Champagne still the New Year’s Eve party drink

16/08/2007

Champagne has been around for centuries and is still a popular drink with many people at New Year’s Eve parties. Complemented by simple, yet delicious hors d’oeurves, sparkly decorations and party-making music champagne is the ultimate icing on the New Year’s Eve party cake.

Champagne was first discovered hundreds of years ago after some freak weather in the region of Champagne in France. Wine is normally harvested during the warm season but on this occasion there was a quick cold snap that stopped or hindered the fermentation process. By the next spring it was found that the yeast that had lain dormant during the winter months had reawaken and went through another fermentation to create the bubbles of champagne that tickle your nose. Once discovered, a Benedictine monk called Dom Perignon, from the seventeenth century started to experiment with the champagne making process, that second fermentation. He also experimented with different types of bottles, storage of the bottles and using string to tightly tie the corks.

Since then the second fermentation process has been refined and made consistent. Champagne is normally made up of a blend of three different types of grapes from three different vineyards. Sometimes, wine makes may even combine different years. Black grapes such as pinot noir are mixed with white grapes like chardonnay to make champagne. Only those wines made in the Champagne region can be branded champagne. This is a legal regulation from the French government. Others are called sparkling wines.

The key to great champagne for your next New Year’s Eve party is to remember a few important facts. If you want a vintage champagne look for a year on the label as a this type of champagne only uses the harvest from one single year while a non-vintage champagne will blend different harvests from different years and won’t include the year on the label. If you are looking for a sweet champagne buy a demi-sec or doux. For a dry champagne taste go for a brut or extra-brut.

Keep your champagne chilled in the refrigerator (not the freezer) at about 10 degrees Celsius. Pull it out just before you want to serve and store in an ice water filled bucket. Make sure you point the top of the bottle away from you, other people and valuables when you go to open it. Take the wire cage off the cork, and then holding the cork in your preferred hand and the bottle in your other at a forty-five degree angle twist the bottle one way and the cork in the opposite direction. Keep twisting the bottle and cork slowly until the cork slowly comes out of the top. When you are pouring out the champagne hold the neck of the bottle in one hand and the base with your thumb under the bottom pouring slowly.

Buying the best champagne is the perfect way to ring in the New Year at your New Year’s Eve party. Keep it chilled and at the ready for when your guests arrive and make sure you have enough for when the clock strikes midnight.