It was during the decades after the Champagne region in France was bombed to rubble in World War II that the popularity of the nectar exploded. In the 20 years following the War, worldwide consumption of champagne quadrupled and is still rising. If you want to enjoy champagne, you'll need to know about its history, key facts about champagne production, and how to prepare, pour and serve it properly.
One of the best things about champagne, as compared with regular wines, is that there are significantly fewer choices out there, so you really need to learn only a few classics that are sure to appear on any menu. If you're purchasing your champagne at a liquor store, your choice will be even easier. The four main points to consider when selecting a champagne are: marque, vintage, size of bottle and dryness.
Marque: The first thing you will need to determine is which brand and year you intend to order. Unlike wines in general, the best champagnes hail from only a few sources. By definition, true "champagne" comes only from that region of France that bears the same name. Specifically, the Champagne region is 90 miles northeast of Paris, close to the border with Belgium. Champagnes themselves typically come from one of three areas within that region: Reims, Marne or Cote de Blancs. Unlike most wines that are named after vineyards, champagnes are named for the houses that produce them. These houses, in turn, produce various brands of champagne, which are known as marques. When you ultimately are forced to select a bottle of champagne, it will be these marques from which you must choose. Mercifully, the list of most famous champagne marques is relatively short, so if you can remember it--or even just a few items on it--you will never fail to find something familiar in a liquor store or on a restaurant menu:
Marque areas of the Champagne region are: Bollinger Ay; Charles Heidsieck; Reims Krug; Reims Moet et Chandon; Epernay G.H. Mumm; Reims Joseph Perrier; Marne Ruinart; Reims Taittinger; Reims Veuve Cliquot-Ponsardin.
While each of these marques is a great champagne, you will need to taste many different marques before you can determine your own preference.
Vintage: As with any wine, quality varies across the years, in harmony with the quality of the grapes harvested that year and the weather of the harvesting season. Unlike many wines, however, one needn't sample decades worth of champagnes to identify a good year. Champagne is typically held for up to 5 years by the manufacturing house, but when it is eventually released for purchase, it should be consumed within 2 years. Choosing a relatively young champagne, therefore, is not considered gauche.
Also, champagne is often blended across years. For a champagne to be considered of a particular year's vintage, at least 80 percent of the grapes used in producing it must have been harvested in that year. The remaining 20 percent of the grapes, therefore, can be from other years. Vintners will, accordingly, often blend their champagnes with the "greatest hits" from across the years, which leads to a more uniform quality of beverage. This is yet another reason why choosing any particular vintage of champagne is not that important--all those of a given marque are quite similar.
Size of Bottle: One thing that is a little trickier about champagne is the size of the bottle. Consider: a quarter-bottle is 6.3 fluid ounces; a half-bottle is 12.7 fluid ounces; a bottle is 25.4 fluid ounces; a magnum is 50.8 fluid ounces; 2 bottles Jeroboam are 101.6 fluid ounces; 4 bottles Rehoboam are 147 fluid ounces; 6 bottles Methuselah are 196 fluid ounces; 8 bottles Salmanazar are 304.8 fluid ounces; 12 bottles Balthazar are 406.4 fluid ounces; and 16 bottles Nebuchadnezzar are 508 fluid ounces.
If you are dining alone, or simply want to order champagne to accompany dessert, it is best to order a half bottle, which will pour out to slightly more than two full glasses.
Dryness: The last variable in choosing a champagne is its level of dryness. Champagne is not alone among wines in occurring in various levels of dryness, but it is distinctive in that the dryness is largely determined by the winemaker. Usually grapes are chosen at the height of their ripeness, when they contain a good deal of natural sugar. Yeast is added to the juice of those grapes, which converts their ample sugar into ample alcohol. The Champagne region, however, is an atypically cool region of France, in which grapes must be harvested before they are fully ripe. Their sugar content, therefore, is too low to make an alcohol of comparable fortitude. Champagne thus has sugar artificially added to it so that the yeast has more fuel to convert into alcohol. Obviously a winemaker can add greater or lesser amounts of sugar to alter the strength of the finished product -- and, of course, adding more sugar is going to make the champagne taste sweeter too. As you enjoy more and more glasses of champagne, you will develop a taste for whether you prefer it dry or sweet.
Level of Dryness: This refers to the amount of residual sugar per liter. The different levels include Extra Brut, Brut Sauvage, Ultra Brut, Brut Integral, Brut Zero 0.6 percent, Brut 1.5 percent, Extra Dry, Extra Sec 1.2 to 2.0 percent, Sec 1.7 to 3.5 percent, Demi-Sec 3.3 to 5.0 percent, and Doux (sweetest) 5 percent and up.
Be warned, even if you are a sweet tooth, champagnes rated as Doux should be used only as a dessert wine. The most popular style will be Brut, and champagne makers save their best grapes for this category.
