Champagne - France

Champagne was a happy accident courtesy of Dom Pérignon and his monks in the Benedictine abbey but it has become synonomous with celebrations, and especially winning. Why you ask?
by Tristan Rutherford

It all started with Dom Pérignon. The monk twinned his religious day job with the role as cellar master at a Benedictine abbey. Pérignon’s dual-role was nothing unusual. Most 17th-century monks were piss-artists who, with good reason, considered water unsanitary and fit only for peasant parishioners. 

Dom Pérignon’s unique talent was to induce a sugary second fermentation. The bubbles were kept in with a cork stopper, which the monk is also credited with inventing. Uniquely, cork has an 'elastic memory', allowing it to revert to its original shape on release. 

There was just one problem. The ‘sparkling wines’ from the Champagne region near Dom Pérignon’s abbey were fermented in the same bottles as regular wines. They had a tendency to explode in a frothy spume, like a love-lorn teenager itching for release. 

It gets worse. One exploding Champagne bottle could set off a chain reaction, reducing an entire cellar to sticky shards. In the 18th century, cellarmen in the Champagne region wore metal face masks when they tended the vintage. They were also paid danger money. 

This situation lasted until the British - who were aggrieved at half their imports exploding en route - engineered a double thickness ‘Champagne bottle’ that kept the fizz securely fastened. 

In other words, only a daredevil would open the pop too early in the journey. As American race car driver Dan Gurney did in 1967. 

That’s because Gurney had just won Le Man 24 Heures. The race is motorsport’s ultimate endurance event, where drivers crash and burn through 24 hours of breakneck racing. 

On the podium Gurney was presented with a sun-warmed bottle of Moët & Chandon. In an unconscious moment he whazzed the contents over assembled bigwigs. The Champagne spray went viral because it was snapped by Life magazine photographer Flip Schulke. (The sports photographer also took the iconic images of Muhammad Ali training underwater.) 

Champagne’s leading marques vied to be associated with sporting success. Releasing a sparkling dollar volcano became de rigueur in sports like football and golf. While in Formula 1 motor racing, Mumm swiped the money-shot from Moët, replacing the former’s chalky-citrus flavour with a honey-brioche tang. 

In 2016 Moët returned to the Formula 1 podium. Not with Champagne, but with their sparkling wine Chandon, which is produced in wineries scattered across California, Australia and China. Although sprayers and sprayees were allegedly forbidden to yell “Champagne”, as only fizz produced in France’s AOC region can bear the proper Champers moniker. 

Some Formula 1 circuits didn’t even get that. 

In the Bahrain and UAE races spraying booze is bacon sandwich harem. Instead winning drivers are presented with sparkling rosewater called Waard, which is chemically enhanced to go off like a spuming oil derrick. Yummy. Dom Pérignon would probably stick to water. 

Images: Dan Gurney and A. J. Foyt with Victory Champagne at the 24 Heures du Mans (24 Hours of Le Mans) Race, June 1967 - From the Collections of The Henry Ford

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Music from Le Mans, Orions Beltes first single from the upcoming album, Mint (Sep 2018) released on Jansen Records. Hand animated video by Steph Hope.