The Wine Shop Talk
The Wine Shop Talk
The Sparkling Story of Dom Pérignon - Label Legends Series
In this week's episode, sommelier Erin shares the captivating story of Dom Perignon, the man behind one of the world's most famous luxury champagnes. Learn about his early life, his journey to becoming a Benedictine monk, and his significant contributions to the world of winemaking, including blending grape varieties and using cork stoppers. While Dom Perignon didn't intend to create sparkling wine, his high-quality still wines led to the accidental discovery of the bubbles we now adore. Join Erin as she toasts the fascinating history and lasting legacy of Dom Perignon.
0:00 The Sparkling Story of Dom Pérignon - Label Legends Series
02:39 Early Life
03:45 Hautvillers Abbey - Cellar Master
06:37 Wine Making Contributions
08:49 Bubbles in Barrels
15:36 His Legacy
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No matter if you have been a lover of wine for a long period of time, or maybe this is new for you. You undoubtedly have heard the name Dom Perignon associated with luxury, and one of the world's most famous champagnes. And while you know about the wine, how much do you actually know about the man whose name is on the label? In today's episode, I'm going to be diving into Dom peri-op. Who was he and how did he influence the creation of the famous sparkling wine that still carries his name? So if you love a good story and as a bonus, love a beautiful glass of champagne. Then today's episode is for you because I'm going to be, uncorking the story of Dom Perignon and who this fascinating man was. So you'll be able to raise a glass to him the next time you enjoy a beautiful glass of his champagne. If you're ready, let's get started and dive right into today's episode. Hi everyone. And welcome to the wine shop talk. I'm your host. Smelly. Erin knows our and I am so happy that you're here with me today. If we haven't met before, it's a lovely to have you here. If we have welcome back now, for those of you who are new, you should know that I've been a professional smile for over 20 years now. And it's my passion and my privilege to make learning about wine. Not only fun and easy, but also practical. I want to make sure that you leave every single episode with so real life practical tips that you can use right away to help you find wines that you're going to love and enjoy and be able to share with family and friends. I want you to think of me as your very own practical Somali. And well, this episode doesn't have a lot of pairing tips, if you will. It does have some great information about the history of one of the world's most famous wines to house. And I'm sure you're going to love the story that I'm going to share with you. Now, before I dive into the story, I do just want to take a minute and remind those who may be new. And if you haven't yet had a chance to take my signature palette personality quiz, you're going to find the link in the show notes below is a short, fun quiz where by answering a few questions, you're going to find out what your pilot personality is and. And again, entire booklet about wines that you're going to love and enjoy, and some helpful words that you'll be able to use when shopping. You'll also find the link below to all of the freebies that I have on the website right now, including fun summer bingo cards. If you're looking for a summer checklist, you'll find that through the link below. And it's lots of fun to play this summer. Now that I've got those shameless plugs out of the way, let's dive into this great story and I think I'm going to start this one with the classic fairytale entrance. And that is. Once upon a time, Dom Perignon was born in 1638 in the town of St. Manhood in the champagne region of France. Now, before joining the religious order, which everyone knows him as a monk, he was born to a prestigious family in this area. And he was known for his sharp intellect and keen interest in agriculture. He was brought up as the son of a wealthy family and therefore was entitled to an education and was taught. How do you run an estate and look after all the parts of it. So he grew up learning these skills, which would definitely help him as he continues on in his journey. His family was involved in the wine industry. And this sparked has really fascination with wine making and the magic that goes into it. Now at the age of 19 he entered into the Benedictine order and he made the decision to dedicate his life to the monastery service. As a young monk he continued to learn and study and support the monastery as needed. At the age of 30, he was sent to the Abbey at Hofi layer, which is the position that allowed him to combine his religious duties with his passion, for wine making. The Abby Whoville layer is the Homebase This is where the iconic vineyards are now the Abbey of Hovey. Larry is located in the heart of the champagne region and it was founded in 60 50 Ady by St. Navarro, the Bishop of rents by the time Dom Perignon arrived in 1668. The Abbey had a long history of wine making, but unfortunately the vineyards and facilities had fallen into states of disrepair. The Abbey was known for its scenic beauty and dedication to viticulture making it an ideal place for Dom perianal to apply his skills and knowledge and help breathe some life back into them. Dom Perignon was appointed as the cellar master and as he toured the vineyards and got to know the Abbey and its associated vineyards, he found many of the vines were overgrown and being over cropped, therefore producing lackluster quality of wine. So he took it upon himself to restore the vineyard, to. Not only their former glory, but a vision of how he imagined they could be. This began years of work where he meticulously cleaned up the vineyards. He removed all the diseased fines. He implemented new techniques to improve the