The Very "First's" of Champagne

The world of Champagne is drenched in history. Here I take you through a small, fun insight on the important firsts in the world of champagne.

The First Champagne

The origins of champagne is always debated. Benedictine monks in Carcassonne are documented as making a sparkling wine since 1531. Their version is called Blanquette de Limoux and is bottled before it has finished fermenting. So, while the Carcassonne abbey may have a claim as possibly the first sparkling wine made on purpose, they did not invent the modern Champagne-making method. However, Carcassonne’s claim gave rise to another legend which says that Dom Perignon had visited their abbey, saw their wine-making process and stole the recipe from them – It seems those monks were not to be trusted!

The Oldest Wine Producer in Champagne Region

Maison Gosset

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Gosset, founded in Aÿ in 1584 by Pierre Gosset; is the oldest wine-producing house in Champagne. Back in the 16th century they were of course making still wines rather than sparkling as it was still an invention and was finding its way.

Remarkably, the house was in the hands of the Gosset family for 16 generations: the First historical mention of the Gosset family is of Jean Gosset, Seigneur d'Aÿ, in 1531. In 1584, Jean’s grandson, Pierre Gosset, was appointed mayor of Aÿ, and at this time it is documented that he owned vineyards and produced wines, and that his wines were sold in both Paris and Brussels. Pierre’s descendants continued to produce wine and expand the business all the way up until December 1993, when Antoine Gosset sold the house to the Cointreau family.

The First Champagne House

Maison Ruinart

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The House of Ruinart was founded on September 1, 1729, by Nicolas Ruinart. This followed the purchase of land and crayères, ancient chalk quarries, at a site known as Le Moulin de la House. It was the insight of his uncle, a learned Benedictine monk called Dom Thierry. He foretold that this new “wine with bubbles”, established in his native Champagne adored by European courts, was destined for a bright forthcoming.

Nicolas Ruinart started his First ledger dedicated to “wine with bubbles”, on September 1, 1729, establishing the First champagne house ever. While sparkling wine was known by people, but there was no official name to it when Ruinart was established.

The latter half of the 18th century, Ruinart built premises on the hills of Reims and on Saint-Nicaise which were destroyed during World War I. They were fully restored in the consequences of the First World War, keeping to the original layout and architecture, based on a U-shaped cavalry barracks design. The site has been extended by the addition of more contemporary buildings.

The Ruinart Champagne House owns the most impressive crayères in terms of its sheer size. These ancient chalk quarries originally reached heights of almost 50 metres at many segments; however, they were partially filled in to one level of 24 galleries and shafts on a single level for use as cellars.

The Ruinart cellar network, runs over 8 kilometres, brings together medieval crayères and galleries dug out during the time of the Ruinart family.

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The First Clear Champagne

Madame Barbe Nicole Ponsardin or Madame Clicquot

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While champagne was gaining popularity as a beverage, it was still a hazy looking wine. Something that didn’t look premium, in efforts to make a clear and lean looking sparkling wine a new process was introduced. Madam Clicquot believed that, it was because of sediment that made the wine cloudy. A lifelong insomniac, the widow set out to remove this obstacle to success.

A process was developed in 1816 by Antoine de Müller, the Chef du Cave (head of the wine cellar) and Madame Clicquot (Barbe Nicole Ponsardin) who pioneered the process called rémuage (from the verb remuer, to move something several times).

Her solution was to bore holes into a table to create what became known as the riddling rack, an invention that made the crucial process of ejecting sediment, called dégorgement, efficient and economical.

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The First Brut Champagne

In 1846, Perrier-Jouët made an essential move by producing a Champagne without any residual sugar at all. But Champagne drinkers found it too severe—too brute like, hence the term Brut. It took another generation before Brut wine gained widespread acclaim.

In the second half of the 19th century, another widow, Jean Alexandrine Louise Pommery, aimed her sights at the expanding English market and pioneered the now-common drier Brut Champagne to meet the preferences.

Domaine Pommery

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The house of Pommery claims to have produced the First truly “Brut” style of champagne, the 1874 “Nature” that was shipped solely to England in 1879. Today’s “Brut” contains less than 12 grams per liter of residual sugar.

The Brut designation was reportedly originally created for the hard seltzer and cider drinking British market. It was her educational background in England that gave her an view of the product related to the market in England that like drinks that are pretty much not sweet at all.

The First Blanc de Blancs

Literally “white from whites,” Blanc de Blancs Champagne is made entirely from chardonnay grapes. This type of Champagne was created in 1905 by Eugène-Aimé Salon, founder of the Champagne house Salon, whose intention was to create a Champagne with maximum finesse, lightness, and elegance.

