Traditional Method
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What do you think of when I say Champagne?
I hear Champagne, I think riches and frivolity. Whilst I hate to generalise I think it’s safe to say that those themes of celebration and money tend to echo with most. So much so that not only is Champagne drunk all over the globe, it’s methods are replicated globally too.
Where does this method that’s inspired a world come from? You would be forgiven for assuming Champagne, you would be forgiven for assuming Dom Perignon, too. For isn’t that how the tale goes, that on discovering the secret to sparkling wine in that most famous region, Dom Perignon ran out of the cellar, romantically declaring: “Come quickly! For I am tasting the stars!”?
Well, not quite.
In reality, it is much more of a team effort than France and it’s Champagne houses like to let on.
In a tale to inspire Compound Drinkers™ everywhere, the invention of Champagne has a lot less to do with France and it’s monasteries and quite a bit more to do with English glassmakers and cider enthusiasts than one may think.
When Champagne first started making wine it was still, not sparkling. Still Champagne was so ingrained in the region’s drinking habits that it’s likely that Dom Perignon spent more of his time trying to keep the wine flat than encouraging that infamous sparkle.
So where did the fizz come from?
Well, the north of France, where Champagne can be found, is cold. Impressively so for a wine region. Temperature plays a big factor in fermentation, acting as an energy source of sorts. If the weather is too cold then fermentation simply does not have the fuel to get going. As the old saying goes; you’ll never achieve full fermentation in a climate that mild, my dude. Wine could be made in those northerly temperatures, but any fermentation underway would be halted as soon as the winter temperatures set in, laying in sweet slumber until spring.
As temperatures warmed up, that's when the fun would begin. Carbon dioxide bubbles would be omitted as the fermentation process got going again. Fine if the wine was still in some form of fermentation vessel, not so fine if it was already packaged and on it’s merry way overseas.
Most wine at this point would have been packaged and transported in wooden casks. Wood is an extremely porous material so any of that fizzy carbon dioxide associated with sparkling wine would be released into the atmosphere as soon as temperatures warmed up and fermentation started again. The wine would remain still and no harm was done.
However, for the wine that made it to its destination only to be bottled on arrival the glass at that time would have been so weak that, when fermentation started again, the carbon would become trapped, causing the glass to shatter under the pressure - an issue I imagine those in craft beer may empathise with.
(It’s worth noting at this point that the pressure contained in a bottle of Champagne is equivalent to that of a car tyre. It’s a drink that will always require careful handling and a sturdy container. Woe betide anyone who chooses to disrespect that cork and cage.)
Unluckily for England, they were currently one of very few European countries with a tradition of bottling the wine they imported. Thankfully for all of you with worries about health and safety they were about to make a major breakthrough in the glass department.
Concerned about the amount of trees being burnt to make glass (not for environmental reasons, but of fear there wouldn’t be enough left for ship building) the MP Sir Robert Mansell began to champion the use of coal in glass furnaces, in an attempt to ensure there was enough wood left for his beloved British Navy.
It wasn’t, however, until another Sir (unfortunately I cannot move for them in this snippet of history), one Sir Kenelm Digby in fact, came along with his realisation that the extra heat created with funneling oxygen into coke furnaces could result in the strong, remarkably less breakable, glass, that bottles began to resemble the robustness known today.
Verre Anglais, as it became known in France, not only created stronger bottles, but cheaper ones too.
Now this would have been a fantastic breakthrough for wine had England been making it at the time, but alas, this all occurred in the mid 1600s and English wine wasn’t really going to come to fruition until the 1960s. For whilst the Little Ice Age was freezing the Thames over for months at a time, causing havoc on agriculture, wine would have to wait its turn.
Enter, then, our good friend cider.
It’s one of cider’s most influential contributions to the packaging and methods that we know today, a contribution that tradition should respect, not remove.
“Our design is relieving the want of wine, by a succedaneum of Cider” writes John Eveleyn in 1664.
This writing in question is from John Evelyn’s Pomona. The Bible of Cider if you will. At the time of writing his Pomona one of the most popular apples was a variety called Redstreak, nicknamed Scudamore Crab after a (you guessed it) Sir John Scudamore, a Herefordshire apple grower at the time. The Redstreak was tough as nails and super tannic, not ideal for snacking, but apparently superb for cider making. So superb that the resulting cider was referred to as Vin de Scudamore and marketed as an alternative to the French and Spanish wines popular at the time.
The blurred parallels between cider and wine have been explored for centuries it would seem.
Not just that, but the oldest glass associated with cider drinking is a flute. Currently at home in the Museum of London the Scudamore Cider Flute is a thing of beauty. Adorned with apples, trees and the letter S for Scudamore it bears a striking resemblance to the Champagne flutes we know today.
Flutes are designed to keep bubbles persistent for as long as possible. So why was this design made for cider?
Well we’ll need to go back to our friend Sir Kenelm Digby for this one. As well as making waves in glass production Digby was also thinking about how this discovery could aid cider making. So he wrote a book, in which he detailed all the ways in which a person could make a cider sparkling with the aid of his trusty new glass bottles. Redstreak was the apple of choice for this endeavour and it came with strict instructions on seasonal storage solutions so as to keep the fermentation in hand and, more importantly perhaps, prevent any more exploding glass.
There is a rather tired debate that circulates cider conversations every now and then regarding cider being bottled in a 750ml glass format. It’s worth taking note at this point that the practice of bottling cider and examining how that could be used to progress it’s texture and taste predates wine. It’s one of cider’s most influential contributions to the packaging and methods that we know today, a contribution that tradition should respect, not remove.
