The contributions of a widow
In continuing on from my last column, now that you have some idea about who Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin (AKA Veuve Clicquot) was, what is often neglected in any sparkling wine teachings is the important contribution she made to the wines from Champagne. One could argue that it was her alone who revolutionized Champagne and brought it closer to the beverage that we still drink over two hundred years later.
Most wines from Champagne are blends of both grapes and vineyards. Few are made from a single grape or vineyard like the wines from Burgundy. Especially the larger Grand Marques houses, of which Veuve is one, that demand consistency to promote the brand. It is vital that these wines remain the same year after year in restaurants and bars from Paris to Picton.
The way this is done is by creating numerous base wines from the vineyards of Champagne and blending them together to achieve a consistent house style. Once the wine is blended, it is bottled with a little extra sugar and yeast. For non-vintage wines it is left for a minimum of 18 months, though this is often longer for most.
The by-product of this second fermentation that takes place in the bottle is the dead yeast cells, called ’lees’. The more time the wine spends ‘on the lees’, the richer the autolytic character of the wine becomes. The flavours of brioche and freshly baked bread are what make traditional method sparkling wines so coveted, and due to the time it takes to achieve this, so expensive.
But then you’re left with all these lees floating in the wine and they must be removed. This problem plagued the wines of Champagne for years until Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin worked through it with her cellar master Antoine de Müller. Her answer came in the form of the riddling rack. This is the a-framed rack you may be familiar with where bottles are stuck in a hole neck first. As the lees-filled bottles are turned once daily, the sediment from the wines finds it way to the neck of the bottle. From there it is removed, or disgorged, and the bottle is topped back up, before the cork and cage seal it. This process streamlined production and allowed wines to be made cleaner, clearer and faster than in the past.
In an industry dominated for centuries by males, it is not surprising that Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin’s contribution has been overlooked. Many believe it was a monk named Dom Perignon, often erroneously quoted as saying “come quick, I am tasting the stars”, who is the father of champagne.
The fact is in the 19th century when Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin was in the wine business, the Champagnes she was selling were a distant cousin of what we drink today, until she found a way to clean them up and get them to market faster than anyone else at the time. Without her efforts, the world of wine might be lesser off, and our milestone celebrations missing the Champagne as we know and love it today.