dom Thierry Ruinart—who had worked alongside Dom Pérignon—inspired his nephew to make wine. So in 1729, Ruinart launched a winery dedicated to sparkling wines. At first, the plan was to simply give the wine away to top clients. By 1735, though, demand was so strong that Ruinart was able to abandon the cloth trade and concentrate exclusively on the burgeoning champagne trade. (It should be noted that while Ruinart is the oldest champagne house, Gosset is the region’s oldest winery, founded in 1584.)

Other operations opened. In 1734, Jacques Fourneaux, a wine merchant, established the company that would eventually become Taittinger. In 1743, a wine merchant who was accredited to serve the royal court, Claude Moët, established another sparkling wine house.

The same year Ruinart abandoned the cloth business, King Louis XV issued another decree impacting the branding of champagne. He decreed that every bottle of champagne contain one “Paris pint” (equivalent to 750 milliliters, today’s standard wine bottle size) and be tied down with “three-threaded string, well twisted and knotted in the form of a cross over the cork.” Since bottles were still made by hand, milliliter uniformity was a long way off. But even quasi-consistency in bottling helped make Champagne a clearly recognizable product.

For the next three decades, the region boomed. Ruinart, who produced just 3,000 bottles of wine in 1731, was producing 36,000 bottles annually in 1761 and selling them across Europe. Other producers courted clients in Russia and North America. Delamotte, Lanson, and Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin launched their operations over this period.

Keeping champagne quiet in the bottle was still touch and go—and quite dangerous. Bottles exploded so frequently that springtime visitors to Champagne’s cellars were issued metal masks. Exploding bottles added to the cost and complexity of the production process, which helped create a unique relationship between growers and producers that continues to this day. In Burgundy and most other wine regions, small estates and monasteries could produce wine in place. But in Champagne, merchants—production specialists known as négociants—began buying grapes from smaller growers and selling the resulting wines under their own names.

As pioneers like Claude Moët and Nicolas Ruinart laid the foundations for this new industry, revolution brewed.

On January 5, 1757, Robert-François Damien, an unemployed domestic servant, rushed past guards at the gates of Versailles and stabbed Louis XV. The wound was minor and Damiens was arrested on the spot. It was a harbinger of a malaise that would eventually lead to revolution.

The French had good reason to be angry. During the Seven Years’ War, which was fought mostly between 1756 and 1763, the nation lost virtually all its colonies. This didn’t just hurt French pride; it aggravated the nation’s debt, which led to new taxes that were shouldered entirely by the commoners.

When Louis XV died of smallpox 1774 and was replaced by his grandson, Louis XVI, the nation’s dissatisfaction with its monarchy—and disgust at monarchy’s continued extravagant lifestyle—reached a fever pitch. Louis XVI was young and lacked self-confidence, but the monarchy he inherited was already vulnerable.

Louis XIV’s extramarital affairs were well known. Philippe II d’Orléans’s nightly orgies were the talk of Paris. Louis XV spent more time hunting and womanizing than ruling. Enlightenment thinkers along the way had step by step undercut the king and the church by questioning the moral authority of both institutions. Louis XVI was in trouble from the day of his coronation in 1774.

By 1776, France was hurting. Even though a number of Champagne houses had opened over the previous decade, things were particularly bad in Champagne. Warm weather in early 1776 caused about 90 percent of the region’s sparkling wines to explode in the cellar. Meanwhile, thanks to the American Revolution, Champagne lost access to a quickly growing market when Britain’s navy enforced embargos on the upstart colonies.

The French people were also frustrated by Louis XVI’s decision to support the American war for independence. The irony was huge, since American colonialists were fighting to rid themselves of a monarch. And who would pay? Certainly not the Americans. Louis XVI was borrowing the monies, and he would have to raise taxes to repay those loans.

Within France, things got steadily worse over the next decade. Harvest after harvest was poor. French livestock herds were plagued with diseases. Food prices skyrocketed. By 1788, commoners were spending half their income on bread. And after a severe hailstorm, France experienced the worst harvest in 40 years.

Meanwhile, back in Paris, the Estates-General—which represented the clergy (First Estate), the nobles (Second Estate), and the common people (Third Estate)—gathered in May for the first time in 175 years. Summoned by Louis XVI to solve the government’s fiscal crisis, the Assembly came to an impasse over whether they should vote by estate or all together. In response to the impasse, the Third Estate decided to form its own parliamentary body.

