So, you celebrated the new year with a glass of the bubbly. But was it the right kind of glass? A little background first. Champagne is produced mainly from black grapes in the Champagne region of France. From the moment the Pinot noir grapes are pressed in the vineyard, where almost fanatical care is taken to ensure that not even a trace of black skin ends up in the white juice, to the moment the cork pops, champagne receives more care and attention than any other wine in the world.
Dom Perignon, a blind monk, got the ball rolling in the 18th century. He discovered that if a bottle of wine were tightly sealed before the fermentation was complete, the bubbles of carbon dioxide could not escape, and an effervescent drink would be produced. His keen sense of smell, the result of his blindness, allowed him to maximize the flavor of the wine through judicious blending of different juices. To this day, champagne is produced by the methods initiated by Dom Perignon.
Now for the glasses. A fascinating story is told by the guide on a tour of perhaps the most famous champagne house in the world. Moet et Chandon in Reims is the producer of Dom Perignon, the king of bubblies. The traditional saucer shaped champagne glasses, the guide explains, were actually modeled after the shape of Madame de Pompadour's breasts. Louis the fifteenth's favourite paramour, as the fable goes, commissioned a glassblower to make the glasses in order to please the king who was so enamoured of her bosom. The story goes down well with the tourists, probably better than champagne goes down from the saucer shaped glasses.聽
Whatever the real etiology of the glasses, one thing is for sure, they are the wrong shape for drinking champagne. Without a doubt, the greatest appeal of this exalted beverage is the presence of the bubbles; some five million in every glass. A tremendous amount of effort goes into keeping them in the beverage. Unfortunately, a saucer shaped glass provides a large contact surface with the air, maximizing the rate at with which the bubbles escape. Ideally, therefore, champagne should be sipped from a tall narrow glass!
But why should we attach so much importance to the way champagne should be consumed? Seeing that we probably paid a king's ransom for a bottle of "the king of wines and the wine of kings," we might as well benefit from the full intended effect. The bubbles should burst in the mouth, not in the hand! The solubility of carbon dioxide decreases as temperature increases. Serving the champagne cold therefore minimizes the amount of gas that escapes before we raise the glass and ensures that delightful tingling sensation when the drink comes into contact with a warm mouth. It is also important to drink champagne from a high quality glass, one with few imperfections. Tiny air bubbles can get trapped in these nicks as the drink is poured, and the dissolved carbon dioxide then vaporizes into these bubbles. Since the carbon dioxide is less dense than the surrounding solution, the bubbles stream to the surface. For the same reason, swizzle sticks, which can have many surface blemishes are obviously contraindicated for champagne. So now you know. Happy New Year!
