What is it about the bubbly stuff that makes us reach for more, writes Helen Peacocke. Is it the effervescent nature of its bubbles that seem to find their way to our toes long before the first glass is finished?
Or the tantalizing tingle they produce when bursting gently on the tongue, releasing their precious taste sensations as they go?
Well, there's certainly something about this magical brew, without which no celebration would be complete.
Ironically one of its greatest roles, that of being dashed against the side of a ship about to be launched, does not require it to be drunk at all, the exploding bubbles say everything, as champagne turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. It is certainly a drink to be reckoned with, for as Madame de Pompadour once said: "Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it". And she's right. Champagne brings a glow to the cheeks and a sparkle to the eyes. Women adore it.
Marilyn Monroe said that a glass of champagne each morning spread a little warmth through her body and Tina Turner likes it so much she collects champagne glasses. When interviewed for Elle magazine Tina admitted that whenever she drinks champagne she gets emotional.
But it is Madame Lily Bollinger who is responsible for champagne's most quoted quote. When asked how she enjoyed a glass of Bollinger she replied: "I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it when I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty of course." Noel Coward drank champagne for breakfast, but Oxfordshire playwright and author John Mortimer (probably one of the best known champagne socialists of our times) drinks it instead of tea, as those lucky enough to have joined him in the afternoon expecting cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey will have discovered.
Meet John for tea at the Randolph and you will find him tucked away in the far corner of the lounge. His table will have been laid with two chilled champagne flutes, possibly a bowl of fresh strawberries, and an ice bucket containing at least two bottles of the hotel's finest champagne.
When he spots his guest entering the main door he will begin pouring so that a sparkling glass can be placed in front them before they have even sat down. Now that really is style. And who would have thought that this amazing effervescent drink is now thought to have been invented by the English and not the French?
The French certainly made the wine as such, there is no argument about that, it came over here in flasks and barrels during the 17th century and was much enjoyed.
But thanks to an ingenious invention, and our coal-fired furnaces which provided a far greater heat than fired wood, we came up with a reinforced glass capable of capturing those frisky little bubbles that turned wine into champagne, long before the French. It was Oxfordshire's award-winning champagne buff from Witney, Tom Stevenson, who declared this fact and provided documentary evidence to back up this amazing theory in his book Christies World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine (Absolute Press £30, 1998), much to the annoyance of the French and the delight of the British. Tom states that while the famous French monk Dom Perignon can be credited with inventing the classic champagne blend, it is now generally held that he spent most of his life trying to eradicate bubbles that appeared naturally in his wines, whereas the British celebrated and bottled them.
They did this six years before Dom Perignon set foot in Hautvillers, more than 30 years before the French made their first sparkling champagne, and 70 years before the first champagne house was established.
These revelations should have turned the world of champagne on its head, but the French have largely ignored Tom's findings, despite the documentary evidence he unearthed which shows that we were adding sugar to finish the wine and induce a second fermentation to make it brisk and lively, long before they were. As Tom explains, even if the French had tried to make sparkling wine during that period, their bottles would have exploded.
So when you next watch those glorious bubbles dancing in your glass remember that there's not a shred of evidence to prove that Dom Perignon ever produced a bottle of sparkling wine.
*Tom Stevenson has just brought out Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide 2000 (Dorling Kindersley - £9.99, paperback)
Story date: Thursday 30 December
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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