The King hadn’t authorized or approved of the assembly and began positioning troops around the city. When, on July 13, a rumor spread that the King’s army was going to disband the new assembly, the city erupted in open rebellion. Angry crowds stormed the Hôtel des Invalides to loot firearms and canons, which were stored in its cellars. They then headed to the Bastille for gunpowder. The French Revolution had begun.

The news traveled quickly across France. In Reims, peasants and artisans took to the streets to celebrate. Estates were looted. The vineyards at the Abbey of Saint-Pierre and other monasteries were confiscated. The revolution took its chaotic course. In 1791, Louis XVI was recognized in Sainte-Menehould, a village in Champagne about 50 miles east of Reims, on his attempted flight from France. He was captured and taken back to Paris shortly thereafter.

The next year—with France seemingly at war with itself—Austrian and Prussian troops invaded. In a desperate rally of national pride, rapidly raised French revolutionary forces turned back the invaders. On the day after the decisive battle, a constitutional convention in Paris proclaimed the First Republic.

But champagne producers could not rest easy. Their product was a symbol of luxury, of everything that the revolutionaries hated. Nobles were drinking champagne as they came to the guillotine, but winemakers were losing their best clients. During the Reign of Terror, which ran from June 1793 to July 1794, the guillotine killed as many as 40,000 people. Producers surreptitiously edited sales records to hide the names of buyers. Most of the big houses managed to survive, but Champagne marketing—to this day—still sometimes needs to skirt the image of privilege and wealth.

Napoléon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, but he considered Champagne his real home. That’s because in 1779, just before his tenth birthday, he was enrolled at the Royal Military Academy of Brienne in the south of Champagne. He came on a scholarship; the school admitted 120 children, half of whom came from wealthy families and half of whom were chosen from the poor aristocracy.

At first, he hated it. His French was poor and colored by a thick Corsican accent. School life was rigid, discipline was harsh, and the cool climate was not what he was used to. School rules did not allow cadets to communicate with their families. But he buried himself in his drills and books and gradually fell in love with Champagne.

One reason? His friendship with Claude Moët’s son, Jean-Rémy. They met when Moët visited the military academy soliciting champagne orders. Even though they were ten years apart in age, the two developed a deep friendship that would last both their lifetimes.

Stained glass backdrop to the entrance to the Moët & Chandon cellar. Photo by Luisa Bonachea.

When the revolution began, Bonaparte, who by then was serving in the army, threw his support behind the revolutionaries. He spent most of those early years in Corsica engaging in battles with loyalists and Corsican nationalists. In 1793, he was banished from the island by Pasquale Paoli, a leading Corsican nationalist.

When Bonaparte returned to France, he rose rapidly in rank after he almost singlehandedly saved the young French government in 1795 by suppressing a royalist insurrection in Paris. It wasn’t long before the young officer shot up to become commander of the “Army of Italy,” a French military force stationed on the Italian border and used for operations in Italy.

A cask of port from Napoleon Bonaparte sits in the cellars of Moët & Chandon. Photo by Luisa Bonachea.

In Italy, Bonaparte’s lightning successes against the Austrians and their Italian allies made him a national hero. He subsequently led French armies into Egypt and Syria to disrupt Britain’s trade with India. He seemed unstoppable.

Returned to France in 1799, Bonaparte led a coup and then formed a new government—the Consulate—which he headed. Within five years, he was crowned France’s first Emperor. Then, facing down the British, the Russians, the Austrians and the Spanish, France’s now imperial armies proceeded to plant the tricolor, as the French flag is colloquially known, all across Europe.

Many producers in Champagne welcomed Bonaparte’s wars. Before each campaign, legend has it that Bonaparte would visit the Moët cellars to pick up champagne for his troops. Wherever those troops went, one could almost always find a champagne salesman close behind, with wine for troops and an order book for the newly conquered. Jacquesson, which supposedly made Bonaparte’s favorite wines, and Henriot were both founded during this period.

In 1811, famously, Charles-Henri Heidsieck, whose uncle, Florens-Louis Heidsieck, had launched Heidsieck & Co in 1785, rode a white stallion from Reims to Russia in advance of Bonaparte’s army.

