French Wine

Often when people think of wine, they think of French wine. That’s understandable. French grape growers and winemakers are considered the pioneers of premium wine production. And the truth is that almost all of the grapes grown for winemaking around the world originated from France. It is a natural thing to link wine with France.

France is famous for many wines. There are the red wines of Bordeaux or Clarets and Burgundy, and there are the white wines of Alsace. Probably the most famous of all French wines, however, is champagne! Champagne is the pinnacle of sparking white wines. Champagne has been there for all of the great and memorable events in people’s lives. We toast one another with champagne on New Year’s Eve, on birthdays, on anniversaries. Champagne and celebration are completely intertwined — you can’t have one without the other.

Champagne was invented more than 350 years ago. It isn’t a well-known fact, but actually champagne was discovered because wine spoils. Slow fermentation of the delicate and high-acid wines is interrupted by subzero temperatures during the winter months. Then, as the weather gets warmer during the summer, the yeast that were dormant during winter comes back to life and begins feeding on the sugars leftover from uncompleted fermentation. At the same time, carbon dioxide gas that was formed during fermentation has no escape, so it dissolves into the wine and creates the fizz in the bottle.

The drink, champagne, comes from the region in France, Champagne. The region is located in the most northern section of the wine-producing country of France.

Yes, the world owes France a big “thank you” for wine, and maybe a bigger “thank you” for champagne. How would we ever celebrate the big events in our lives without it?