Liquid n' Smoke

It can be quite difficult to find affordable, tasty Champagne to serve a large group of people. The term Champagne only refers to a wine produced in the Champagne region of France. Wine of that style produced in the United States is designated as “sparkling wine” and elsewhere in the world there are a large number of names for sparkling wines such names as prosecco, cava, and spumante, just to name a few.

The NV on each of the labels above stands for “non-vintage,” meaning that it was produced by blending grapes from different years. Non-vintage wines seldom taste different in any given year because of the way this blending occurs.

Is there really a difference between sparkling wine and Champagne? Not really. According to legend, a monk named Dom Pérignon missed the mark while making wine for his Abbey in the early 1700s. One winter, he mistakenly bottled and corked the wine prior to the completion of the fermentation process. Due to the cold weather fermentation was dormant during the winter, but as temperatures rose in the spring, fermentation resumed and carbon dioxide that was trapped inside caused the bottles to explode. After taking a drink, Dom is said to have quipped, “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!” Although the name Dom Pérignon today is synonymous with great Champagne, he did not invent sparkling wine. The first sparkling wine most likely originated in a region of France that is further south of Champagne and 150 years earlier than Dom’s mistake.