health and productivity of the vines. Being spacing and different training methods to ensure there was good air flow in the area. His efforts led to a significant improvement of the quality of the grapes harvested at the Abbey. Now it's important to mention that at the time champagne had an average temperature annually of 10 degrees Celsius. Which meant that ripening of the grapes became a challenge in this location. And so when we are ripening grapes, if they don't get enough sun in the fall and before harvest, there's going to be higher tannins and there's not going to be as much sweetness in the juice. They're going to be tannic and rather tart the grape varieties that. They work growing predominantly we're Chardonnay and peanut midway, which are the grapes of champagne. But think of unright P Anwar. If you've ever had one of these, it's going to be fairly tight and sour and not always enjoyable. So what Dom Perignon did was cleaning up the vines, maybe sure the canopy was going to make sure those binds in the fall, not only had good airflow, which helped the vines not get a fungus, but also insured sun exposure. So we took advantage of as much of the sunlight as he could to ensure the most ripe grapes that he could in the fall. It was important to say that Don Perignon made several contributions to wine-making. At the Abbey and we still give him credit for these today. Here are four main contributions that we always mentioned. When we talk about him, the first was blending grapes. He was a pioneer in blending, different grape varieties together to improve the taste and the quality of the wine. What he realized was, is maybe in certain vintages, his pin. The war wasn't as ripe, but as Chardonnay came off really well that year. So by bringing these grapes together, he could bring out a better palate experience, a better taste profile in the glass instead of just trying to do individual grape Friday. So he. Definitely became a master. If you will, at finding the best of his grapes and bringing them together to create a blended wine style. This technique is still in the champagne production processes that we use today. Again, this helped create a more balanced and consistent flavor profile the other important thing that he did was short skin contact time. And what this means is that. All of the color in red wines comes from the skin. Also most of the tannins come from those skins. So the less time that grape juice, when we press them sits with those skins, it means The less tannins and that melt, drying sensation will come through. It means as well that you're not going to get as much color. So we will say at the time some of these wines would have almost appeared great in the glass, just a hint of color, mixed in with it. But this helped to reduce the aggressiveness of the wine in the glass, made it softer on the profile. And again, it helped it made it more palatable, less tannin, and a cleaner taste. More fruit flavors came through because you didn't have those regressive tannins and bitterness coming through from the skins. He was also an advocate for using cork stoppers instead of wooden plugs, which help preserve the wines effervescence. And he worked to help clarify the wine. So he was a filtering out the chunks. If you will, in his wine making process, he started to take out some of those chunks before he put it into barrels, making it a more elegant wine style. And at the time the French court was enjoying the wines from champagne as well as some ex-pats who had been sent to England. And they were also getting wine, shipped to them in the spring. Now this may seem like a weird part of the story to share with you, but it becomes a very important part of the story. and this begins the story of the bubbles, if you will. And I think it's important to note that Dom Perignon never set out to make sparkling wine. That was not his purpose. He was making high quality, still wines. He was learning that by blending grapes, he could find a more consistent palatable taste. He cleaned up the vineyards, which gave him better fruit, which made better wine. He figured out less skin contact make the. Again, more palatable. He was doing all of this work, but nowhere on his must do list was create sparkling wine. It's important note here that it's not until the mid to late 18 hundreds when Louis pasture is doing his work, that we finally understand how yeast is part of creating those bubbles in the bottle. When yeasty. It's the sugar that's in the juice from the grape. One of the byproducts is carbon dioxide. And if we trap that carbon oxide in at the bottle, then we get those beautiful bubbles. But no one understood that at this time. And so the bubbles at the beginning were an accident. Earlier I shared about how the average temperature was about 10 degrees Celsius. And this meant the fall was very cool. And what happens to yeast when they are fermenting a wine? So in the wine making process, Yeast, eat sugar. But it gets too cold yeast. Start to go to sleep east. Don't die in cold weather. They can die if it's too hot, but if it's too cold, Yeast, just go to sleep. So most likely Dom pairing y'all had thought that his wine had been fully fermented, that it had bubbled and turned. And the little east that he didn't know about yet had eaten all the sugar in his wine. And he felt that the fermentation was over. It was definitely a bit of a magical process at the time wasn't fully understood, but they knew that there was a conversion. Something happened when the wine started to bubble when it started to wake up, if you will. And so he put. His wife that he thought was finished. Fermenting. Because it was chilly outside. In barrels and he let it rest in the cellar over the winter. He thought his work was done for that vintage. Now there were French Nobles who had been ex-communicated and sent to England. And it is said that