Champagne was a still wine?

Champagne is a wine of joy. Festival, weddings, celebrations, you could will be the emergence of champagne. However, we have too much misunderstanding of champagne. So why don’t we pop a bottle of Champagne for celebration of Chinese New Year, and turn to the next page to start a trip towards the Champagne region!

A place called Champagne, located at the north-eastern part of France, people once produced Pinot noir which reminiscent of Bourgogne reds. This is the prototype of what is now called Champagne. Due to the cold weather, the fermentation process was often interrupted until it re-started again next spring. This leads to accumulation of little bubbles.

This ‘sparkling’ wine was widely favoured by British and French cafe society. However, the wine is very different from what we call Champagne today. Later, new technologies were invented by several persons, who has greatly improved the quality of champagne:

In 1662, Christopher Merret from the UK published its invention of “adding sugar and yeasts to generate bubbles”, which is named “second fermentation”. This becomes one of the most critical steps in the production of champagne, making its fizz much fuller.

It was rumored that Dom Pierre Perignon, who was also known as the father of Champagne, was the inventor of Champagne. It should be clarified. It is Dom Pierre Perignon who suggested to blend different grapes in Champagne to boost the flavours.

Provide the yeasts with sugar, they would produce the bubbles. However extra sugar not only leads to overwhelming sweet, but also build up gas pressure that is hazardous. In 1830, a pharmacist named André François developed an equation to calculate the precise amount of sugar that should be added..

Lees sediment causes turbidity and even odd flavors. Veuve Cliquot's Madame Clicquot invented the riddling method to remove sediment effectively, which become the tradition since the methodology is revealed to public.

香檳是快樂的酒，舉凡節日、婚禮、慶祝都會有香檳的出現。不過，我們也對香檳有著太多的誤解。既然如此我們何不以新春節慶為名開支香檳，並翻開下一頁，讓眼睛來一趟香檳區之旅！

沒錯，在法國東北部一個名叫香檳的地方，酒農們從前都釀造果香充沛、細緻優雅的黑皮諾紅酒。這正是香檳的原型，口感有點像布根地的紅酒；然而因氣候寒冷，葡萄酒的發酵過程往往中斷，直到翌年回暖酵母復甦繼續發酵，因此瓶內有時會積聚少量氣泡。

這種微氣泡酒當時廣受英法上流社會的青睞，甚至王室也鍾愛。不過，它跟我們今天飲用的香檳相差甚遠。後來出現了幾位重要人物，他們分別發現新的技術，大大改善了香檳的品質.

1662年，英國人Christopher Merret發表在葡萄酒內加糖生產氣泡酒的方法，命名為二次發酵。這是製作香檳最關鍵的步驟之一，令香檳的氣泡比一般氣酒充沛綿密。

被譽為香檳之父的Dom Perignon，很多人以為他是發明香檳者，其實他對香檳的貢獻是在另一方面。香檳是勾兌的藝術，正是Dom Perignon提出以不同種類葡萄增加香檳的風味。

提供糖份予酵母就能製造氣泡，但太多的糖份不但導致香檳過甜，同時過多氣泡會增加瓶內氣壓。1830年，一名叫André François的藥劑師研究出方程式，準確計算出添加糖份的份量。

香檳瓶內的酵母，會造成酒液混濁，甚至奇怪的味道。人們一直尋找各種方法移除。Veuve Cliquot的Madame Clicquot於十九世紀發明了以轉瓶法移除瓶內沉積物，成為其他香檳仿傚的對象。