Just north of Paris the wines are overflowing and the bubblys rise. When touring this region you will be frequently offered champagne. Read more below from, Tasting French Champagne: A Transcendent Experience."The original wine made in the Champagne region of France was a still wine. The origin of champagne with bubbles is murky.
It is presumed that because of the fluctuating storage temperatures and the nature of yeast, some of the still wines were eventually converted into sparkling wines on their own. Subsequent tinkering and careful trial and error led to the process in use today.
Dom Perignon, who was the cellarmaster at the Benedictine Abbey in Hautvillers in the late 1600s, is credited with creating the first champagne. Actually the process of making sparkling wine had been around a long time before he came on the scene. But, it was he who had the idea to use cork as a stopper for the wine they called champagne, instead of the wooden stoppers previously used.
He also perfected the riddling process and the second fermentation. That, and the use of stronger glass bottles to contain the bubbly, are the signature of the Benedictine Abby's wine - the first modern champagne.
Today, Dom Perignon Champagne is recognized for such high quality that it is a valuable long term investment for the world's most distinguished champagne collectors. It is the most expensive champagne in the world, with a recent auction of two bottles of the "rarer than rare" 1959 vintage of Dom Perignon Rose bringing a record $84,700!
According to Richard Geoffroy, Dom Perignon Chef de Cave: "Dom Perignon Rose Vintage 1959 is a rare, superlative, mythical vintage. Powerful and solar, its light will inspire the creation of Dom Perignon Rose forever." Wow! I wish I could have tasted one of those."
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