Read Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader Online
Authors: Michael Brunsfeld
Later that year, the Rhode Island General Assembly decided that perhaps there was some credence to Dorr’s position, after all, and called a constitutional convention to change the voter requirements. New election laws—requiring a $1 poll tax, but not land ownership—took effect in May 1843. Dorr assumed he’d be able to return to his home state. Instead, he was arrested, charged with treason, convicted, and given a life sentence of solitary confinement and hard labor.
The harshness of the sentence angered the public and after a year the legislature voided his sentence. A few years later, they restored all of his civil rights. Although vindicated and freed, Dorr died a broken man two days after Christmas 1854.
On average, it will take 100 years for a tin can to disintegrate.
Here at the BRI, we love accidental inventions…especially when the accident turns out to be a party favorite. Here’s the bubbly history of the sparkling drink we all know as champagne
.
A
PLACE CALLED CHAMPAGNE
The story of champagne (the drink) starts in Champagne (the place). It’s a hilly, barren district around the Marne River in the far north of France. Fossil evidence shows that wild grape-vines have been growing in the region for more than one million years. Exactly when people started making wine from them is unknown, but records show that the Romans began serious cultivation of vineyards there as far back as 50 B.C. By the 12th century, the Champagne district had become a major crossroads of northern Europe and word of the region’s wines began to spread. By the 15th century wine had become the area’s most important commodity, and by the 16th century, royal houses all across Europe were drinking the wines of Champagne.
HAPPY ACCIDENT
Champagne’s northern location (its latitude is about that of Newfoundland) means a short growing season, and that short season has everything to do with the “invention” of champagne. As in any wine-producing region, at the end of the season Champagne’s grapes were picked, pressed, casked, and allowed to ferment. Wine fermentation occurs when yeast in the grape skins convert the sugar in the grape juice to alcohol—and carbon dioxide. This process requires fairly warm temperatures, but in Champagne it was stunted because of early cold. When it warmed up the next spring, the fermentation started again
—and that was the key
. Normally wine only goes through the fermentation process once, but that second fermentation of Champagne’s wines created additional carbon dioxide, which created additional bubbles. Just why this hadn’t been noticed before remains a mystery.
Why not before? One possible explanation has to do with Champagne’s winemaking and bottling process. Traditionally, green grapes were used to make white wines and red (or black) grapes were used to make red wines. But around 1660 the winemakers in Champagne discovered how to make a light-colored wine from a dark grape, specifically from the pinot noir grape. This new “gray” wine
—vin gris
—became popular in London. What many historians believe happened was that the casks were stored in the cold all winter, then shipped in the spring, just as the second fermentation was starting. When the wines arrived in England, they were quickly bottled and corked (the English had corks, the French did not), so the second fermentation continued in the bottle. Result: the bubbles were captured. The vintners thought it was a disaster…but the English loved it.
One bottle of champagne produces about 56 million bubbles.
The champagne industry had begun.
THE DOM
Why were there bubbles? How could winemakers produce them with consistency? And how could they keep the bottles from exploding? No one knew the answers to these questions. Champagne needed a master.
In 1668 the Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon became cellar master and treasurer of Saint-Pierre d’Hautvillers abbey in Champagne. At first he hated the
mousse
(bubbles), regarding them as a sign of inferior wine and a flaw to be eliminated. He was unsuccessful, but in the meantime he improved every step of the abbey’s winemaking: he greatly improved cultivation practices; imported thicker bottles from Spain and corks from England; and invented the tied-on metal cap to keep the corks on, leading to a significant decrease in losses from prematurely popped bottles. He is also credited with being the first vintner to make a blend—a
cuvée
—of wines from different grapes and vineyards that resulted in a superior product. By the time Dom Pérignon died in 1715, what he learned had been passed along to other winemakers in the region. There was still much improvement to come, but he had laid the foundation for the future of champagne.
FIRMLY GRASP THE CORK…
Over the next 150 years, the development of the champagne business progressed slowly, but a few events helped set the stage for an explosion of success.
• In 1715 Phillipe became king of France, and because he loved champagne, its popularity soared. Around the same time, chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal discovered what caused champagne’s second fermentation: the residual sugar left in the bottle through the winter. He started the practice of adding sugar to the wine in the spring—still an important part of the champagne process today.
“Brothers, come quickly! I’m drinking stars!” —Dom Pierre Pérignon
• In 1729 Nicolas Ruinart made his first recorded sale of champagne. (Today the House of Ruinart is the world’s oldest official champagne house.) Fourteen years later, Claude Moët started the House of Moët and began traveling the world, spreading the champagne gospel. By the end of the 18th century, 300,000 bottles of sparkling Champagne wines were being sold every year.
• In 1823 the cellar master at Veuve Cliquot invented “riddling,” a process that removed sediment from the wine, greatly improving its appearance and desirability. Also at this time, the corking and muzzling processes were mechanized.
AND POP!
In 1836 pharmacist Jean-Baptiste François invented the
sucrooenomètre
, a device that measured the amount of sugar in wine. Champagne vintners could now determine the exact amount of sugar needed to stimulate the second fermentation. Bottles lost to bursting dropped to 5 percent (from as high as 30 percent) and for the first time, a relatively uniform product could be marketed.
The changes and improvements finally came to a climax in the 1840s when champagne sales soared around the world. Result: vintners in the area virtually stopped making still (un-bubbly) wines—champagne was a better seller. By 1853 annual sales had reached 20 million bottles. By 1861 the United States alone was importing 11 million, and that market rose to 17 million just 10 years later. The industry would see few bad years until 1914.
