CHEERS! The Drink For Special Occasion.

Champagne was once drunk almost exclusively by the aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century created a fast growing group of manufactures, and brought wealth to people who had never had it before. Because of its touch of class, champagne became the drink for special occasion – to open a new factory, launch a ship, toast a bride, and mark a christening.

Charles-Camille Heidsieck, the founder of the Heidsieck champagne company, was an enthusiastic promoter of champagne as the drink to have when celebrating. He travelled much of the world in the mid-nineteenth century extolling the many virtues of champagne, and soon became known as ‘Champagne Charlie’. A popular song of the same name ensured even more promotion for the bubbly wine and its tireless advocate.

The instant effervescent sparkle of champagne seemed to suit it ideally to joyful times, and its delicacy made it acceptable at any hour. It has remained a favorite ever since. It needs little promotion, so it escapes the high costs of advertising that beset many of its rivals. But top-quality champagne is expensive to make. The grapes are costly and the wine needs the skill of highly paid experts to bring it to perfection. A major factor, however, is time. Fine champagnes are aged in the bottle for at least six years before the grower can begin to recoup his initial costs.

Even supposing costs could be reduced, would the price be allowed to fall? Many in the industry believe that champagne’s price helps to maintain its allure. Who, after all, would want to mark a special occasion with something as cheap, say as a bottle of beer?. Next time you have a glass of champagne or, indeed, any fizzy drink - watch the bubbles. As they rise, they grow bigger, floating upwards like little balloons, because the carbon dioxide gas inside them is lighter than the liquid. Once a bubble forms, it collects more of the carbon dioxide dissolved in the drink, and continues to grow.

Not only does each bubble grow, but it gathers more buoyant force, which tends to speed its ascent the higher it goes. That is why; if you watch bubbles rising from one spot in your glass, you will see that they gradually get farther apart. However the faster a bubble tries to rise, the greater the drag force on it from the surrounding liquid. If you have ever tried pushing your hand or a paddle through water, you will know that the faster you push the harder it becomes. So it is with the bubble. The drag force acts like a speed cop, bubbles of certain size can rise so fast and no faster.

Home – brewers and ginger – beer makers know the perils of fermentation. With ought due care, bottles may blow their corks or explode as the gas pressure builds up. That indeed was an early problem of champagne production. Corks replaced ill- fitting wooden bungs as a way of keeping the wine sparkle. The Benedictine monk Dom Perignon introduced corks to the champagne region of northeastern France in the seventeenth century.

Some say that the ides came from England where they were already in use, others that Dom Perignon copied Spanish pilgrims, who sealed their gourds with corks. Until that time wooden staples wrapped in oil-soaked hemp stoppered the bottles and kept bubbles from escaping, but as winemakers grew more skilful; at producing bubbles more bottles burst. At one time the loss was as high as 80%.

Then after the Napoleonic War’s, a druggist named Francois de Chalons found a way to assess the amount of sugar in the wine and to gauge how effervescent it would be. He knew that the sugar produced carbon dioxide, which remains dissolved in the wine. He found that he could control not only the amount of gas but also the wine sweetness. From his work comes the dryness or sweetness of a wine: brut, sec, demi-sec and sweet.

Champagne has a pressure five to six time’s that of normal atmosphere – far too great foe a normal bottle to resist. After the pioneer work of Francois de Chalons, champagne was put into stronger bottles, capable of retaining the sparkle with ought bursting.