Leahy Kate - Champagne: the essential guide to the wines, producers, and terroirs of the iconic region

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Liem is an American wine writer and author of ChampagneGuide.net, an award-winning and highly acclaimed online guide to the wines and wine producers of Champagne. Following nearly a decade in the wine trade, he was a senior editor, critic, and tasting director for Wine & Spirits magazine, and his writings on champagne and other wines have appeared in publications such as the World of Fine Wine, Decanter, the Art of Eating, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Liem has written a book on sherry with Jess Barqun, called Sherry, Manzanilla & Montilla, and he has also served as the Champagne consultant for the seventh edition of The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.

Together with Daniel Johnnes of La Paule de New York, Liem is the creator of La Fte du Champagne, the most significant Champagne event in the United States. Making its debut in October of 2014, La Fte du Champagne features a select group of the regions elite producers, offering an unparalleled opportunity to taste some of Champagnes finest wines. Liem currently divides his time between New York City and pernay, in the Champagne region of France.

NOTES

Saint-vremond, Works 2:5.

Vizetelly, History, 31.

Some cite the discoveries of Roman drinking vessels and storage containers in Champagne as evidence of a wine culture, but consumption alone doesnt prove that wine was actually being made here. Trade in the ancient world was remarkably widespread and efficient, and wine could just as easily, and more probably, have come from elsewhere.

Saint Rmis will was documented in Vita sancti Remigii in the ninth century and Flodoards Historia Remensis ecclesiae in the tenth.

Henderson, History, 151.

Vizetelly, History, 7. Vizetelly may have gotten his places wrong: certainly pernay and Mont Ebbon (probably todays Mont Bernon) are correct, but he misspells Merfy as Mersy. However, according to French scholar Jean-Claude Malsy, the Latin name Calmiciaco in the letter should be Culmiciaco, meaning Cormicy, a village just north of Reims, and not Chaumery. Unfortunately, the original manuscript of the letter no longer exists, and the earliest surviving transcription that we have is in Jacques Sirmonds Hincmar opera, opuscula et epistolae, from 1645. The Latin text from Sirmonds edition is as follows: Vinum quoque non validissimum, neque debile, sed mediocre sumendum est: hoc est non de summitate montis, neque de profunditate vallium, sed quod in lateribus montium nascitur, sicut in Sparnaco in monte Ebonis, et in Calmiciaco ad Rubridum, et in Remis de Milsiaco atque Calmiciaco.

Bonal, Le livre dor du champagne, 19.

Bonal, Dom Prignon, 45.

Vizetelly, History, 221.

Bonal, Le livre dor du champagne, 23.

Vizetelly, History, 32.

Its probable that this famous quote first appeared in a champagne advertisement dating from the 1880s.

Bonal, Dom Prignon, 30. Tradition asserts that he was born in December of 1638, but Bonal believes that this is only to coincide his birth year with that of Louis XIV, who passed away in 1715, the same year as Dom Prignon. Bonal points to the local church register, which records Pierre Prignons baptism as being on January 5, 1639, and notes that in the seventeenth century, people were baptized on the day of or the day following their birth.

Bonal, Dom Prignon, 33.

Forbes, Champagne, 106107.

Forbes, Champagne, 111.

Bonal, Dom Prignon, 87.

Simon, History of Champagne, 57.

Vizetelly, History, 39.

Manire, 31.

Incidentally, this isnt the only contemporary reference to sparkling wine. In February of 1712, the wine merchant Bertin du Rocheret wrote to his client the Marchal de Montesquiou, saying: There remains, Monseigneur, here, the wines that you ordered from me, he says. Three poinons of Pierry wine, at 400 livres a queue, and one poinoin at 250 livres a queue. This poinon must be bottled at the beginning of the new year, to make a vin mousseux, as you wanted. (Bourgeois, Champagne, 4546).

Simon, History of Champagne, 50.

Forbes, Champagne, 129.

As Tom Stevenson and Essi Avellan explain on page 10 of their Christies World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine, cute is wine boiled down to half its volume, and raisins provide a source of yeasts and sugar. The addition of stum and a strong bottle secured tightly by cork would produce a fermentation that would result in trapped carbon dioxide.

In 1615, the admiral Sir Robert Mansell requested King James I to prohibit the use of wood fires in glassmaking furnaces, as he wanted to reserve the nations timber for shipbuilding. Glassmakers were forced to burn coal instead, which, with its much higher temperature, led to the production of much stronger glass.

Vizetelly, History, 59.

Simon, History of Champagne, 69.

In Louis-Perriers Mmoire sur le vin de Champagne of 1886, he documents a correspondence between the respected wine merchant Bertin du Rocheret and his client the Marchal de Montesquiou. In a letter dated December 27, 1712, the marchal ordered from Bertin a quantity of mousseux that the latter was very much opposed to. Bertin bottled it for him in the following year anyway, but in his reply of October 18, 1713, he reprimanded the marchal, saying that if the wine hadnt been made sparkling, you might have found it to be better, but it would not have had the merit of effervescence which, in my opinion, is the merit of a poor wine, and only appropriate for beer, chocolate and whipped cream. He goes on to say, Good champagne should be clear and fine, shining in the glass and flattering our good tastes, which never happens when its effervescent, as it still tastes strongly of fermentation and of the harvest; thus it is only sparkling because its still in the process of being made. On October 25, the marchal replied, somewhat sheepishly, I see how wrong I was in asking you to bottle my barrel of wine so that it sparkles; this is a fashion that prevails everywhere, especially among the youth.

Mastromarino, Papers of George Washington, 3840.

Bonal, Le livre dor du champagne, 59.

Bonal, Le livre dor du champagne, 39.

Bonal, Le livre dor du champagne, 40.

Forbes, Champagne, 143.

Forbes, Champagne, 151.

Hailman, Thomas Jefferson on Wine, 179.

Hailman, Thomas Jefferson on Wine, 180.

Vizetelly, History, 141.

The second major attempt at vineyard classification in Champagne occurred in October of 1873, when the renowned newspaper La Vigne published a ranking of Champagne villages that was intended to serve as a guide to establishing the prices of grapes. Unlike Julliens, this one included only the finest crus, and perhaps the most notable thing about it was the increase in prestige of the best terroirs of the Cte des Blancs and a concomitant decrease in value of the Montagne de Reims, which probably reflects an increase in proportion of sparkling wine production by this time. Like Jullien, La Vigne held A and Verzenay in the highest esteem, calling them crus de tout premier ordre, yet it also included Cramant in this category. Bouzy, Dizy, Hautvillers, and Pierry were classed as