Champagne Beyond The Bubbles

It’s the drink of choice for celebrations, but Champagne is a wine that deserves to be enjoyed long past the hors d’oeuvres.

- Lindsey Tramuta

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE MAY POP every two seconds somewhere in the world, but if enduring assumptions about how and when it should be consumed are any indication, they are likely celebratory pours. In his new book Champagne: The Essential Guide to the Wines, Producers, and Terroir of the Iconic Region, author and ChampagneGuide.net founder Peter Liem writes that the result of marketing Champagne by brand rather than by region over the past century has brought the heritage product worldwide success but also “de-emphasised the concept of Champagne as a wine, marking it more as a beverage for celebrations or special events, or an aperitif—with ‘real’ wines reserved for the dinner table”.

Add to that the wine’s inextricable association with royalty and celebrity, a link dating as far back as 496 AD, when King Clovis converted to Christianity in Reims, and you have an image that’s difficult to bend. Think of the Emperor Napoléon, who is rumoured to have been the first to sabre a bottle while riding astride his horse.