A glass of champagne is one of those refreshing drinks that can be sipped anytime throughout a long day. The light, fresh taste and fruity bubbles in the mouth will complement a light lunch as well as brunch very nicely. The juicy acidity makes it a fabulous choice with dinner; and the bright flavours make it an ideal alternative to whisky or brandy for a night cap just before bedtime. Although champagne can be consumed throughout the day at home, or at work! Champagne is unquestionably one of those drinks associated with luxury, bottles of
Dom Perignon and
Moet et Chandon are well known brands often toasted at awards ceremonies, weddings and engagements.
Leaving a couple of drops of champagne at the bottom of your glass after your nightcap, will not feel like you are throwing money down the drain. However, leaving half a glass of champagne or even rosé champagne after your meal in your everyday run of the mill restaurant, might. Since, you will not get much change out of £15. Expensive, right?
Before I go on, I would like to make it clear that it is Champagne from France I am talking about here, not just any old sparkling wine from elsewhere in the world. As you may know there are lots of delicious sparkling wines to be found from many different countries, including Spanish
Cava, Italian
Asti and Prosecco, as well as some fabulous sparkling wines from the USA and Australia. If you go to a restaurant and ask the waiter to bring you any of these sparkling wines by the glass, you may be talking about £5 to £7 instead. So, why is there such as huge price gap between a glass or bottle of champagne from France and other sparkling wines from the rest of the world?
Well, to begin with the fact that the drink itself has come from the Champagne region adds to the price tag without a doubt. This devoted region possesses some of the most expensive fields in the world boasting acres and acres of vineyards owned by large and small champagne makers. The area is restricted by strict laws on how much champagne can be produced per vine acre; this stabilizes competition, but because demand is so high, the price consequently remains high too.
The second reason for the expensiveness of the world renowned beverage is that the Champagne region has one of the coolest wine growing climates in the world, which means that a lot of effort has to be taken to ensure the grapes to ripen correctly. Expensive equipment needs to be bought and used to protect the vines from spring frosts, and unfortunately, there is always the possibility that a large part of the crop will never ripen due to the limited amount of sunshine. So, we can see that it costs more money to grow the grapes, because not only will you paying for the grapes that made it into your
champagne glass, but also the ones that did not!
One of the most important reasons however, is that Champagne is created through an extremely laborious method called “the methodé champenoise”. This intense production has three long stages. The first requires putting wine into a bottle, and coaxing it to re-ferment, which creates the bubbles in the champagne bottle. After this, the Champagne must age for roughly 15 months, which means the wine maker must pay for storage on a product that will not show any return on investment for at least 15 months! The final stage involves the very careful extraction of the byproducts of the fermentation, which are dead yeast cells named lees. This part of the process requires intelligent equipment to remove the byproducts, which must also consider the pressure (which is equivalent to that in a car tyre) that has built up inside the Champagne bottle..
So, on review is paying the earth for a bottle of champagne really worth it? Well, in my opinion it most definitely is. As I already mentioned, Champagne is an extremely versatile drink that can be enjoyed at anytime, anywhere. I agree that you can enjoy
sparkling wines, including Cava, sparkling rose wines from America, Prosecco and Asti on a daily basis too, however they do not have quite the same luxury association as Champagne does. We can see that much time and effort is taken in ensuring that champagne is made to exacting standards due to the cool climate, harvest restrictions and area. But the reason I believe champagne is worth the expense, is that in one sip, it makes me feel a part of a more exquisite world where luxury and celebration go hand and hand, even in my semi-detached house in a rural village in Lincolnshire!
Date posted: 24/03/2010