But the end came rapidly. Bonaparte’s disastrous invasion of Russia led to the destruction of his fabled army and, eventually, his own fall from power. After Bonaparte’s exile to Elba, Russian soldiers occupied Champagne. They imposed enormous fines in retaliation for the ones they suffered under Bonaparte and plundered the region’s cellars. Moët alone lost more than 600,000 bottles.

Through all this, Champagne gained a rich new market. Russia became—and would remain—one of the region’s largest buyers. Jean-Rémy Moët predicted this outcome, telling friends, “all of those soldiers who are ruining me today will make my fortune tomorrow. I’m letting them drink all they want. They will be hooked for life and become my best salesmen when they go back to their own country.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SABRAGE (WITH A HOW-TO GUIDE!)

Flamboyant or distinguished? Ostentatious or noble? Regardless of where you come down, sabrage—the ceremonial art of opening champagne with a sword—is one hell of a party trick.

The tradition traces its roots to the Napoleonic Wars that followed the French Revolution. As Napoleon Bonaparte swept through Europe, he relied on his light cavalry—the Hussars—to lead the charge. For Bonaparte’s fans and foes alike, the Hussars were seen as a symbol of the empire’s early invincibility. The horse-mounted troops were always armed with brass-hilted sabers, and historians credit them with inventing sabrage.

The precise details, though, are murky.

Some suggest that as these young cavalrymen rode off to battle, townspeople would toss them Champagne for the journey. Others suggest that when the Hussars returned home, inevitably victorious, townspeople would celebrate by offering bottles of Champagne. Perhaps both were traditions.

Others trace the tradition to the vineyards of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, better known as Veuve Clicquot. After Ponsardin’s husband died in 1805, Napoleon’s soldiers would frequent the young widow’s estate, eager to impress her. Legend has it that Madame Ponsardin would welcome the men and hand out Champagne as they left for battle.

Opening a foil-wrapped cage and pulling out a cork while mounted on a horse is difficult, obviously, so the Hussars used their swords to pop open their wine.

Take your pick of which story to believe—and share it with your friends the next time you see an easy opportunity to behead a bottle of bubbly. Most sparkling wines will do, but make sure the bottle is thick with prominent seams.

Sabrage carries some danger, of course. While most drinking games only threaten the liver, using a sword to dramatically open a bottle of Champagne puts, well, virtually everyone within a 30-foot circumference at risk. And there’s nothing fun about broken glass. Sabering takes a bit of practice, but once mastered, it’s quite simple.

How to Saber

1) Acquire a saber. While a brass-hilted sword looks impressive, you don’t actually need one; any sturdy instrument will do. Most performers simply use the back of a chef’s knife.

2) Remove all the foil and paper around the neck of the bottle, but leave on the cage.

3) Chill the bottle. Then chill it some more. You’ll want the champagne to be ice cold, as the low temperature will help calm the bubbles, ensuring you don’t lose much wine.

4) Locate one of the bottle’s two vertical seams and remove the wire cage.

5) Hold the bottle at a 45-degree angle, pointed away from people, pets, and anything breakable.

6) With confidence, run your blade flat along the seam, striking the lip of the neck ring. Make sure you follow through! The top should come right off.

7) Bask in the glow of your success.

8) Drink!

Following the collapse of Bonaparte’s empire, the early 19th century was a period of relative peace and prosperity for France, although governments came and went in bewildering succession. In Champagne, the winemaking evolved through huge technological advances. The number of champagne houses exploded with producers like Perrier-Jouët, Laurent-Perrier, Billecart Salmon, G. H. Mumm, Bollinger, Deutz, Krug, and Pol Roger all opening their doors between 1811 and 1849.

The first major processing innovation took place in the cellars of Veuve Clicquot. At the time, sparkling wines were inevitably full of sediment. Bubbles, after all, depend on the presence of yeast and sugar—and winemakers had no good system to remove dead yeast from bottles. Since sediment left wines cloudy and susceptible to off flavors and aromas, champagne was typically decanted or poured into fresh glasses throughout service. Some producers devised ways to lessen sediment, but these processes were always labor intensive—and often involved the use of harsh clarifying agents.