As members of the Royal Society began to take interest in Digby’s findings - and the cider as well I imagine - the innovations didn’t stop. John Beale, of Herefordshire descent, discovered that adding a “walnut” of sugar would improve the quality of fermentation. Christopher Merret - in a paper entitled Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines - became the first person to write about how this technique could be applied to winemaking (sorry Dom Perignon).
England now had all the tools it needed to receive still wine from Champagne and turn it into sparkling magic.
So there we have it. A bastardised history of Champagne making. Not as a result of the French or the Holy, but as a result of English Knights and cider lovers. We quite simply love to see it.
The relationship between cider and champagne doesn’t stop there, however.
Fast forward two centuries (a portion of cider history for another time, perhaps) and the infamous Bulmers family are now at the forefront of cider’s industrial revolution.
Champagne has also undergone a revolution of sorts. By adopting and mastering the fermentation techniques explored above it was now Champagne’s turn to lead the way.
The success of Champagne is often pinned to it’s production methods and its unique flavour as a result, but it’s its marketing efforts that can take as much, if not more, of the credit here.
“Champagne’s negociants have long understood that once famous people start to buy a product the marketing becomes very straightforward.” writes Robert Walters in his brilliant book Busting Bubbles. “It was common knowledge in the wine trade that if you could only get a monarch or an emperor (or his wife or mistress) to buy or serve your wine at court, you would be well on the way to fame and fortune. Today, film stars, fashion models, singers and musicians are the new royals… When it comes to marketing Champagne, very little has changed.”
It’s no coincidence that when you think of Champagne you may think of luxury and money. With campaigns to rival its price tags Champagne has been selling itself as the drink of celebration and of cheer, of parties and of success and of fame and of fortune for centuries now.
Back to Bulmers, and Percy, the french speaker of the two brothers, was about to learn all of this for himself.
He travelled to Epernay, one of the main towns of Champagne, in order to learn from the best so as to help push Bulmers to new cider making heights. But he bought back with him more than scientific knowledge.
“Hereford - The English Rheims” declares the poster for Pomagne, a Champagne Cider de Luxe created by Bulmer’s on Percy’s return. Suitable “for parties, dances, masonie and other banquets”. Poster after poster portrays this new sparkling cider alongside Champagne terminology, images of coveted coupe glassware, adorned with sparkles and facilitating celebrations. This was a cider “for the connoisseur”. Made as, and, more importantly, sold as, Champagne.
Elizabeth Pimblett of the Cider Museum in Hereford kindly drew my attention to others following suit. Henry Godwin created ornate posters for their Cider and Champagne Perry. Women are pictured drinking it whilst sitting in oversized coupes, declaring ‘ooh la la!’ to the void.
From then, the Calypso was a name coined for Champagne Perry and Orange Juice, cider’s equivalent to a Bucks Fizz. Meanwhile Genette was the name given for a Champagne Perry and Gin cocktail, the “perfect marriage”, and even coming with branded fluteware as well as a sloganed beer mat. The Genette was so popular it resulted in a trademark disagreement that had to be taken to court. Proceedings that, as we’ll see shortly, were not uncommon with drinks associated with the name of Champagne.
It would be amiss of me to discuss the adoption of Champagne’s reputation to promote cider and perry without discussing the Daddy of them all: Babycham.
The OG Champagne Perry, Babycham, was born from the invention of a sterile filtration process. Francis Showering, a trained chemist, had been appointed as a manager of his family’s cider mill in the late 1930s and his invention resulted in a perry that was as clear as it was sparkling. It reminded him of Champagne and so Baby Champ, as it was originally called, was born.
Babycham was a roaring success, partly down to it’s taste, but also to the brand going all in on their marketing. Babycham was the first alcoholic product to be marketed on British television. Branded glassware was based on the coupe design, the bottle size was just the right size to fill a Champagne glass and advert after advert depicted the same Champagne imagery - celebrations, toasts, events. Focusing hard on a female market, Babycham sparkled just the way you wanted to feel.
So how did Champagne, having worked so hard to secure their exclusive reputation, feel about all this?
Not good, to put it mildly.
A 1979 case entitled H P Bulmer Ltd and Showerings Ltd v J Bollinger saw the big Champagne houses of the time having just about enough of their names being associated with drinks that, as far as they were concerned, were tarnishing the good name of Champagne. Whilst Bollinger was unsuccessful, shortly after the hearings Bulmers dropped their traditional methods in favour of bulk tank fermentations and off the back of the popularity of their Champagne cider, their journey into big, mass produced drinks commenced. Babycham had another few years of popularity before facing a slow decline in sales.
There is no solid conclusion to this piece, no big life lesson to be learnt, but I do take solace in these stories. In the same way that the rise of Grower Champagne is almost a protest at the mass marketed methods of the branded Champagne industry, so too are many cider makers rallying against the bulk Bulmers imagery by crafting their drinks with care, consideration and, more often than not, nods to the Champagne methods their forebearers inspired.
Boundaries blurred and innovations inspired, whilst not always good, can work to promote growth, to challenge ideals and to encourage new audiences to new ways of drinking. Discussions that are being had now are not new ones, they are born of centuries of discoveries. As more and more find cider and find wine and hopefully compound the two, so these discussions and discoveries will continue. I can only look forward to hearing what they have to say.
