"champagnes" news and stories

When you're having a celebration and pop open a bottle of champagne, there are few things more disappointing than finding out you bubbly isn't all that bubbly. The Wall Street Journal's Science Journal considered the science behind champagne this week, starting with ways to maximize bubbles. To do this, all you need to do is wipe off the inside of your champagne flutes with a paper towel. The tiny fibers from the towel will cling to the inside of the crystal (or glass) and act as "bubble formation" sites. Alternatively, you can also set your champagne flutes right-side up around your guests. The glasses will collect a few tiny fibers from clothing, stirred up into the air by the movement of party guests, and will have the same effect on the champagne as the toweled glasses.

If you have very expensive champagne flutes, it is worth noting that neither of these steps might be necessary. It is a common practice for glassmakers to put tiny "microetches" inside high-end flutes to achieve the bubbling effects without towels or partygoers.

Champagne is a term that applies to sparkling wines that are from the Champagne region of France. This name is protected, in Europe, by Protected Designation of Origin status and in France by Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, both of which state that to use the name "champagne," the wine must be produced in France, in the Champagne region and in a traditional manner to produce a specific product. Everything else is just a sparkling wine, not champagne.

This standard is followed throughout Europe and many other countries, although the US, for example, does not follow it and any sparkling wine can use the word champagne, which is considered to be a generic term. In France, the word carries a premium image and a premium price, so there is an incentive for sellers to use it instead of other descriptors. Just last week, the police arrested a number of people for passing off "tens of thousands of bottles of low-priced bubbly wine" as champagne, selling it for 5 to 10 times the original price after replacing the bottles' labels with false champagne labels. Most of these wines were sold "via associations or in door-to-door sales," which goes to show that if you want a premium product, you are better off going to a reputable source.

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