barrels were put on ships in the spring. And French wine was sent to these Nobles in England. What happened was, the barrels, the temperature started to warm up as these barrels were on the ship and by doing so, the yeast came back to life and they started to eat the sugar that was still in the juice in the barrel. He hadn't finished the job back in the fall and because the barrel was fully sealed. The yeast as they ate the sugar, there was a, by-product created of the CO2 of those little bubbles. And so when the barrels were opened in England, they found a wine that had a bit of a spritz. Now it would have been short-lived because as soon as it opened the barrel, it would have somewhat disappeared, but. The new problem was that they liked this magical spritz in their wine. And well, no one understood how it was happening. They liked the bubbles and as they opened up more barrels, they started to really enjoy this same is in the French court. As wines were sent from the seller to the Royal palaces. Again, it was warm on the way to the palaces. The one was waking up and bubbles were being formed inside. Side, those closed up barrels. So when they were opened, there was a spritz and it said that the women of the court loved this slight spicy sparkling wine. And so now Dom Perignon had a new problem. If you will. In that he needed to recreate something. He didn't fully understand. He never went out, like I said, to make sparkling wine. And so well, many people will say he invented champagne. He did not. his wines were a result of a natural fermentation process. That hadn't been finished in the fall and the yeast woke back up in the spring. but the quality of wine that he started with made his wines, one of the most sought after, because the base wine that the spritz that the bubbles were showing up on was delicious. People were enjoying it. And so people wanted to keep ordering his wine. They started to demand it. Though we know that in dumping on his lifetime, he would have never fully understood what was happening until Louis Pasteur came along and did his work and showed yeast under the microscope and how it ate the sugar. And so we'll Dom Perignon is often attributed to saying come quickly, I'm tasting stars, which is the famous quote that you'll hear often that he says. And. What I think we have to imagine is we don't really know the inflection that he was saying it was he happy he was tasting stars. Was he frustrated? He was tasting bubbles. We don't know, but the fact of the matter is, is that. The wines that he was creating were spritzy, we're a light fizz. By the time they were open to the people who were now enjoying his wines. And so the story of Dom Perignon was, is so fascinating in that Here. We have a boy who grew up in an affluent family, was trained to run an estate and to be involved in the wine industry he joined the Benedictine or, and became a monk which allowed him to pursue his passions for not only running an estate because he whipped that over there, Abby, back into shape, but he was also able to use his passion for wine, making at the Abbey and transform the wines from. The vineyards, he cleaned up the vineyards had higher quality grapes brought in blending of grape varieties as well as just soft skin contact, very short time skin contact. So his wines were very palatable and enjoyed. And then by cleaning up his processes and the harvest. And by storing them properly, when the wines were opened in the spring, they did have this sprints. Because now we know that there was still some east leftover in the fall. It was just asleep because it was too cold. And when it woke back up, it still had food in the barrel. And by eating it, it created the beautiful bubbles that people were enjoying. Now let's talk about his legacy. Dom Perignon passed away at the age of 77 years in 17, 15, but the techniques and standards he established at the Abbey of Javier became a foundation for modern champagne production that we still use today. In 1936, the Molet. And Chandon champagne house honor, Dom Perignon by naming a prestigious Covay after him. Dom Perignon champagne is now one of the most famous and prestigious champagne brands around the world. And it completely is synonymous with luxury and elegance. As a fun fact is estimated that at least at 5 million bottles of Dom Perignon, champagne are produced every vintage though, this may change, but it gives you an idea of how vast the number of bottles of this beautiful wine are made every year So in closing, let me just recap and say that Dom Perignon did not invent champagne, but his contributions to winemaking and his pursuit of excellence in the vineyard and the process left an indelible mark on the world of wine. So the next time you open up your favorite bottle of bubbles, whether it be a beautiful glass of Dom Perignon champagne. Or something else, be sure to raise a glass and toast. I'm pairing yell because now, you know, a bit more about the man behind the name and the history of the bubbles that we enjoy with every sip in minds today. I hope that you have enjoyed learning about Dom Perignon. I also hope that you have enjoyed this label legend series that I have been doing through the month of July. For next week's episode, I'm going to change it up a little bit. And I'm going to do an episode all about some of my favorite flatbreads and give you some pairings. They make summertime entertaining. So easy. be sure to listen in. Now, if you are new here, new episodes come out every Tuesday. Be sure to follow along. So you never miss an episode. And as always, if you have any questions or comments about today's episode, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me@helloatwinegirlacademy.com. Or come say hi on Instagram or tick-tock, you'll find me at wine girl academy. On that note, I want to wish you a wonderful week. Cheers to you. Bye now.