Mans.hu

I went to a champagne tasting yesterday, and one of the most important lessons I learned was how to open a champagne bottle properly.

The most important thing to remember is to keep your thumb on the cork at all times. There is a lot of pressure inside the bottle, and just by holding it in your hand, and warming the neck, you can have it burst open.

To open the bottle you have to twist the wire guard six times and exactly six times counter clock wise before you take it out.

Then, twist the bottle, not the cork, but the bottle very slowly in order to set the cork loose, and you will find that cork comes off with a pop on its own when you do this.

I don’t think I could have figured this out on my own ever and while the rest of the evening was very enjoyable as well, I think this lesson was the most useful part of the evening.

I’d also like to share a story that the expert there told us. I asked him how often experts get it right in blind tests, and he told us this story.

He said that during his third year of Oenology, their class had a blind test in which they had to simply distinguish between a red, white and a rosé wine. The entire class tasted the wines, and gave their results, and was surprised to see that they couldn’t agree on such a simple test, but then came the big surprise. Their teachers told them that each student had tasted the same red wine all three times, and not one person noticed that! That’s quite amazing if you ask me, and very useful to quote back if you ever encounter a wine snob!

I spent a fascinating day in Epérnay yesterday, which is one of the two primary commercial centers of the Champagne region of France, and I had a ball learning about the history of Champagne, and of course — tasting the goods.

What is Champagne?

Champagne is sparkling wine that comes from the grapes grown in the Champagne region of France, and this wine always contains bubbles, hence the name bubbly.

I used to think that Champagne is always white, but that is not true, it can also take a pinkish color, and that color is called Rosé in French.

I was quite surprised to learn that there are three kinds of grapes that are primarily used to make Champagne – Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are in fact black grapes.

A photo posted by Manshu Verma (@manshuv) on Nov 1, 2015 at 7:30am PST

How is Champagne made? I visited the cellars of Moét and Chandon and Tattingier, and I thought this was highly educational. They show you a short film of how Champagne is made, and then take you through the cellars to show you bottles undergoing different steps of the process, and tell you a little bit of the mechanics of the process. The grapes are harvested in September every year after which they are pressed gently with the use of machines, and their juice is extracted. They are pressed gently because you don’t want any part of the skin to seep into the juice as that influences the color and taste of the champagne. You want the juices alone, and for this reason, the grapes are pressed quite slowly with machines. Once the juice is extracted, it is bottled up, and stored in cellars which maintain a constant temperature and humidity. For instance, the cellars at Moét and Chandon are at 10 degrees C and 90% humidity throughout the year. I think they said they had the biggest cellars of all wine producers, and it ran up to 28 kms underground!

Cellars of Moet and Chanson. 28 kms of Champagne bottles! #champagne #moetchandon A photo posted by Manshu Verma (@manshuv) on Nov 1, 2015 at 7:32am PST

Once the wine is stored in the bottles, the process of fermentation begins. There are natural sugars and yeast in the bottle, and the yeast eats up the natural sugars, and release carbon dioxide. However, these bottles are tightly lid with the kind of crowns you see on beer and soda bottles, and hence it can’t escape. In fact, this trapped carbon dioxide are the bubbles in the bubbly!

The only problem is the dead yeast in the bottle which forms a sediment at the bottom of the bottle.

Yeast consumes the sugars in the grapes to turn them into carbon dioxide which get trapped in the bottle and crates the bubbles. The problem is removing the dead yeast from the bottles which is the sediment you see at the bottom of this bottle. #champagne

A photo posted by Manshu Verma (@manshuv) on Nov 1, 2015 at 8:51am PST

Getting rid of this sediment used to be a huge challenge but then they discovered an interesting idea of tilting the bottle on its neck, and making the sediment collect at the neck of the bottle. Then they immerse the neck of the bottle in a very cold liquid, and freeze the liquid, and the yeast sediment which becomes like an ice deposit.

Then they place the bottle upright, and uncork it. The high pressure in the bottle shoots out the sediment in a neat and clean manner, but it also shoots off some of the wine outside the bottle. The process I described above is called ‘disgorging’ and after this a second fermentation is done by adding what’s called ‘le dosage’. This is essentially sugar, and a type of liquor, and Brut is one kind of le dosage which has a sugar content of 8 grams per liter which is slightly less than other types. After they add le dosage, they finally cork the bottle with the corks you see in the final bottle and let it rest for another six to eight months before it is ready.

This entire process can take anywhere from 3 years upwards, and vintages, which are wines harvested from grapes that are considered to be from years of great harvests can be matured for twenty years or more.

The end result is amazing, and I quite enjoyed my glass of rosé champagne at the end of it.

This was quite an entertaining and educational tour — and not a bad first visit to France at all!

I also learned a little bit about Dom Piérre Perignon who was a monk who is largely credited for making champagne famous, but I’ll keep that story for another post.

I visited the Old Masters section of the Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts or the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium this afternoon, and quite enjoyed the visit. The entrance is 8 euros for this section, and I went as part of a Meetup which was 5 euros more. I think this was very well worth it, as the lady organizing it had selected a few paintings that she showed us, and told us the history and style behind it.

My favorite was the one below called Panneaux de la justice de l’empereur otton by Dirk Bouts, which translates into the Pannels of Justice of the Emperor Otton.

What you see here are actually two huge paintings which are of a comic book style in the sense that although not clearly demarcated, they have panels in them, and there is a story line that you can read from top left to bottom right.

On the top right side of the left hand side painting, you can see emperor Otton and his queen. The queen wanted to sleep with the man in the white robe whom you can see a little lower down, but the man refused because he was married.

The queen decides to tell the king that this man tried to seduce her, and this infuriated the king who had his head chopped off, which you can see towards the bottom of the painting. This is then given to the man’s wife who knows of his innocence.

The wife goes to the king and tells him that with God’s aid she will do whatever the king asks her to prove her husband’s innocence (on the right painting).

The king asks her to hold a burning piece of metal, and she does so without getting burned or hurt by it.

This proves her innocence, and the king has the queen punished which you can see at the top of the right painting in the background.

Another interesting thing about this is if you look at the beautiful wooden frames, and zoom in on the painting on the right side you will notice that the door in the painting has a similar design to the frame on top. This is because the court in Leuven Belgium where this story is supposed to have taken place had a similar design which was incorporated in the painting.

I thought this was an amazing piece of art with a great story, and I really enjoyed it, as well as the visit in general.

The answer surprises most, and for good reason — India is the biggest beef exporter in the world. Brazil is currently second with 2.0 million tons to India’s 2.4 million tons.

A thing to keep in mind about this though is that Indian beef refers to buffaloes, not cows which are considered sacred by Hindus.