An Uncertain History of Champagne

Just how champagne came to be opinions vary and there are many. The French insist it was no mistake like all great art they highly rate; indeed, a felicitous coupling of skill and savoir faire* resulting in a tingling bubbly effervescence rocketed champagne to prominence. (Other stories and less discreet explain the wine maker fell asleep and thus the fermentation exceeded normal maturation.) The French even claim to know the name of him who gave the wine its fame, (a lowly monk named Dom Pérignon), who described it as a phenomenon akin to “drinking the stars,” an epithet as valid today as when he first sipped it. *Savoir faire = Know-how