Gout du Champagne Land of Legend

Several rules are to be observed so that the tasting of your champagne is optimal. The respect is to give pleasure to its full freedom of expression.

The choice of glass

To allow the appreciation of all qualities of the wine, will know that it is preferable to choose a flute. The cut, too widened, influences as much the release of the bubbles as the bouquet which disperses and disappears too quickly. It is also advisable to hold the flute by the foot in order to avoid the reheating of glass. The level should not be higher than the ¾, at best half, so that the ambient air cannot exert too much its action with the detriment of the bouquet.

The right temperature

It is advisable to refresh champagne, not to strike it. Be thus used for temperatures bordering the 6 to 8 degrees for a young champagne, prefer 10 to 12 maximum degrees if you present at your hosts a vintage or more mature champagne. The process of cooling that we advise you is that of the champagne bucket (available in the heading "accessories") which you will fill at the same time of cold water and ice floes so that the bottle is gradually cooled. It is estimated that a bottle of standard size left a cellar with approximately 11°C will be with 7°C forty minutes later, and it should be counted two hours if this bottle were at ambient temperature. In the same way, nothing prevents from leaving a bottle with the refrigerator during some time, provided that the temperature is constant, thus leaving the possibility of having a bottle always ideally fresh lends to be useful. The vat of the freezer as for him is completely proscribed if you want to preserve flavours and savours.

Once in the palate...

Defeat the muselet, firmly hold the stopper while making turn the bottle, the champagne is ready to be tasted. Observe the nuance of the colors, admire the ballet of the bubbles sharp and light and try to recognize in the bouquet of flavours which emerge what makes the typicity of a champagne : flavours of flowers, fruits or of vanilla... Take finally a small mouthful which you preserve a few moments, appreciate the point of acidity or the balance of a fresh and flexible wine, the elegance or the power of a character, the duration of perception of savours.

In 1961, a journalist of London Daily Mail questioned Mrs. Bollinger on his champagne consumption. This one answered him : "I drink it when I am happy and when I am sad. Sometimes, I take it when I am alone. I consider it obligatory when I have company. I play with when I do not have appetite, and I drink some when I am hungry. Otherwise I never touch it, unless I am thirsty ".

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