Launched in, 1911 'Grand Vin Nature du Mesnil' was the first blanc de blanc champagne to be released in 1921. The grapes used to make the champagne are from the commune Le Mesnil-sur-Oger in the Côte des Blancs subregion of Champagne, and from one hectare of Salon’s own garden.

Easy to say, but exceedingly difficult to do, since the winemaker is limited to one grape variety has fewer overall wines with which to work.

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The First Rosé Wine

Oeil de Perdix ("Eye of the Partridge") refers to "a delicate pink coppery colored reflection of the bird’s eye. Ruinart ’s ledger from March 14th, 1764, is proof to claim the first house to produce a rosé champagne. The book talks about a shipment of a basket of 120 bottles of champagne, out of which 60 were, Oeil de Perdix.

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The color was achieved by many means, one being the use of color from elderberries. Slowly this style started to garner some popularity; the wave of success began in Germany where, on 14 March 1764, the book reports the famous first shipment of 60 bottles of Oeil de Perdrix to Baron de Welzel, who ordered rosé for His Serene Highness the Duke of Mecklembourg-Strelitz. Then the wine reached other countries, for example Austria, where Mr. de Neni, private secretary to H.M the Empress Marie-Thérèse in Vienna, received 60 bottles on 9 October 1764.

The following years saw shipments sent to Denmark and the Czech Republic (1765), Italy (1767), Sweden (1768), the United Kingdom (1775), Switzerland (1795), Belgium, Luxembourg and Ireland (1814) and even Ukraine (1838).

With time there were many other terms that were used to describe the colour; rosét, rozet, paillé (straw), clairet (pale wine) and even cerise (cherry), and slowly the use of Oeil de Perdix lost in time.

The credit should also go to Madame Barbe Clicquot Ponsardin of Champagne Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin as she gave us what is the modern rosé champagne. In 1818, she gave the world the simplest way to make a rosé champagne, which was blending red and white to produce rosé. This was a style that was mass produced in later years and gained huge popularity.

The First Prestige Cuvée

Cristal is deemed as the first ever prestige cuvée came into being at the request of Tsar Alexander II of Russia in 1876. The Tsar had long been a lover of fine champagne and was a fan of Champagne Louis Roederer.

Tzar Alexander II

He approached the Maison to create a special champagne for his personal consumption, and to be served in his court. A champagne that would represent the absolute pinnacle of quality.

Louis Roederer were in the position to be able to fulfil this wish because, unlike the other champagne houses who bought most of their grapes from a multitude of small growers, Louis Roederer had their own vineyards.

This basically meant that not only did they have complete control over how the grapes were grown, but they were also fully aware of their quality, and having worked intimately with their vineyards for 40 years, they knew exactly which parcels would consistently yield the best grapes.

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The Maison was thus able to isolate these parcels of grapes to make what was to become the original prestige cuvée exclusively for the Tsar and his court.

In the nineteenth century, a system of color coding would denote quality and gold was understandably used to signify the finest wines, hence the iconic gold label and capsule. With a final flourish, the Tsar asked that each bottle be a clear decanter as; the clear glass would allow him to see if poison had been added to the champagne, this was the time when this new material called crystal was being invented hence it was used for the special decanters and hence the name ‘Cristal’.

He also requested that the punt, the deep indent at the base of a champagne bottle, be replaced with a flat bottom to prevent bombs being hidden in it. To give him his due, his paranoia was not without foundation since half of the previous 12 Tsars had been assassinated, a fate which was also to befall Alexander II himself despite his caution.

When the reign of the Tsars came to an end following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Louis Roederer decided to continue making this champagne, the summit of quality for the house, and it was eventually commercially released in 1945.

The First Single Vineyard Champagne

The story begins in 1935, when Pierre Philipponnat, the founding father of Champagne Philipponnat, acquired the unique Clos des Goisses vineyard in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ. Renowned for its incredibly steep, south-facing slope of pure chalk, which sits at an steep inclination of between 30 and 45 degrees.

Clos de Goisses, Philipponat

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The prestige cuvée originally got the name "Vin des Goisses" in 1935. Later suggested by Renaud Boudoin, a French journalist, to adapt the name to "Clos des Goisses"; as the wine is completely about the identity of the "clos". In 1959, they went ahead and changed the name. A good choice, as "clos" being the French term for "a walled vineyard" and "goisses" regional slang for "very steep vineyards".

To conclude; as historic and legendary as it gets, there is a lot to explore in the world of champagne. I hope with this article I have created some interest. So, go ahead and explore.