WE GET A KICK FROM CHAMPAGNE
Champagne is the wine of celebration – or, if you believe the legends, it’s just bath water for some celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. But you should never look too hard for an excuse to enjoy a good Champagne and it’s also a superb aperitif.
The key to its unique qualities is the second fermentation, when yeast working on the grape sugars produces carbon dioxide, which stays trapped in its container. Originally, secondary fermentation was seen as a bad thing. But when at the end of the 17th century, monk Dom Perignon tasted some wine that had fermented a second time in the barrel due to a change in the weather, he declared he was “drinking stars” and is credited with developing the methode champenoise.
It was soon found that the best result was produced when the second fermentation took place in the bottle, rather than the barrel. This required stronger English bottles closed with Spanish cork instead of the wood and oil-soaked hemp stoppers then in use.
The bubbles are said to be the key to the quality of the champagne. Tiny, pin-head bubbles are the ones found in Uber Champagne. Large bubbles are derided by the French as “toad’s eyes”.
Taste and colour comes from the type of grapes used. The container used for the first fermentation will also influence the flavour - wood casks giving a fuller body and bouquet than stainless steel. Ultra Brut is the driest available and too dry for many tastes. Brut is very dry and is the standard for fine Champagne bought in Britain but the French prefer the slightly sweeter and softer Extra dry. The sweetest Demi-sec or Cremant are more suited for pudding.
Champagne is usually made as a cuveé, or blend, of one white grape (Chardonnay) and two red (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier). Blanc de blanc Champagne, however, is made entirely from white grapes; whereas blanc de noirs indicates a richer wine made from red grapes and is often pale gold in colour. Rosé, or pink, Champagne is produced by blending in a little red wine or leaving the dark skins of Pinot noir in the wine making process longer.
CHAMPAGNE BILLECART SALMON 1998 CU...
AVERYS
£419.94 for six bottles
This is an elegant grand cuvee that has been fermented in burgundy barrels used many times previously so they do not impart flavour, but help with the maturation process.
POMMERY 2000 BRUT ROSE CUVEE LOUISE
JUSTERINI & BROOKS
£955 for six bottles
Family celebrations cry out for this delicate, pale-coloured rosé Champagne that reveals gorgeous inner sweetness in its perfumed fruit. A fitting legacy to Madame Louise Pommery.
Uber Feature
Champagne That is Clearly Delicious
Most Champagne bottles are dark green with a bell shaped bottom, but Louis Roederer Cristal uses a distinctive clear glass bottle with a flat bottom. There is a romantic legend that this came about in 1909 when Tsar Nicholas II chose Louis Roederer as the official supplier of Champagne to the Imperial Court of Russia. The Tsar feared assassination, so he insisted the bottles should be of clear glass, to avoid a bomb being hidden in them. The only clear glass strong enough was lead crystal, and so Cristal was born!
However, the truth is rather more mundane. Louis Roederer had in fact been producing Cristal in clear bottles since 1876, for the personal consumption of Tsar Alexander II. The self-important Royal had taken offence that his “prestige cuveé” had nothing to distinguish it from the wine of mere mortals, so the illustrious bottle was designed, duly adorned with a coat of arms.
Uber stockists of this legendary Champagne include Berry Bros & Rudd, which has the 2002 Cristal selling for £174, and The Antique Wine Company, with the 1988 vintage at £350.
Uber Word
A Magnum or more?
Champagne is famous for being available in sizes right up to a Nebuchadnezzar (equivalent to 20 bottles) but the practicalities of handling such monsters mean that most people will stick to a two-bottle Magnum, or at most, the four-bottle Jeroboam.
You will want to serve your fine champagne in an ice bucket and glasses that are equally sophisticated. In addition to being used for celebratory toasts, Champagne is traditionally drunk with seafood, particularly oysters, scallops, caviar, smoked salmon and lobster.
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