Appetizers … are the frivolities of a meal, and, like champagne, they are capable of setting a mood…

Craig Claiborne

And so I thought we might amble along the champagne byway on the road to flourishing. This is long but interesting. Toward the end there are sections on

How to Serve Champagne (I can’t make this internal link work. Click on the ice bucket link and scroll up. Sorry.)

and

How to Make Ice Buckets for Champagne.

CHAMPAGNE

From The Creative Cooking Course: A Complete Course in the Art of Cooking with 1200 Recipes and 2500 Color Photos, Charlotte Turgeon, Weathervane Books, New York, 1975.

Champagne is one of France’s many contributions to civilization. There is a certain mystique which surrounds this clear, effervescent wine—it is inevitably served on special occasions such as weddings, anniversaries, christenings, even the launching of ships. Unfortunately, due to its association with gay celebrations, many individuals forget to appreciate the qualities that can make Champagne a fine or great wine. Consequently, it is often not treated with the same solemn respect that a still wine of the same quality is likely to receive.

Champagne has the delicate, fresh flavor of vine-ripened grapes. It is a dry wine, having a very low sugar content—just enough to counteract its slight acidity. When a bottle of Champagne is opened, its distinctive bouquet is unmistakable even from some distance, yet its pungent aroma retains the subtlety of the lightest of wines. Its columns of minute bubbles race from the bottom of the glass, releasing a rich, full-bodied flavor not usually found in still wines. Many sparkling wines attempt to compete with Champagne, but there are very few that can match the inimitable qualities of this delicious effervescent wine.

The Small Province of Champagne is in Northern France and, like Burgundy or Cognac, only wine produced there should be called by the name of the province. However, the universal popularity of this wine has created such a demand for it that vineyards the world over produce it in vast quantities, calling it “Champagne” with impunity.

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Dom Pérignon, a monk in the Abbey of Hautvillers in Champagne, is credited with the discovery of champagne around 1700. He actually did not discover the wine, but derived a method of bottling it which preserved its effervescence by sealing the bottles with tightly fitting corks during the second fermentation period. The corks were securely wired in place so the pressure built up by the carbon dioxide did not force them out, and tick-walled bottles were used to prevent explosion. The pressure inside an unopened champagne bottle can reach more than 120 pounds per square inch.

Prior to the time Dom Pérignon served as cellermaster of the Abbey, the champagne bottles were stopped with rags soaked kin olive oil to keep out vinegar bacteria. Of course the fizzy quality of the wine escaped into the air and the champagne was merely a still, dry white wine. Some modern experts feel that Dom Pérignon’s most important contribution was his blending technique. Y carefully combining the wines of several different vineyards in the area, he found that a superior wine could be created. The practice of blending has been continued in modern times in order to produce Champagne of consistent quality and character. Thus, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as “vintage Champagne.”

Thanks to the ingenuity of Dom Pérignon and his innovations of blending and cork bottle stoppers, the monks at Hautvillers found to their extreme delight that instead of the frail, tart, still white wine to which they were accustomed, then now had a full-bodied sparkling wine, more delicious than any they had tasted.

There was still one serious problem yet to be solved. One of the by-products of the second fermentation was a sediment which collected in the Champagne bottles; it was simply a collection of dead yeast cells which made the otherwise clear wine, cloudy and dark. Eighteenth century wine glasses were even constructed of frosted glass which hid the unappetizing appearance of the sediment-filled Champagne. Filtering the Champagne was found to be unsuccessful, since all the bubbles escaped during the filtering process, leaving a clear but flat wine. The problem was to devise a way of extracting the sediment while the wine was under pressure or with the pressure released only for a moment.

A clever genius of a women, Madame Clicquot, was responsible for solving the problem of ridding the Champagne of its unwanted sediment without losing its sparkling quality. After the death of her husband, who owned a vineyard, she carried on the business, building a fine reputation for the wine bearing her husband’s name. Madame Chicquot pondered the problem at length and finally arrived at a solution—invert the bottles and allow the sediment to collect on the cork. To do this, she had a long table bored with holes large enough to accommodate the inverted Champagne bottles. She found it necessary to give a gentle shake to some of the bottles which served to jar the sediment off the insides. The procedure was called remuage or moving. The next stage was the actual removal of the cork and sediment, called dégorgement. This was achieved by holding the bottle upside down, cutting the string or wire, removing the cork and pouring off the first two inches of wine containing the sediment. A small amount of still wine was then added or “topped up” to replace the wine which had been removed and a new clean cork forced into the bottle to be secured with wire or string. Since many people preferred the Champagne sweeter than its natural state (it was completely sugarless and dry at the end of the second fermentation period), the topping-up wine was mixed with sugar and a stabilizing drop or two of brandy. This mixture became known as the dosage. The degree of sweetness of Champagne was easy to control, since it depended on the amount of sugar in the dosage. Brut, the driest Champagne, has almost no sugar added to the topping-up wine; sec had a small amount, demi-sec slightly more, and doux a generous amount. The sweeter Champagnes were generally less expensive, as the sugar helped to conceal inferior qualities.

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HOW TO SERVE CHAMPAGNE

Champagne should be served well chilled, but it should never be frozen. Wine, like all “living things,” should never be made to withstand temperature extremes or violent shocks. When opening the bottle do not allow the cork to fly across the room—too much wine and sparkle will escape. Wrap the neck of the bottle in a napkin or towel and tilt the bottle about 45 degrees. Grasp the cork in the other hand and slowly twist the cork out of the bottle. An audible pop will accompany the release of the cork from the bottle and the Champagne is ready to pour.

One common mistake made by many restaurants is to serve Champagne in a wide-mouthed, shallow, stemmed glass. This type of glass aids and abets the escape of the bubbles which the vinters took such pains to put into their wine in the first place. The most appropriate glass (and one that helps to retain the sparkle) in which to serve Champagne is a clear, tulip-shaped goblet with the rim bent slightly toward the center. It should be chilled and filled nnot more than two-thirds full.

HOW TO MAKE ICE BUCKETS FOR CHAMPAGNE

Select a plastic bucket of the desired shape and size for the mold, making certain that the finished ice buckets will be capacious enough to accommodate the size Champagne bottle beiung served. Fill the bucket with cold water. If you wish to tint your ice buckets, stir in vegetable food coloring, drop by drip, until the desired shade is achieved. Freeze until only the center remains soft and the water walls are hard. Remove from the freezer and scoop out as much of the central semi-ice to allow an empty quart beer bottle (securely wrapped in three thicknesses of aluminum foil) to be sunk in. Weight the beer bottle with enough pebbles or dry beans to keep it steadily in place. Return to freezer. On the day before the bucket is to be used, immerse the plastic mold to within ½ inch from the top rim in hot water until the ice (with the bottle still in the center) slides out of the plastic. Firmly grasp the foil-covered bottle and gently pull until the bottle slides out. Stuff the centers with foil and return to the freezer until the last possible moment. Make certain that the tray you use to hold the ice bucket has enough depth to catch the runoff as the ice bucket begins to melt. Insert the chilled bottle of Champagne in the Ice Bucket just before serving.