How to Enjoy Champagne

Choose a Bottle of Champagne

• The four main points to consider when selecting a champagne are as follows: marque; vintage; size of bottle; and dryness. The first thing to determine is the brand and year you want. By definition, 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 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, known as marques. The list of famous Champagne marques is relatively short, so if you can remember it--or 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. Taste many different marques to determine your preference.

  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 five years by the manufacturing house, but when it is eventually released for purchase, it should be consumed within two 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, accordingly, 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 choosing any particular vintage of champagne is not that important--all those of a given marque are similar.

  One thing that is a little trickier about Champagne is the size of the bottle. Consider: A quarter-bottle is 6.3 fluid oz.; a half-bottle is 12.7 fluid oz.; a bottle is 25.4 fluid oz.; a magnum is 50.8 fluid oz.; 2 bottles Jeroboam are 101.6 fluid oz.; 4 bottles Rehoboam are 147 fluid oz.; 6 bottles Methuselah are 196 fluid oz.; 8 bottles Salmanazar are 304.8 fluid oz.; 12 bottles Balthazar are 406.4 fluid oz.; and 16 bottles Nebuchadnezzar are 508 fluid oz.

  If you are dining alone or 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.

  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. Grapes usually 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 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 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.

  Even if you are a sweet tooth, Champagnes rated as Doux should be used only as dessert wines. Champagne makers save their best grapes for the Brut category.