The True Story of Champagne: Exploding Bottles to Global Luxury

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Picture this, you're walking into a dark damp cellar in like 18th century France.

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

Right, so it's freezing, it's pitch black.

SPEAKER_1 (0:08)

Yeah, exactly.

But the workers around you aren't just wearing standard leather aprons. They are wearing heavy iron masks, like actual medieval armor, just to go to work.

SPEAKER_2 (0:20)

Which is a genuinely terrifying visual.

SPEAKER_1 (0:23)

It really is. And the reason why is just wild.

All around them, seemingly at random, these thick glass bottles are spontaneously exploding, just shooting glass shrapnel in every direction.

SPEAKER_2 (0:36)

And we aren't just talking about a few defective bottles here and there. The pressure inside these early sparkling wines caused these massive dangerous chain reactions.

SPEAKER_1 (0:46)

Like a domino effect.

SPEAKER_2 (0:47)

Exactly. One bottle blows, the shockwave shatters the bottle right next to it, and suddenly you have a seller losing anywhere from like 20% to 90% of its entire inventory in a single afternoon.

SPEAKER_1 (0:59)

Wait, 20% to 90%?

That is insane. They were literally dodging glass grenades down there.

SPEAKER_2 (1:06)

Yeah, the situation was so violent that the wine actually earned a local nickname. They called it Le Vin du Diable, which means the devil's wine.

SPEAKER_1 (1:14)

The devil's wine. I mean, it's such an incredibly vivid image to start with. Mostly because it's just a far cry from how we view that exact same beverage today.

You don't usually associate, like, a luxury toast at a wedding with heavy artillery.

SPEAKER_2 (1:28)

No, you really don't. And that's exactly why the story is so fascinating.

SPEAKER_1 (1:32)

Right.

So welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, our mission is to uncork the true story of champagne. We are pulling from a really detailed historical and scientific overview of the world's most famous sparkling wine.

SPEAKER_2 (1:45)

We're going to explore how this struggling, freezing wine region transformed what was essentially a terrifying explosive accident into the ultimate global symbol of luxury and science and eventually strict legal protection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (1:59)

So to you listening, whether you're, I don't know, sipping a glass of this at a New Year's Eve party right now, or you're just insanely curious about the history of things we take for granted, you are about to learn that almost everything you thought you knew about Champagne's origins is probably a complete myth.

SPEAKER_2 (2:16)

It really is. Because before we can understand how Champagne became this untouchable luxury icon, we kind of have to look at how it started. And surprisingly, it started from a place of deep envy.

SPEAKER_1 (2:27)

Envy. Okay. So paint the picture for us.

The Champagne region is in Northeast France, right?

SPEAKER_2 (2:34)

Right. And initially, they weren't making sparkling wine at all. They were making this very light, fruity red wine. The Romans were actually the first to plant vineyards there, tentatively cultivating the region by about the 5th century.

SPEAKER_1 (2:46)

But it had a rocky start, didn't it? Like, didn't an emperor actually try to destroy the vineyards?

SPEAKER_2 (2:52)

Yeah. The Roman emperor Domitian actually ordered all the colonial vines in the area to be uprooted at one point.

SPEAKER_1 (2:58)

Wait, he ordered them destroyed? Why would an emperor destroy perfectly profitable vineyards?

SPEAKER_2 (3:04)

Well, it was a highly unpopular edict, obviously, but the theory is he was trying to protect Italian wine monopolies, or possibly he was forcing the land to be used to manage grain supplies for the empire.

SPEAKER_1 (3:16)

Oh, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_2 (3:17)

Right.

SPEAKER_1 (3:17)

Protectionism.

SPEAKER_2 (3:19)

Right.

But a later emperor, Probus, who ironically was the son of a gardener, rescinded that edict. So they eventually built a temple to Bacchus, the god of wine, and the region started producing these light red wines again.

SPEAKER_1 (3:32)

And fast forward a few centuries, the Catholic Church basically owned the vineyards, and monks were producing wine for the Eucharist.

SPEAKER_2 (3:38)

Exactly, and it secured a royal connection pretty early on too. French kings were traditionally anointed in the city of Rheims, which sits right in the heart of the Champagne region.

SPEAKER_1 (3:47)

Right, so this local, still red wine was being served at all these major coronation festivities.

SPEAKER_2 (3:53)

But here is where the local winemakers, the Champenois, started getting really frustrated. They were intensely jealous of their neighbors to the south.

SPEAKER_1 (4:01)

The Burgundians.

SPEAKER_2 (4:02)

Right, because the wines of Burgundy were heavy, rich, and highly acclaimed across Europe. The Champenois wanted desperately to produce red wines of equal status and body.

SPEAKER_1 (4:11)

But they had a massive, insurmountable geographical problem standing in their way. The weather.

SPEAKER_2 (4:17)

Yeah, the weather up there is brutal for grapes.