WEBVTT - What Makes Champagne Champagne? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:11.119 Lauren Vogo bomb here. Champagne is a celebratory drink, e 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.680 pervescent drink to toast with. But sparkling wine was once 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.680 the scourge of winemakers. The famous Domperignon was actually hired 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.840 by a French wine maker to prevent wine from bubbling. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.960 So how did we get here? And what makes champagne champagne? 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.360 Champagne is a type of sparkling wine produced in the 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:35.760 Champagne region of France under particular circumstances. But okay, hold up, 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:39.239 what's the sparkling wine? Does it contain glitter? Uh? No, 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:43.000 It's a wine that's carbonated, meaning it contains dissolved carbon 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.040 dioxide gas, which bubbles out of the liquid unless it's 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.040 kept under pressure. That's why you might burp when you 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.760 drink bubbly or beer or soda. Your stomach is pressurized, 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.960 but not pressurized enough to keep the carbon dioxide dissolved, 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.000 so it escapes as a gas. Other sparkling wines shouldn't 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.080 technically be called champagne, and in some countries legally they 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.039 cannot be called champagne, though that's really for labeling and 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.800 marketing folks not for dinner conversations, and the Champagne region 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.800 takes this seriously because it's their livelihood. So what makes 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.640 a real Champagne A lot of things. Actually, it's all 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.040 laid out in the Appalachion delgen controlle regulations and apologies 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.360 from my French. It's it's a set of rules created 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.440 by the French National Institute of Origin in Quality, which 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:32.800 is a regulatory group in France meant to control the 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.720 quality and branding of agricultural products like cheeses and wines. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.959 For champagne to be labeled Champagne, it must be produced 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.120 from the growing of the grapes to the processing of 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.600 the wine in the Champagne region, and from one or 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.880 a blend of three main grape varieties Chatona, Peino noir 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.840 and Pinomonier. There are all kinds of rules about how 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.320 you handle the grapes, how they can be planted and pruned, 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.720 how much fruit can be produced per hector, how much 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.040 can be obtained from the fruit by weight, and how 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.680 it can be fermented and stored. The process of making 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:10.760 the wine is called the bold ChimpanA or traditional or classic. First, 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.400 you produce bottles of still wine that have undergone a 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.800 primary fermentation. That means that you take grape juice called 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.400 must in the industry and add sugar and yeast to it. Yeast, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.519 of course, is a microscopic organism that, among other things, 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.919 eats glucose and excretes carbon dioxide and ethanol. The carbon 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.280 dioxide is released from the liquid as a gas, and 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.080 the ethanol is the alcohol in the finished wine. When 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.480 the pH level hits a certain point on the acid 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:38.600 end of the scale, you strain out the yeast and 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.720 bottle the wine. So how do you get the bubbles. 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.840 That's done by creating a secondary fermentation inside each bottle 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.079 by adding in a bit more yeast and sugar. Whereas 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.279 the carbon dioxide was a byproduct in the primary fermentation, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.720 it's the whole point of the secondary fermentation. To keep 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.400 it in the bottles, you seal them tightly with crown caps, 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.400 the kind that beer is sealed with. When the winemaker 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.680 thinks it's good and sparkly. After a couple of months 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.680 at least, the caps are removed and spent yeast, called 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.600 the lea's is taken out in a process called riddling. 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.040 Each bottle is then topped off with a bit more 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.400 still wine and usually a bit more sugar to taste. 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.440 This edition is called the dossage. Then hefty corks are 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.040 inserted and backed up by a wire cage cap to 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.040 hold in the now highly pressurized contents. Champagne's run about 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.880 five to seven atmospheres inside the bottle a k a. 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.480 Five to seven times the pressure that we experience just 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.800 hanging out around sea level, so being inside the bottle 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.520 would be like diving fifty to seventy under water about 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.800 a hundred and sixty two thirty feet, which is deep. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:43.560 It's also about the same pressure as is in a 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.720 semitruck tire. The final product must then be aged for 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.920 at least fifteen months for a typical blended champagne, or 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.120 at least three years for a single vintage champagne, and 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.880 it must have a minimum alcohol content. But the very 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.720 first sparkling wines probably didn't have and in the Champagne 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.200 region and were very probably accidents of unintentional secondary fermentation. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.920 The first historical record of sparkling wines being made on 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.400 purpose was in sixteen sixty two, when an English scientist 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.200 named Christopher Merritt presented a paper to the Royal Society 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.279 about how some wine humans of the time were adding 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:20.920 sugar or molasses to finished wine barrels to create a 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:25.279 second fermentation. And thus bubbles ciders were very popular in 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.240 England at the time, and that's how they were made. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.200 But this wine thing was a curiosity before then. Sparkling 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.159 wine was an accident and a dangerous accident. Legend and 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.360 or history has it that the monk Dampaignon was assigned 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.880 to stop this levin du Jab the Devil's Wine. The 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.120 temperatures in the Champagne region get cold enough early enough 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.960 that cellared bottled wine would stop fermenting in winter before 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.000 the yeast was done doing its thing, and then when 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.200 the weather warmed up again in the spring, the bottles 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:59.200 would undergo a second fermentation, dramatically raising the pressure inside 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:02.159 the bottles and making them go fizzy and then making 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.920 them explode. And this was actually a weird and huge 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.880 and scary problem. It was common to lose four to 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.279 ten of a seller due to bursting, and bad warm 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.520 fronts could lead to thirty of your bottles breaking, or 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.680 entire sellers could be lost. A single bottle going off 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.600 could start a chain reaction around the cellar. The workers 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.400 had to wear heavy iron masks and padding for protection 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:29.719 when they go down. A couple of technological innovations sorted 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.880 this problem out a glass quality and corkage. Let's talk 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.760 glass quality. The British worked out how to make glass 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:41.760 was super hot whole fueled furnaces by six twenty three. Traditionally, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.080 charcoal had been the safer and cooler fuel of choice, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.599 but it was commonly produced from oak trees at the time, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.880 and King James the First Navy, needed oak for its ships. 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.679 The higher temperatures and cosmetic but useful additions of iron 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.000 and manganese to the glass made the bottles much stronger. 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.320 This led to that boot in the popularity of sparkling 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.840 ciders and Merrit's observance of on purpose sparkling wines by 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.320 sixteen sixty two. The wire cap that hooks under the 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.559 bottle's lipped and secures the cork wouldn't come along until 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.400 eighteen forty four. Until then, corks were held in with 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.279 tied string to varying effect. The invention of the riddling 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.880 process in the early eighteen hundreds by the Vu Clicko 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.840 Champagne house also made sparkling wines quicker, easier, and thus 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.800 less expensive to produce. As for why we toast with it, 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.480 that's a little trickier, but it has to do with war. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.360 Because of the Champagne region's location, it's seen a lot 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.120 of battles in its time. The tradition of French kings 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.799 being coornated in the Champagne region started after a battle 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.599 there in the fifth century CE, and the tradition of 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.159 celebrating the Champagne's wines grew from there, alongside the science 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:54.760 that made the drink possible. Today's episode was written by 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.320 me and produced by Tyler Clang. 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