The story of the devil's wine
Wine has been made for over 8000 years but only in the 1600's it started to be bottled in glass. Before wine was transported and served directly from the barrel or sealed leather bags.
This new method made it easier to store and transport smaller quantities of wine, standardizing the product.
When bottling wine in glass eventually became popular a strange phenomenon occurred.
In Champagne wine was produced mainly by monks and a still, clear wine was the goal of their already famous winemaking.
At that time not much of the process surrounding alcoholic fermentation was understood and so a lot depended on trial and error. When the wine was bottled in the fall it had seemingly completed fermentation, but unbeknown to the monks there was still life in the bottle. The yeasts had become dormant as temperatures dropped but as there was still sugar left in the wine, the microbes had a feast waiting for them when they woke up as the heat returned in spring when temperatures rose again.
During normal fermentation sugar and yeast create alcohol and CO2 during which the Co2 is just let off into the the cellar. But when fermentation takes place in a closed bottle the gas is trapped building up pressure to 3 atmospheres turning the bottles into ticking time bombs. (Remember the pressure in your car tire is a only 2 atmospheres.) Also keep in mind that in those days bottles were blown by hand and they differed in their thickness and strenghts. So often they would not withstand the pressure, which meant that every year 20% to 90% of the freshly bottled wines exploded in the cellars, very often causing severe physical harm to those around.
Anyone entering the cellars to work on the wines (or to fetch a bottle for consumption) had to wear a heavy iron mask and other protective gear or risk injury. Naturally the monks thought that this was the Devil’s work. Therefore, the wine got its name.
Devil's wine.
One monk in particular, tried desperately to get rid of the bubbles that appeared in his abbey's wine. But try as he might, he couldn't get rid of the fizz.
Since he couldn't fight it, he decided to try to perfect the art of making sparkling wine and today he is credited as champagne's inventor. When he tasted champagne for the first time, he is said to have exclaimed,
"Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!"
Soon it became the dominant product of the region and Moet Chandon have put up a statue to honor him. His name was Dom Perignon.
Nowadays we control the process (and have sturdier glass bottles). In a standard 0.75 liter bottle of champagne there is still a whooping five liters of compressed carbonic acid, forming bubbles that rise to the surface as soon as the cork is popped.
Click on the bottle and check out our Champagne.
Click on the bottle and check out our Sparkling wine.
It always scares the hell out of me if someone has loosened the wire cage of a champagne bottle without placing a thumb over the cork - the power is literally explosive. Still today's number one reason for eye injury in France are flying Champagne corks, so be aware!
Only sparkling wine that is made in Champagne can carry this name all other wines with bubbles, even when they were produced exactly the same, have to be called Sparkling Wine. In South Africa it is called MCC (Method Cap Classic), in France outside Champagne it is called Crémant, the Spanish call it Cava and the Italians Franciacorta and they get very angry if you would call it Prosecco.
(Prosecco is basically carbonized wine a bit like Coke is made. Therefore, it is a lot cheaper than Champagne or the aforementioned sparkling wines.)
In Germany the traditional sparkling wines are called Sekt, the German equivalent of Prosecco is called Perlwein, and don’t try it, its awful. Well for many years German Sekt makers were saddened not to be able to call their wine Champagne and as a consequence they disregarded quality and produced mass.
That changed around the millennium when more and more smaller winemakers started to make their own Sekt, at the same time discovering a great freedom. Whereas in Champagne only 3 grape varietals (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunière) can be used if the maker wants to use the name Champagne, all other sparkling wine producers outside the Champagne don’t have this restriction. That sets the base for great discoveries.
Like the sparkling I have in my glass.
This is Bubbly made from Riesling by Maximilian Petri. The Petris are now 15th generation winemakers who started right after the 30-year war in the mid 1600th.
Maximilian uses a high-quality base wine, the grapes are harvested very early as unlike with normal wine not the sugar content of the grape determines the time of harvest but the acidity. Base wine for sparkling has to have a high acidity so it can be stored for a long time and still keep that freshness and zest.
The grapes for the base wine are grown at the Saumagen area from which some of Germanys best Rieslings originate. The juice was fermented for 8 weeks in steel tanks to keep the zestiness so that the typical aromas of the Riesling were preserved. In April 2019 the wine was bottled yeast and sugar were added and then left alone for 2 and a half years before disgorging and dosage. It is a brut that means dry but not bone dry.
Petri Riesling Sekt
The first impression one gets on the nose is the smell of green apple and gooseberry. This Riesling Brut appears pleasantly mineral and fresh. Fresh nuances of yellow fruits, kiwi and green grapefruit, as well some unripe banana. Very tangy mouthfeel with pearly mousse, citrus, bitter orange and florality remains on the palate.
Quite an experience for Champagne lovers.
€ 14.50
