Long believed to have “positive effects on women’s beauty and men’s wit”, Champagne is the world’s most famous sparkling wine, and actually one of the world’s best-known products indelibly associated with France. A true status symbol, Champagne is both the name of a wine region near Paris and that of a wine. Most importantly, Champagne can be made nowhere else but France: other wines can be made in the manner of Champagne, meaning by secondary fermentation in the bottle (the process by which bubbles are created within the glass vessel) but there can be no Australian, California or other such “Champagne”. The French Appellation of Champagne was first defined in 1927, and covers roughly 34,300 hectares and the territories of 319 villages, also called “crus”. There are something like 280,000 plots, tended by more than 16,000 growers, that make up the area planted to vines in Champagne. Those not exactly small numbers tell you that for all its luxury image, there’s quite a bit of Champagne to go around. But let’s not quibble: given the unique soils and climate, and the centuries-old grape-growing and winemaking knowhow of the region, at its pinnacles of quality, there is simply no sparkling wine quite like Champagne. Indeed, it’s a special place: and in 2015, on July 4, the Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
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