The lack of clarity annoyed Widow Clicquot. In 1806, she thought of a stunningly simple idea: Rather than storing bottles on their sides, she wondered if storing wine bottles on their necks would concentrate the sediment, thus allowing for its easy removal. Clicquot cut holes in her kitchen table large enough to hold bottlenecks and brought it to her cellar. Over the next few weeks, she turned and tapped the bottles each day—and was amazed at how easily the sediment collected in the neck. By quickly pulling the corks on these bottles, the sediment came shooting out—and little wine was lost.

This new system, called remuage, or riddling in English, enabled Clicquot to produce clear wine. It also enabled her to easily top up her wine with liqueur d’expédition—a mixture of wine and cane sugar, and sometimes brandy—to tailor its alcohol and sweetness. This practice is known as dosage.

In 1818, Clicquot’s cellar master, Antoine Müller, perfected the system of sediment removal. By connecting two heavy, rectangular boards to form an inverted “V”—and cutting 60 holes on each side, all at a 45-degree angle—Müller dramatically improved the efficiency of Clicquot’s system.

Word quickly spread and by the 1820s producers across the region were setting up their own riddling systems with Müller’s device, called a pupitre. Corks were also improving, and around this time the first corking machines were developed. Production accelerated quickly.

In 1836, champagne took another leap forward when a pharmacist, Jean-Baptiste François, created a simple device—called a sucre-oenomètre—that enabled producers to measure the amount of sugar in their wines. Since the bubbles in sparkling wines were still the result of unfinished primary fermentation, the device helped winemakers better predict whether the sugar they added would produce more pressure than bottles could withstand. This greatly reduced the loss of wine. Prior to François’s invention, champagne producers regularly lost 30 percent or more of their wines to bottle breakage. The sucre-oenomètre brought breakage down to about 10 percent. This also made the production of champagne far safer; with so much glass exploding, cellar workers routinely lost eyes in the early 19th century.

In 1844, the sucre-oenomètre led to the invention of a reliable dosage machine. Most sparkling wine was already sweet; virtually every bottle of champagne was sweetened just prior to shipping. But thanks to the widespread adoption of riddling and the dosage machine, producers could finally top off their wines with precise amounts of liqueur d’expédition.

In the 1850s, glassmakers finally began producing bottles that could withstand the pressure inside bottles of champagne, virtually eliminating breakage. And in 1857, Louis Pasteur discovered the role of yeast in fermentation, thus enabling scientists to isolate yeast. This soon led to the creation of liqueur de tirage, a mixture of sugar and yeast that enabled winemakers to reliably spur secondary fermentation.

Just as champagne makers were perfecting the production of sparkling wine, the French railroad system linked Reims with the rest of France, better connecting Champagne to Paris, the seacoast, and more distant markets. This boosted sales both across Europe and in dynamic new markets like the United States.

Production surged. Between 1844 and 1868, champagne sales nearly tripled, from 6.5 million to 15 million bottles. Producers also began pouring large sums into publicity and advertising. The United States, for example, became a major consumer in the 1850s thanks in part to the flashy marketing efforts of Charles Heidsieck, who became known across America as “Champagne Charlie.” (Heidsieck learned the value of showmanship from his father, Charles-Henri Heidsieck, the man who rode a white stallion from Reims to Russia in 1811 to market his uncle’s wines.)

Veuve Clicquot and Moët, meanwhile, led the industry in recognizing the impact of luxury branding. In 1866, for example, Moët commissioned George Leybourne, a well-known British entertainer, to perform songs extolling champagne as a reflection of taste. The company also paid Leybourne to drink nothing but champagne in public. Advertising posters started to flood Paris. G. H. Mumm promoted its wines with the slogan, “Nothing but Quality.”

As the world fell in love with champagne, Paris became the “City of Light.” In the 1860s, thanks, in part, to two decades of economic growth, the city installed 56,000 gas lamps. That boom, though, would soon experience a brief but serious setback.

In 1866, Prussia—a kingdom that included parts of present-day Germany, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Denmark, Belgium, and the Czech Republic—emerged as a leading European power after defeating the Austrian Empire in the Seven Weeks’ War.

Political leaders in France, led by Napoleon III, viewed Prussia’s victory anxiously, concerned it upset the delicate balance of power that had resulted in fifty years of relative peace. They were right.

CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE SEDUCES AMERICA

In the 1850s, the United States welcomed Charles Heidsieck with great fanfare. In the 1860s, the United States threw him in prison—and almost killed him.

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Iron work from the Charles Heidsieck wine caves.

Heidsieck founded his eponymous Champagne house in 1851 after splitting off from the family business. The European market was fiercely competitive, so Charles looked west, visiting the United States in 1852.

He immediately saw the market’s potential, so partnered with a New York importer to facilitate sales. Heidsieck’s wines became a huge hit, with fans from Boston to New Orleans.

When Heidsieck returned to the United States in 1857, he was welcomed with lavish receptions in every city he visited. Newspapers up and down the eastern seaboard published glamorous profiles of the goateed wine merchant, dubbing him “Champagne Charlie.” During his nine-month stay, Heidsieck became a fixture at society parties.

By the eve of the American Civil War, Heidsieck was selling 300,000 bottles to the United States each year. But his life in America would soon become complicated.

When Heidsieck learned of the escalating conflict between the North and the South, he hastily headed to New York to try and collect from his accounts. When he arrived, his importer claimed, falsely, that a new law absolved northerners of their debts.

Desperate for payment, Heidsieck headed to New Orleans to visit other accounts. Merchants there were struggling—the Civil War was taking a steep toll—but one offered to pay in cotton. Since cotton was in high demand across Europe, Heidsieck accepted and chartered two boats out of Mobile, Alabama. But the Union Army had blockaded all routes out of the South—and successfully sank one of Heidsieck’s ships.

Heidsieck promptly decided it was time to get home, with or without his money. However, that would prove an even bigger challenge; all routes out of the South were sealed by blockade. So Heidsieck hatched a plan to charter a boat from New Orleans to Mexico or Cuba.

Just before departing from Mobile, Heidsieck visited the French consulate to mail his wife a letter. While there, the consulate asked Heidiseck to deliver some documents to New Orleans. Those documents contained evidence that French textile firms were breaking the blockade and supplying the Confederate army.

By the time Heidiseck arrived in New Orleans, the Union had gained control of the city. When troops searched Heidiseck, they discovered the documents—so they arrested him, charged him as a spy, and sent him to Fort Jackson, which was an alligator-filled, disease-ridden prison in the swamps of the Mississippi.

The arrest caused quite a diplomatic rift, with Napoleon III appealing directly to President Lincoln for Heidiseck’s release. Champagne Charlie was freed after just seven months, but by then, he was broke and in poor health.

Fortunately, Heidiseck’s luck would soon improve. Shortly after returning home, he received a letter from the brother of his New York importer. Ashamed of his brother’s behavior, he offered deeds to 127 different parcels of land in Denver—about a third of the city—in the hopes of making amends. Denver had become one of the American West’s wealthiest cities, so the windfall enabled Heidseick to pay off his debts and re-launch his Champagne house. It would soon become one of the world’s most popular brands.

On July 16, 1870, after a series of provocations, the French parliament declared war on Prussia. Hostilities began just three days later. The Prussian army, still fresh from the Seven Weeks’ War, mobilized more quickly than the French and quickly collected a series of victories in northeastern France. After pushing through Alsace and Lorraine, German troops marched directly through Champagne on their way to Paris. Yet again, the vineyards became battlefields. Entire villages were burned.

Mercifully, the conflict ended quickly. On May 10, 1871, the Treaty of Frankfurt brought the Franco-Prussian War to an end. It would go down as one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 19th century, with nearly 900,000 men killed, injured, or captured. More than 85 percent of those losses were on the French side.

The Franco-Prussian War brought France to its knees. For two years, champagne sales plummeted. But by 1874, the region’s wine industry was back on its feet thanks to a burgeoning love affair with a new product—dry champagne—the now iconic brut.

UNDERSTANDING SWEETNESS LEVELS

Champagne’s sweetness doesn’t come from the wine itself—the “base” wine of every champagne is dry. Rather, the sweetness comes from a small amount of wine and cane sugar—called liqueur d’expédition—that’s added just before corking during a process called “dosage.”

Without this mixture, most champagne would be too acidic to enjoy. After all, Champagne is a very cold region, so the grapes don’t ripen as much as they do in other regions.