BUBBLY GOES FLAT
The first half of the 20th century was a bad time for champagne makers. Most of northern France was a battlefield during World War I, with more than 40 percent of the Champagne vineyards completely destroyed by the war’s end. During the same time period they lost two of their biggest customers: the czarist regime was toppled by the Russian Revolution of 1917, and in 1918, the United States passed the 18th Amendment—Prohibition—making the sale of alcohol illegal. Then in 1929 the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began, followed by World War II.
A champagne cork leaves the bottle at approximately 60 mph.
But through it all, champagne refused to disappear. The champagne houses became organized, establishing strict rules of quality and working internationally to promote their wines. It worked. By 1950 sales were back up to 33 million bottles. By 1964 sales rose to 70 million. In 2004, Champagne’s winemakers sold an estimated 300 million bottles—170 million in France alone.
CHAMPAGNE FACTS
• Three types of grapes are blended to make champagne. Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier (black grapes), Chardonnay (a white grape). The blends are the secrets of each champagne house. Some use as many as 40 different wines to make a single champagne.
• Why does champagne intoxicate so quickly? The carbon dioxide is instantly absorbed by the stomach wall, which accelerates circulation once in the bloodstream, speeding the alcohol’s journey to the brain. (Little wonder champagne is such a party favorite).
• Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin took over her husband’s small wine business after his death in 1805 and made Veuve Clicquot (“Widow Clicquot”) one of the biggest names in the business. (In the film
Casablanca
, Rick asks Ilsa to stay for some champagne. Her response? “If it’s Veuve Clicquot, I’ll stay.”)
• Ever wonder why there are no Italian, German, or Spanish champagnes? Many nations have agreed to make it illegal for any but the vintners of Champagne, France, to use the term
champagne
. To this day, only the United States, Canada (except for the province of Quebec), and some Asian countries use the term “champagne”—everywhere else it’s called “sparkling wine.”
• The ancient Romans began the serious cultivation of grapes in Champagne, and gave the region another (unintended) boost. They quarried the area’s chalky hills for blocks, leaving extensive networks of caves up to 300 feet deep and many miles in length. These caves are still used today for the fermenting of champagne. There are a billion bottles in storage there at any given time.
• Winston Churchill’s rallying cry to British troops in World War I: “Remember gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s champagne!”
“I could not live without champagne. In victory I deserve it, in defeat I need it.” —Napoleon
It’s amazing how much things have changed in 40 years.
Vital Stats:
World population: 3.4 billion. (It’s now 6.4 billion.)
• Average yearly wage: $4,938
• 40 percent of women work outside the home.
• Life expectancy: 70.2 years. (Today it’s about 78.)
• A postage stamp cost 5¢; a gallon of gas, 32¢; a McDonald’s hamburger, 15¢; a movie ticket, $1.09; and a gallon of milk, 99¢.
Television:
The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Flintstones
, and
Mr. Ed
end their runs.
Dark Shadows, Batman, The Monkees, That Girl, The Newlywed Game
, and
Star Trek
debut. Canada gets color TV.
Top Grossing Movies:
Thunderball, Dr. Zhivago, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
, and Disney’s
That Darn Cat!
Sports:
England wins the soccer World Cup; the Baltimore Orioles win the World Series; the Boston Celtics win their eighth consecutive NBA title; golfer Jack Nicklaus wins his third Masters. The first NFL Super Bowl is still a year away.
New Books:
Valley of the Dolls
by Jacqueline Susann and
Quotations from Chairman Mao
are now among the top 10 bestsellers of all time.
Music:
The Beach Boys’
Pet Sounds
, The Beatles’
Revolver
, Bob Dylan’s
Blonde on Blonde
. #1 single: “The Ballad Of The Green Berets” by Barry Sadler.
News:
In
Miranda v. Arizona
, the Supreme Court rules that police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning.
• First African-American Senator: Edward Brooke from Massachusetts.
• More than 300,000 American troops are fighting in Vietnam.
• First African-American professional coach: Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics.
• The Black Panther Party forms in Oakland, California.
Science:
Russia’s unmanned
Luna 9
lands on the moon, as does the U.S.’s
Surveyor I
.
Deaths:
Walt Disney, Buster Keaton, Elizabeth Arden, Lenny Bruce, Sophie Tucker, and author Evelyn Waugh.
Have you? 14% of Americans say they’ve skinny-dipped with the opposite sex at least once.
When a BRI staffer suggested an article about the history of cremation, everybody said “ew!” But hey—death is a part of life, something we all have to deal with. (Ew!)
F
IRST FLAME
In 1873 Sir Henry Thompson, a prominent English physician and surgeon to Queen Victoria, attended the Vienna Exposition. There he saw a cremating oven invented by an Italian professor named Brunetti, along with the ashes of someone who had been cremated in the device. Thompson was so impressed that when he returned home he founded the Cremation Society of England and began lobbying to make cremation a socially acceptable alternative to burial, the standard practice in Christian countries. (While cremation was not expressly forbidden by most Christian churches, it was discouraged out of the fear that destroying the body by fire would prevent it from being reunited with the soul on Resurrection Day.)
NO VACANCY
The foundation of the Cremation Society was timely. England’s population was booming, which meant more people dying, and existing graveyards simply could not accommodate them all. In large cities the problem was particularly acute: one Parliamentary investigation found that while London had only 200 acres of graveyards within the city limits, 50,000 bodies were being buried in them every year. The graveyards were so overcrowded that you literally could not bury one person without digging up another. The smell of decomposing remains in graveyards was so overpowering that grave diggers were said to be “drunkards by force.” The graveyards of the late 19th century were serious public health hazards.