champagne

champagne , sparkling white wine made from grapes grown in the old French province of Champagne. The best champagne is from that part of the Marne valley whose apex is Reims, the center of the industry. Champagne was reputedly developed by a monk, Dom Pérignon, in the 17th cent. It is a mixture of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes and is named for the vintners and shippers responsible for each blend. After the first fermentation the wine is blended; it undergoes a secondary fermentation, then is drawn off into bottles reinforced to withstand high internal pressure, and is sweetened to induce further fermentation. The carbonic acid retained in the bottle after the final fermentation renders champagne sparkling. The wine is matured in the labyrinthine tunnels of the old chalk quarries of Reims. Any sediment that forms is collected on the cork by tilting the bottle neck downward and frequently rotating it by hand. After fermentation comes the dégorgement process, whereby the neck of the bottle is frozen and the cork is removed; the lump of frozen sediment shoots out, propelled by the pressure in the bottle. The space left is filled with the proper dosage of cane sugar dissolved in wine and usually fortified with cognac. Brut champagne is theoretically not sweetened; extra dry champagne, very lightly. Sparkling American wine is sometimes called champagne.

Bibliography: See studies by S. Sutcliffe (1988), F. Nicholas (1989), M. Edwards (1994), M. McNie (1999), T. Stevenson (2003), G. Giger-Belair (2004), and D. and P. Kladstrup (2005).

champagne a white sparkling wine from Champagne in NE France, first produced there in about 1700, and regarded as a symbol of luxury and associated with celebration.
Champagne Charlie a name for a man noted for living a life of luxury and excess, from the name of a popular song, first performed in 1868.
champagne socialist in the UK, a derogatory term for a person who espouses socialist ideals while enjoying a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle.

champagne Sparkling wine from the Champagne region of north‐eastern France, made by a second fermentation in the bottle. Pioneered by Benedictine cellar master Dom Pierre Pérignon at the Abbey d'Hautvilliers, in the late seventeenth century. Sparkling wines from other regions, even when made in the same way, cannot legally be called champagne, but are known as being made by the méthode champenoise.