Sweetness preferences have changed over time. In champagne’s earliest days, quite a bit of sugar was added. Today, it’s fashionable to avoid dosage entirely and leave wines bone dry. The most common level of sweetness is “brut,” which provides just a touch of sweetness.

Sweetness levels are below. They’re certainly confusing; “Extra Dry” champagne is noticeably sweet and “Dry” champagne is extremely sweet! For reference, Coca-Cola contains about 110 grams/liter (g/l) of sugar.

Brut Nature: 0-3 g/l Residual Sugar (RS)

Extra Brut: 0-6 g/l RS

Brut: 0-12 g/l RS

Extra Dry: 12-17 g/l RS

Dry: 17-32 g/l RS

Demi-Sec: 32-50 g/l RS

Doux: >50 g/l RS is

Dry champagne got its start in 1846. That year, a British wine merchant visiting Épernay fell in love with Perrier-Jouët’s vin clair, the still wine that serves as the base for champagne. Two years later, he asked the winery to ship him that 1846 wine without any dosage, believing that his customers would actually prefer dry champagne since Port, cream Sherry, and Madeira dominated the “sweet” market. Perrier-Jouët obliged, but the experiment was a failure. The wine was criticized as too “brute” and the merchant had to return most of it.

In 1857, Veuve Clicquot sent Britain a champagne that was quite a bit drier than normal—and unlike Perrier-Jouët’s, this one was a hit. By 1865, a handful of other producers in the region were experimenting with drier wines, but they were still a novelty—and typically tart and underripe.

One of those pioneers was Alexandre Louis Pommery. She recognized the importance of doing something different and believed that the English market would prefer drier wines. Such wines, though, would depend on a rich, ripe base. In the 1870s, she began asking her growers to push the ripeness levels of their grapes—promising to pay for their losses if the risks of volatile fall weather led to a wipeout. A perfect growing season came in 1874, and the resulting wine was a hit; it became the most expensive champagne in London. Within just a few years, the entire English marketplace had shifted away from sweet champagne and towards the drier style perfected by Pommery.

WHY ARE SHIPS BLESSED WITH CHAMPAGNE?

When a newly built ship is launched into the water for the first time, it’s almost always “blessed” with a sacrificial bottle of champagne that’s smashed over its hull.

The tradition of ceremonial ship launching is ancient. In the third millennium BC, Babylonians sacrificed oxen upon the completion of new water vessels. Other cultures practiced similar rituals; the Ottomans sacrificed sheep.

These sacrifices were always about asking the gods for protection at sea. The Greeks would go on to call on Poseidon, the Romans on Neptune. In the Middle Ages, priests would board British ships before their maiden voyages to sprinkle holy water and pray to Christ.

By the 17th century, sacrificial animals and holy water had been replaced with wine at most ship launchings, religious and secular alike. Typically held in a large goblet, the wine would first be shared by ceremony attendees and then poured on the deck or over the bow. The goblet would then be tossed into the sea. This quickly became expensive, especially since those goblets became more impressive as time went on. At first, the goblets were collected and reused. But by the late 17th century, the ritual was simplified—and the modern-day tradition of breaking a bottle over the bow became the norm.

The sacrificial wine wasn’t always champagne—in fact, Madeira was probably the most popular choice in this ritual’s early days. Towards the end of the 19th century, though, champagne became the standard choice, almost certainly because it had become the noblest wine. The tradition continues today.

The world was clearly falling in love with champagne. In 1882, celebrated British journalist Henry Vizetelly published a book entitled A History of Champagne in which he noted, “We cannot open a railway, launch a vessel, inaugurate a public edifice, start a newspaper, entertain a distinguished foreigner, invite a leading politician to favour us with his views on things in general, celebrate an anniversary, or specially appeal on behalf of a benevolent institution without a banquet, and hence without the aid of champagne, which, at the present day, is the obligatory adjunct of all such repasts.”

Champagne sales also saw a boost in the late 19th century thanks to the Syndicat du commerce des vins de Champagne, a small group of top producers that came together to promote and protect the region and its wines. In 1887, the group sued producers in the Loire Valley who were marketing their sparkling wines as “champagne.” The highest court in Angers found in favor of the Syndicat, ruling, “Henceforth the term ‘Champagne’ or ‘Champagne wines’ shall refer exclusively to wine produced in, and sourced from, the ancient province of Champagne, an area with specific boundaries that shall neither be extended nor contracted.”

