Appreciate our champagnes

Many manners exist to taste the champagne, “beverage of kings”! For your pleasure and that of your hosts, discover our tricks and advices for tasting and keeping bubbles.

Enjoy at the right temperature

It should be served between 8 and 10°C. Avoid the freezer at all costs, prefer to cool the bottle in its bucket of ice for 20 minutes. If not, store for 3 to 4 hours in the bottom of the refrigerator.

Keep well when opened

Think of the hermetic cap. Forget the myth of the little spoon, only the hermetic cap can keep the champagne for a few days.

Choose your drink well

For a long time (until the 1970s), champagne was served in cups. With a flared shape, the cuts have a definite disadvantage: the effervescence disappears quickly and lets out the aromas too quickly. The flute, thin and slender, is therefore a better choice at the time of service. It concentrates the bubbles and therefore the diffusion of aromas. For amateurs, the ideal shape is that of a tulip because of a sufficient height to leave space for bubbles to rise to the surface, and to allow the temperature to remain as constant as possible.

A good conservation

Hold bottles:
– coated so that the stopper remains as airtight as possible in order to limit the gas exchanges between the inside and the outside of the bottle;
– in a cool place to avoid thermal shocks, unfavourable to a correct development;
– in a dark and closed place, to avoid “tastes of light”;
– avoid shocks, for example during a journey, so as not to weaken the bottles. A few weeks of rest are necessary after transport to promote its molecular balance;
– in a room having a stable temperature (low thermal amplitude), whatever the time of day or month. An average temperature between 6 and 14 degrees is ideal. The humidity of the room is very important, so avoid a room with low humidity.

The different contenants of champagne

Quart : 20 cL
Demie : 37.5 cL
Bouteille : 75 cL
Magnum : 2 bottles (1.5 L)
Jéroboam : 4 bottles (3 L)
Mathusalem : 8 bottles (6 L)
Salmanazar : 12 bottles (9 L)
Balthazar : 16 bottles (12 L)
Nabuchodonosor : 20 bottles (15 L)

Bubble and its secrets

Avoid cleaning your champagne flutes with dishwashing products. Prefer simple cleaning with clean water. Almost all dishware products have anti-foaming additives that attack champagne bubbles.
Many bubbles: the number of bubbles of a champagne depends on its quality but also on the flute used. A flute with scratches and flaws will have more bubbles than a normal flute…

The shape of the cork

The champagne cork, which is perfectly cylindrical before bottling, takes after a few months the shape of a large mushroom with a flared foot (it is said to skirt). After several years of clogging, its lower part becomes straight and thinner (it is said that it ankle). The shape of the cork lets you know if the cap is recent or not.

Take a bottle of perfectly fresh champagne and undress the cap of her headdress. Carefully remove the muzzle from the cap so that it does not ‘jump’. Be careful of the temperature of the bottle, if it is too cool or not enough, it can break. It is also important not to shake the bottle because it would increase the internal pressure too much which is 6 bar.

Locate the seam of the bottle on your index finger. Firmly hold the bottle at arm’s length with the neck facing up (about 45°). Place the back or edge of your sword blade with your other hand flat on the seam. Keep enough distance between the blade and the cap. Without violence, slide the blade of your sword flat along the seam, with a broad gesture accompanying the flight of the cap. Be careful, the collar is sliced clean and not the cap.

If you can’t do it the first time, try again. With less force it gets better!

Attention the neck of the bottle breaks and flies away with the cork has a speed of about 200 km/h and can reach a distance of at least 15 m! Glass fragments may occur.

Prepare a drink, the champagne springs!