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Champagne: Adding the Sparkle

It is the sparkle in Champagne, that which allegedly had Dom Pérignon rapturously exclaim "I'm tasting stars", which sets it apart from so many other wines. As I have already indicated in earlier instalments of this guide, the exact details of how and when the realisation that wine could be transformed in this way is open to debate, and this uncertainty perhaps reflects the fact that Champagne has not been created in a single Eureka moment, but rather it has evolved over many years into the polished product that we know today. There have been many contributors to its development, not only the Champenois themselves, but also the scientists who brought new understanding of the process of fermentation, the glass manufacturers who provided the stronger bottles, and so on. In this part of my guide I take a look at the many different aspects of creating a sparkling wine, paying particular attention not only to how the many different steps fit together, but also to how they were discovered and introduced to the process.

Making Bubbles

Perhaps the first and most vital realisation in the development of the méthode Champenoise, now broadly referred to as the méthode traditionelle, is the acceptance of bubbles as a positive feature of the wine. A reawakening of the wine in spring, as temperatures rose and the yeast recommenced any unfinished fermentation (rather like this fermenting wine on the left), seems at first glance delightful, a portent of the season to come, akin to the appearance of spring lambs. But in truth it would have been regarded by many as not only a nuisance but a disaster. Imagine your dismay if your cellar full of recently bottled wines began to effervesce, the gradual build up of gas pushing each bottle of fragile, 16th-century glass to the limit, bottles exploding and corks popping with abandon. Fans of natural, zero-additive wines today sometimes still have this concern, but for most wines the results of such undesirable microbial activity are precluded by the addition of an anti-microbial agent such as sulphur, or some other processes such as filtration. But with times it became clear that the fizz was good, and during the 18th century - as indicated by the creation of the first Champagne house, Ruinart, in 1728 - the style gradually became the accepted norm for the region.

Today the sparkle is ensured with the addition of the liqueur de tirage to the wine, which is usually comprised of one, some or all the three varieties discussed in my examination of the Champagne grape varieties. If rosé is the desired style it may of course also include a little red wine made from Pinot Noir, usually sourced from the vineyards around the Montagne de Reims and the Vallée de la Marne. Mixed in with the wine to complete this essential liqueur is fresh yeast, to get the second fermentation underway, and sugar, the necessary fuel for this metamorphosis. Although today this addition is straightforward, three centuries ago the process of fermentation was less well understood, and wines were expected to spontaneously effervesce after bottling due to the continued presence of yeasts responsible for the primary fermentation, or perhaps after being topped up with sugar. It was not until the mid-19th century that Louis Pasteur first described yeasts and related them to fermentation; this, together with the introduction of improved methods of measuring sugar concentration in the wine, lay the groundwork for the much finer control over the secondary fermentation that the Champenois enjoy today.

Once the liqueur has been added the bottle is sealed - perhaps with a cork, although a crown cap just like those commonly found sealing bottles of beer is more likely - and it then must be left well alone for the yeast to do what is expected of it. The Champagne region is renowned for its cellars, hundreds of miles of underground tunnels carved into the chalk, the temperature a very consistent and beneficial 12ºC. Here the bottles will enjoy a long slumber, the pressure within the bottle slowly rising as the yeasts ferment the sugar, generating carbon dioxide - which under such pressure will dissolve in the wine - as they do so, a process known as the prise de mousse. With a standard dose of yeast and sugar the pressure will rise to between 5 and 6 atmospheres (which simply means 5-6 times the atmospheric pressure as measured at sea level), one very good reason why Champagne bottles are a little sturdier than your average wine bottle. Many centuries ago such internal pressures resulted in catastrophic explosions, but the switch to English glass - made using ovens powered by coal rather than wood, and thus much more sturdy - solved this particular problem. A lower dose liqueur can of course produce a softer wine with a lower pressure, perhaps 3 atmospheres, a style once typically referred to by the Champenois as crémant. The term crémant is no longer permitted here, however, the region's winemakers having given up the right to use it.