LES GRANDES MARQUES DE CHAMPAGNE

Within a year of its 1882 launch, the Syndicat du commerce des vins de Champagne represented 22 champagne producers. By the end of the 19th century, the group had grown to 60 members, thus representing most champagne houses. All members called themselves grandes marques, or big brands.

While the syndicate didn’t enforce any formal regulations, it advertised a shared “respect for traditional rules of production” and spoke as a powerful, unified body for the entire industry. Importantly, it fought to protect authenticity in labeling, a battle that was becoming increasingly important as producers outside Champagne—and even outside France—began advertising their sparkling wines as “champagne” in the mid-19th century.

As an industry trade group, the syndicate’s impact was diluted in 1912 when smaller houses broke off to form the Syndicat des Négoçiants en Vins de Champagne. Its impact was diluted again by the creation of the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne, which represented both growers and producers, in the early days of World War II.

In 1992, the group was rocked when Christian Bizot, director of Bollinger, took public issue with the fact that many grandes marques were pushing production by purchasing low-quality grapes and using too much “pressed” juice. (With white wine production, the initial crushing process releases only about 65 percent of a berry’s juice. The remaining juice is extracted through the use of a “press”—and as extraction becomes more aggressive, the resulting juice becomes more astringent and bitter.) Bizot also alleged that some grandes marques were purchasing bulk, cooperative-produced champagne—sur latte—and affixing their own labels to it. He proposed a set of guidelines for the grandes marques to follow.

Quality standards had been discussed in 1964 when the trade group reorganized and rebranded itself the Syndicat des Grandes Marques de Champagne. At the time, though, the group refused to adopt any formal rules.

But Bizot’s public accusations gained attention. So in 1993, the group was renamed the Club des Grandes Marques and began enforcing minimum quality standards. Bizot’s public accusations opened a pandora’s box. In 1997, a British journalist approached every Grandes Marques to ask if membership in the Club des Grandes Marques should convey superior quality and, if so, if other producers that adhered to such standards should be able to join.

Only Bollinger answered yes to both questions. In response to the obvious and growing schism, the Club des Grandes Marques’ chairman, Louis Roederer’s Jean-Claude Rouzaud, pledged to create stricter quality standards and to open up the group to more producers. But the grandes marques couldn’t agree on any new standards so the group was disbanded.

However, the phrase “grandes marques” is still used informally to reference Champagne’s biggest brands.

Champagne was also assisted, in at least some small way, by the phylloxera epidemic. A grape pest, phylloxera hit Bordeaux in 1869 and the Rhone Valley a year later. It quickly spread, devastating vines in Burgundy in 1878 and destroying most vineyards in Europe shortly thereafter. However, it didn’t reach Champagne until years later in 1890—and barely spread in the region until 1897. Consequently, Champagne’s producers were able to provide libations for those who couldn’t source Bordeaux or Burgundy. And by the time phylloxera moved into Champagne, researchers had discovered that grafting vitis vinifera (the European grapevine) onto the rootstock of vitis labrusca (the American grapevine) stopped the louse. In Champagne, replanting virtually kept pace with vine destruction.

As champagne embedded itself into popular culture, production continued to become more efficient. In 1884, a Belgian inventor named Armand Walfart noted that if the neck of a pre-disgorgement champagne bottle was dipped into a shallow pool of below-freezing liquid, the sediment would turn into a frosty pellet, so could be expelled with virtually no loss of wine. Both Moët and Perrier-Jouët adopted this system, called dégorgement à la glace, in 1891. It quickly spread.

When the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889 for the World’s Fair, Western Europe was booming—and France was its hip and happening epicenter. The economy was growing and prosperity was expanding. Automobiles were on the road, women and men obsessed over fashion and the arts, and urban sophisticates took food and wine seriously. It was the “Belle Epoque.” And Champagne, which had become a part of France’s national identity, was thriving.

In 1909, nearly 40 million bottles of champagne were sold across the world. Alas, the numbers of that triumphal year wouldn’t be matched again for nearly three decades.