CHAMPAGNE: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times
William Morrow, 2005
It's been said that Champagne in northern France has been the site of more bloody battles, fiery incursions and large-scale wars than any other place on earth. From the time of Attila the Hun to the Germans in World War I when nearly everything was destroyed, countless invaders have tried to conquer this strife-torn land. How ironic it is then, that this region which has witnessed so much bloodshed is the birthplace of a wine symbolizing glamour, good times and celebration.
Napoleon visiting the caves of Moët & Chandon, 26 July 1807.
It's a story filled with larger-than-life characters: Dom Pérignon, the father of champagne, who, contrary to popular belief, worked his entire life to keep bubbles out of champagne; the Sun King, Louis XIV, who rarely drank anything else (several bottles before hitting the sack); and Napoléon Bonaparte, who, in trying to conquer the world, helped introduce it to the world. Wherever his soldiers went, they were trailed by armies of champagne salesmen who, when the battles were over, would set up their tables and start selling bubbly to the vanquished, thereby establishing new markets for their product.
Dom Pérignon
The Evening World (New York, N.Y.), August 1, 1914 (WAR EXTRA!)
"We'll bloody the Bosch and be home by Christmas!" the French thought. It didn't turn out that way.
Harvesting under the bombs.
What made Champagne especially enjoyable to write is that most of the champagne makers we interviewed shared some of their bottles with us. Would you believe a 1914 sparkler from Pol Roger, a vintage harvested when World War I began? It's sometimes said that champagnes made back then have the taste of blood in them because so many people were killed while harvesting the grapes. We didn't taste any blood but we did feel transported back in time as we shared a bottle from that 1914 vintage with Christian Pol-Roger. Believe it or not, the champagne was still alive, the bubbles were still there, though not as many as a hundred years earlier.
As we said, this was a fun book to write. We consumed so much champagne during our "work" that we practically needed life jackets. Somehow we survived.
Reviews of Champagne:
"A lovingly written ode to this incomparable, festive wine." — Newsday (New York)
"An outstanding contribution to popular wine history… ."A delight." — Wine Enthusiast
"The bloody history of Champagne has been told before, but not in such a breezy, easygoing volume. Good froth." — New York Times
French troops marching to the front, 1914.
Destruction in Reims, the unofficial capital of the Champagne wine-growing region.
Nothing about champagne, however, is simple or straightforward; its story overflows with irony. … It takes poor soil to make good champagne; black grapes are used to make white wine; a blind man saw stars; the man credited with putting bubbles in champagne actually worked most of his life to keep them out. The greatest irony of all, however, is that Champagne, site of some of mankind's bitterest battles, should be the birthplace of a wine the entire world equates with good times and friendship.
—Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times