Appellation regulations stipulate that the wines must rest in the cellars for at least 16 months if non-vintage, and for three years if single-vintage, although in practice many producers exceed these minimum requirements (as can be seen with the bottles shown above). They are stacked in metal bins (sur lattes - the lattes referring to the slats lying between the bottles I think) in the aforementioned cellars, and for many years there was an active but rather surreptitious trade in these bottles, although this unscrupulous practise - in which houses could buy unlabelled stock made elsewhere for sale under their own label, without any declaration of the wine's external origin - was put to an end in January 2004. As the bottles slumber the yeasts inside gradually succumb, the cells breaking down (lysing) as the organisms die, and strangely, the sediment of dead yeast that settles in the wine is both beneficial and problematic. First, this process of autolysis is important as it contributes much of the complexity that will be found in the eventual wine, the flavours presumably derived from molecules released upon lysis of the cells. Secondly, the sediment also appears, for want of a better description, to 'nourish' the wine, protecting it from deterioration, keeping it fresh. A wine held on its lees for ten years and then disgorged (more on this process further down the page) will taste fresher than one that has been disgorged after perhaps three years and then aged in bottle for a further seven. But the lees also gave the Champenois a headache; how could this unsightly clump of dead yeast cells be removed, giving the end consumer a crystal clear and clean wine to enjoy?

Veuve Clicquot's Kitchen Table

The pill that cured this particular headache came from the house of Veuve Clicquot, where the process of remuage - which best translates to 'riddling' in English - using a pupitre was developed. Cutting circular holes in an upended kitchen table, 19th-century cellar master Antoine Müller not only made the prototype of all pupitres - essentially wooden boards holding dozens of bottles (a primitive prototype is shown on the left - true pupitres have many more holes, more tightly packed) - but he and Madame Clicquot also demonstrated how by gradually turning and upending the bottles, the sediment could be encouraged down into the neck of the bottle, ready for removal. It was an ineal solution, if a rather laborious one, for the cellars of Champagne held millions and millions of bottles; once the technique became common practise a professional remueur would be occupied the whole day long, turning each bottle by hand, if skilled achieving a mind-numbing and arm-aching 70000 (no, that is not a typo - I do mean 70000) bottles per day. In modern times the process is largely mechanised, the bottles rotated and elevated by a gyropalate, but some houses continue the process by hand for some if not all wines; La Grande Année from Bollinger, for instance, is still hand-riddled.

Once the sediment is sitting securely behind the seal closure it is a simple process to release the cork or cap and thus allow the pressure built up within to push out the wine, complete with sediment. This process, the dégorgement a la volée, has however been largely superseded by the dégorgement a la glace, although there are a number of producers, largely small family firms, still using the former method. The added finesse with the a la glace technique is achieved by freezing the liquid - complete with sediment of course - in the neck of the bottle. The sludgy pellet is then expelled, as described above, by the dégorgeur, the whole process not only neater but the lower temperature makes control over the loss of wine more certain. All that is required now is to top up the finished wine - which brings us to the issue of dosage - and apply the cork. Today the cork is held in place by a wire cage, a method which harks back to ficelage, the securing of the cork with string, a process encouraged by King Louis XV of France in the 18th century. As for the dosage, once more commonly referred to as the liqueur d'expédition, this mixture of wine, sugar and the preservative sulphur dioxide can be used to determine the ultimate style of wine, ranging from the driest Extra Brut and the more typical Brut, right through to the sweetest Doux. Extra Brut is achieved with a dosage achieving less than 6 g/l of sugar, Brut ranges up to 15 g/l and so on, with more details shown above right. In practice, only Extra-Brut, Brut and Demi-Sec are commonly seen.

What happens next depends very much on the house in question, and the consumer. Ideally the wines would be left for some time, to rest and develop harmony, and for the reek of sulphur that now marks the wine to subside. In reality many are released onto the market too soon, harsh and angular, the aromas redolent of mothballs and matches. I experience many such infantile non-vintage cuvées each year at the annual Champagne tasting. But if left for an appropriate period of time, perhaps a year or two with entry-level wines, clearly much longer with the better non-vintage and also vintage cuvées, we have on our hands one of the finest styles of wine to have ever existed.

• Part 5: The Champagne Mountain