We recently wrote about some common myths about champagne, the world-famous sparkling wine region in France: 3 Myths About Champagne That Every Champagne Lover Should Know. Here’s a follow-up with five more “myths” or misconceptions. Knowing these will make you enjoy champagne even more. In fact, they apply not only to champagne but to any sparkling wine.
“Serve champagne ice cold”
“Serve it just above freezing point. Put it in an ice bucket and keep it there until it is empty.” This is a good idea for simple white wines or everyday rosés. For champagne (and other quality sparkling and white wine) it can be a disaster, especially if it is a very good wine. Serving a wine ice cold removes most of its taste. At just a few degrees above freezing, you’ll just get a pleasant acidity and a prickliness from the bubbles.
A rule of thumb is that the more full-bodied and the better quality wine, the higher the serving temperature. I would serve a “standard” champagne at 46-50 F (8-10 C) and then give it time to warm up a bit in the glass. If you have it in an ice bucket, just put it occasionally in the bucket and keep it on the table otherwise, or in a bucket with very little ice. Or, actually, in a bucket with only ice and no water. If there is no water in the bucket, the chilling effect will be modest.
If it is a top-quality cuvée, then I would serve it at 54-58 F (12-14 C), and I would not worry if it gets a bit warmer. The higher temperature will let the aromas and flavours develop much better than when it is very cold.
In fact, this is valid for all white wines!
“Drink it from the classic flute or coupe glass”
The two traditional glasses for champagne are the “flute” and the “coupe”. Both are actually terrible for enjoying wine. They may look pretty, but they are very effective at hiding the flavours.
The “flute” is the tall and narrow glass. It shows off the bubbles very nicely, but it does not have any space in the narrow shape to allow the bouquet (the nose) to develop. Your expensive wine will not have any aromas when you smell it, which is a pity.
The “coupe” is the wide and flat glass, almost similar to a dry-martini glass. This is even worse, no space for the aromas to develop at all.
We often travel to visit champagne producers, and we have noticed that it is becoming more and more common that they serve their champagnes in “normal” wine glasses rather than the traditional flutes. They often use a glass that is more or less tulip-shaped and of a decent size so that you only fill it up to a maximum of a third of the bowl, the same kind of glass that you would use for any red or white wine. This is clearly the best shape for sparkling champagne as well.
(A little aside: sometimes it is said that certain glass shapes are best for certain types of wine, “a pinot glass”, “a Napa cabernet glass”, “a Barolo glass”… The benefit of the different shapes are mainly seen on the profit account of the glass manufacturers. It will make very little difference for the taste of the wine, as long as the shape of the glass is generally good.)
The glass can be slightly narrower than a regular wine glass, but it doesn’t have to be. That design is mainly created to show off the bubbles better, but it is really the taste you want to enjoy, isn’t it?
Some sparkling wine glasses are specifically designed to create a pretty flow of bubbles. They have a small, invisible etching at the bottom of the bowl that releases more bubbles.
“Vintage champagne is always better”
Most champagnes, from the Champagne region in France, are blends of several different vintages, so-called non-vintage (NV) champagnes, different grapes and from different vineyard plots. Vintage champagnes – millésimé – come from a single vintage. They are often priced substantially higher and presented in luxury packaging. That does not mean that they are better.
A producer will usually make an effort to keep a non-vintage champagne's character and flavour consistent from year to year. Vintage champagne, on the other hand, is different from year to year. They express the variations in weather. A hot year will give a fuller champagne, a cool year will give a more steely one. This can be an interesting experience for a wine lover, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is better.
This is part of a general trend in Champagne of houses producing more “prestige” cuvées (or brands). Vintage is one type of prestige cuvée, but there are others, for example “multi-vintage” (that to some extent can be seen as a rebranding of the traditional NV blend). This can be seen as a conscious strategy of moving towards more expensive brands. The production area for Champagne is limited so houses cannot easily grow their output. Instead, they can grow their revenues by moving towards more prestige cuvées, i.e. more expensive bottlings.
“Champagne always comes from Champagne in France”
This is an interesting one and one that is likely to cause a bit of “debate”. Champagne is a wine region two hours east of Paris in France. In Europe, geographic origin is always important. A Bordeaux wine must come from Bordeaux, a Burgundy wine must come from Burgundy – and a Champagne must come from Champagne.
This is strictly defined and controlled in wine laws in the European Union (EU). In the EU, the only wine that can (legally) be called champagne is the bubbly coming from the Champagne region. The EU has extended this protection to many other countries by various trade agreements: Other countries respect the champagne brand (and many others), and in return, the EU respect the brands of other countries. So, for that reason, in most cases, a wine called champagne must come from Champagne.
But there are exceptions.
Not all countries have signed this kind of trade agreement with the EU, and then champagne does not necessarily have the same protection. Here, other sparkling wines can legally be called champagne. After all, EU laws are just valid in the EU, just as US laws are just valid in the US.
In the US, there is a slightly more complicated situation. The US has signed a trade agreement with the EU protecting the name “champagne” since 2006. US sparkling wines cannot legally be called champagne. Except…: The agreement has a grandfather clause allowing wines that were produced under the brand “champagne” in the US before the signing of the agreement to continue using that name. Very few do. But some still do, for example, Korbel Champagne and Gallo’s André Champagne. But they must specify the origin, “California Champagne”, and, of course, they cannot be sold in the European Union or other markets where the brand has been protected.
So, in practice, in most cases, champagne does come from the Champagne wine region in France.
Finally, there is the old habit of consumers to call any sparkling wine champagne, both in Europe and in other countries. That will take a long time to change.
“Champagne is the world’s best sparkling wine”
This is, of course, a question of personal preference. What is “the world’s best” of any wine is not a question of what some expert or critic tells you. And no one has a divine right to claim the title. It is a question of what is best for you.
But it is clear that many other wine regions around the world make outstanding sparkling wine, often challenging Champagne for the top spot: Cava in Spain, Franciacorta in Italy, MCC (Méthode Cap Classique) in South Africa and others. There are exceptional world-class wines from these places too.
What is “the world’s best” is for you to decide.
And then I have one bonus myth:
“Lots of small bubbles mean quality champagne”
We all love rules of thumb that make life easier. An often mentioned rule of thumb for champagne is that lots of very small bubbles are a sign of quality. It is not.
How many bubbles there are in a glass of sparkling wine (champagne or other) depends on many factors, and not really on the quality of the wine. A slightly dirty glass (e.g. with a lipstick stain) has fewer bubbles because the tiny amount of fat changes the surface tension. An extremely clean glass, straight out of a dishwasher, can also have fewer bubbles, since the bubbles emerge on small impurities or tiny specs of dust (hence, people sometimes recommend wiping the inside of the glass with a cotton cloth, which will leave tiny fragments and give more bubbles). A glass can be specially prepared to create more bubbles with a small (invisible) etching at the bottom of the glass.
And even more complex, different “glass melts” (the specific chemical composition of the glass raw material) give different amounts of bubbles. This is illustrated by this video with two identical glasses, washed identically, with the same wine in both, and poured at the same time. One has lots of bubbles, and one has almost none. The wine is the same.
As with any prestige product or famous brand, many stories have been created around champagne, sometimes to increase the mystique, sometimes in an effort to explain things that are not easy to understand, sometimes to make complicated things simple. And sometimes to make simple things complicated…
When we have now cleared another set of champagne myths, you can concentrate on enjoying the wine instead.
–Per Karlsson