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All our Champagnes
Pépites en Champagne offers you the best champagnes from great houses and producers for sale online.
We have a large choice of brands and vintages available.
"Champagne is the wine of festivities and celebrations par excellence",
this wine has been bewitching for centuries.
Imagine taking the bottle out of the fridge,
ripping off the foil and wire before you hear the pop of the cork,
, which signals the start of the party.
According to one scientific study, when the cork is removed, the pressure releases the bottle's energy to produce around a million bubbles per glass. Science also explains that the carbon dioxide tickles our tongue and opens a ventricular valve that sends the alcohol through the bloodstream to the brain.
With a still wine, it takes much longer, unless you're going wild on the dance floor. Champagne's bubbles do the dancing for you.
Other sparkling wines produce the same effect, but champagne is something special. Its image is one of sensuality, glamour and decadence. If it is not to lose its aura, it must remain a luxury. In 2007, when a Leclerc supermarket chain sold it for around €7, insisting on advertising that it was "well worth it", those willing to buy a bottle were likely to think they were "not worth it", to parody the L'Oréal slogan. On the other hand, many champagne brands exploit the concept of "worth it" to great effect, and drinking champagne is akin to entering this world of luxury.
Beyond its image effects, champagne is part of a surprising history, if only because of the way in which bubbles have come to dominate. This book tells the story of how this wine came to be.
For many years, it remained a mystery why this region of France, at the very northern limit of vine-growing, produced the bubbles it did. Was it a question of soil or stars? Or perhaps an ancestral curse that caused countless bottles to break under pressure? In the end, the Champenois realized that these accursed bubbles were their best asset.
Over time, we witnessed the growth of the great Champagne Houses, which will be discussed in the third part of the book. In addition to the big names, there are giant cooperatives that sell under their own brand names, not to mention the thousands of récoltants-manipulants who cultivate the vines and produce champagne of varying degrees of distinction. Those with land in the right place and enough confidence and passion succeed, along with a myriad of winemakers who rely on their talent to express the juices from their vineyards.
After an overview of other sparkling wines, the book invites you to enter the world of champagne in film, art and literature.