Champagne, which the French say is "like the laugh of a pretty girl," and "the barometer of happiness," has been associated with love and gaiety since it was first invented. The Rolls Royce of wines is said to have been created in its true sparkling form by Dom P6rignon, the man who put the bubbles in champagne and after whom MoR et Chandon named its most famous vintage some years ago. Dom Pierre P6rignon (1638 1715) was a blind man who renounced the world when only fifteen and joined the Benedictine order. Cellarmaster of the monastery near tpernay, France, his fantastic sense of taste and smell enabled him to experiment in improving the wines he attended. Dom P6rignon eventually found that corks tightly drawn in his bottles would not be forced out like rags and yet would retain naturally expanding gasses, allowing, for the socalled second fermentation in the bottle that is essential for any true sparkling champagne. After first tasting his creation in 1705, he is supposed to have cried, "Come quickly, I am drinking stars!" The story is unproven, but it certainly rates a toast, if only as an excuse for another glass.
Champagne is strictly only sparkling wine produced from grapes grown in the ancient French province of Champagne as defined by French law; it must be fermented in the bottle, not in high pressure tanks, and varies from brut, the driest, to doux champagnes with up to 407o sugar content. People are getting away from the idea that all champagne must be French; some American California and New York State "champagnes" (though their second fermentation is usually made by the bulk process in 500 gallon tanks) are very good indeed and less expensive as well. But that is a matter of individual preferences to be settled by trial and error. We can only say that French champagne has history, tradition and gourmands on its side, while other "champagnes" have the high cost of living in their corner. In any case, buy no champagne over ten years old; after that time the wine starts to darken and lose its taste. A first rate French champagne is Mercier Extra Dry ($7.49), and an American bottle fermented favorite is the Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs ($8.50) that President Nixon brought to Peking to toast Mao. Then there are what are called Super French Champagnes, special blends made by the best French houses and bottled in specially designed bottles that sell for as much as $25. Among these elegant cuv~es sphiales Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs 1966 ($12.99) is one of the best. Taittinger Comte de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 1966 ($21.39), Laurent Perrier Grand Si6cle 1964 ($21.95), Bollinger R. D. 1961 ($15.95) and Louis Roederer Cristal 1969 ($17.35) also rank very high.
At any rate, the "civilizing Champagne" of Talleyrand, "the wine of wines," "the wine of love ... .. the wine of the gods," "the devil's wine," is the most celebrated of all festive drinks. This sparkling white wine (and all wines are really white; that is, the grapes' juice turns red only if it is allowed to remain mixed with its crushed black skins for awhile) has sparked more love affairs than any beverage, legal or illegal. Great beauties have bathed in it and drunk it from golden slippers; Madame Pompadour called champagne "the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it"; and today Marlene Dietrich has a clause in her movie contract giving her the right to unlimited bubbly at any time she so desires. One Confederate General, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, to celebrate the first Battle of Bull Run, gave a ball where champagne was piped into the fountain in his courtyard and flowed for his belles all night. As for history's champion champagne drinker, he appears to :be a Monsieur Willy Jourclan, who drank over forty thousand bottles in his ninety four years better than a bottle a day from the time he was weaned.
Some will be surprised to learn that a little wine is always lost in the second fermentation of champagne and must be replaced with liqueur d'exp~dition, a formula varying with each bottler that generally consists of a spoonful of new and old wines, cognac and sugar, the amount of sugar determining how sweet or dry the champagne will be. As concerns the best glasses in which to serve champagne, a short stemmed tulip shaped affair, not the tall stemmed glasses so often used, retains the wine's bubbles and bouquet twice as long. Tinted glasses, incidentally, are a device of the past. They were introduced in the Victorian age to mask the large amount of sediment present in wines at that time and aren't necessary today. Neither should anyone try to best the record for a popped champagne cork (73 feet, 101/2 inches), for when a champagne bottle cork is popped out like a bullet, gasses and bubbles escape too quickly. The cork should be eased out gently, pointing the bottle at a 45 degree angle away from you and twisting the bottle off the cork. It makes no difference what size bottle your champagne comes in (claret, burgundy and port are usually fuller bodied in large bottles), and champagne is ideally served at 43 to 46 degrees F (though the French don't hesitate to drop a few ice cubes in their glasses on a hot day). Still another rule of thumb instructs that a very dry or brut champagne shouldn't be imbibed with sweet foods, which will make the dry wine taste sour. The proper way to drink champagne? According to Talleyrand, who was seized with "nausea" at the sight of "so much water" while visiting Niagra Falls, the only way to drink fine champagne is as follows: "You take the glass in the hollow of your hand; you warm it; you twist it around in a circular motion so that the alcohol gives off its perfume. Next, you raise it to your nostrils, inhale it, and then you put down your glass and 'talk about it."'
Another expert suggests that all but Cyranos stick their noses deep into the wine glass to sample the bouquet of champagne and all good vintages. Wine tasting itself is best done by whistling. "Now take a sip of wine, hold it in your mouth and whistle," our authority confides. "Whistle in, not out. Try to get a nice gurgle going. This technique also allows you to taste the wine for a longer period of time. For it extends that single instant when wine, air, tongue, gums and nose come together for the first time."
All fine wines "must be treated like a lovely woman in bed," as the old Bordeaux proverb instructs. When toasting with any wine, from chianti to champagne, try the Lover's Clink, your arms entwined and glasses tilted. For the toast itself one might say simply, as Wordsworth did, "Drink pretty creature, drink," or, to paraphrase Richard Sheridan: "Let the toast pass./ I drink to you lass./ I warrant you'll prove an excuse for a glass." Then again more appropriate under certain circumstances might be: "May you be in heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you've died." In any case, all the drinking and amenities properly observed will prove that old saw that women enjoy the wine of Burgundy particularly when their men have drunk of it. And vice versa. "Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used," Shakespeare wrote. That is, if drunk in moderation. Just recall the advice Shakespeare's porter gave to MacDuff upon being asked what things drink provokes. "Lechery, sir, it provokes and it unprovokes," the porter answered; "it provoketh the desire, but it takes away the performance."