Dining With Duvall

While he could not completely control the process, Perignon realized that changing the bottles in use at the time might help reduce breakage. The thin-walled, apple shaped bottles with long narrow necks could not withstand the pressure of the fizzing champagne at ninety pounds per square inch. Don Pernignon convinced the growing glass-manufacturing business in the area to make thicker bottles in the classic pear shape we recognize today. The old stoppers made of chestnut wood, dipped in tallow, could not stand up to the pressure either, so Don Perignon turned to Spain to provide him with corks.

Don Perignon is also credited with being one of the first wine makers to blend wines. A fellow Benedictine cellar master at a nearby abbey adopted his blends emphasizing clarity and complexity, along with his methods of fermentation. He continued Perignon's custom of adding a liqueur de tirage just before bottling to insure a second fermentation. Today wine makers' liqueur de tirage includes sugar, wine and yeast.

In a book published in 1718, Canon Jean Godinot claimed he'd obtained Dom Perignon's liqueur de tirage recipe--a bottle of wine, a pound of sugar, 5-6 pitted peaches, powdered nutmeg and cinnamon and a half bottle of good brandy. The mixture was boiled, strained and boiled again.

Many recipes using champagne were published around the same time. Francois Massialot suggested a fish dish, browning fillets in butter and mushrooms, adding a half bottle of champagne and then thickening with a crayfish coulis. Sounds delicious.

The champagne craze drove prices up wildly. In Paris a bottle might sell for nearly $400. King Louis XIV's court insisted on champagne for their elaborate parties and the English court also continued their infatuation with the bubbly beverage. Champagne became known as the wine of kings. Even today champagne continues to be the drink in demand for festive occasions. Almost half of all champagne sold is purchased between Thanksgiving and New Years' according to wine maven Lisa Shea.

I found some of the details on the invention of champagne in a book by Joan De Jane, "The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication and Glamour." It was the best history book I read in 2005, full of fun facts, serious scholarship and beautifully written. A must for fashionistas and Francophiles.