Tuesday, 28 December, 2021
Vinepair, Kara Williams
Until the 1600s, the wine coming out of this northeastern region was still and red. “And I don’t mean a saturated red — it was more like a semi-red because it was so far north,” Lisa Airey, French wine scholar, certified wine educator, and education director of the Wine Scholar Guild, says. Champagne (located between 49 and 49.5 degrees north latitude) lies just a hair south of the latitude at which it becomes too cold for grapes to ripen. Yet the region tried to compete with the structured reds of sunnier Bourgogne to the south.
“Even up until 1850, 66 percent of production was red and still,” Airey says. “So we are looking at sparkling Champagne originating in the 1600s — kind of by accident — and being considered a faulted product.”
Without an understanding of yeast — Louis Pasteur confirmed its primary function in alcoholic fermentation in 1857 — cellars were a dangerous place to be. Pressure building in the bottles caused them to explode often, sending shards of glass and alcohol flying. People lost fingers, eyes, and even died tending the cellars. Cellar workers repurposed fencing masks into protective gear to keep them safe from the inevitable explosions. In other words, 17th-century cellar workers and winemakers did not want bubbles in their wine.
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