What is the origin of using champagne for celebration?
A lot of different alcoholic drinks are used for celebrating (as some of you know, I’m pretty partial to beer myself). But when you think about a celebratory alcoholic drink – for New Year’s, for something great that just happened – you think of champagne.
Why?
WAGS:
[ul]
[li]It makes a pop sound when opened[/li][li]It’s sweet, so more people are likely to enjoy it[/li][li]It’s bubbly, so it tickles[/li][li]If (and probably when) it’s spilled, it doesn’t smell bad. (That’s why my wife detests beer.)[/li][li]It always comes in bottles, which is classier than aluminum cans or kegs[/li][/ul]
Gee, thanks, NTM. (He said, with an expression similar to the one you get when you open your Christmas present to find a tie or socks.)
Sheesh, if I asked you what time it was, would you give me a bunch of parts to make a clock? 
Well, after wading through all of that, I now know more about the history of champagne than I ever wanted to. But all of those sites are strangely silent on how champagne came to be, as one site calls it, “the one and only wine of celebration.”
Good guesses, AWB, but it seems odd to me that something could become as universal as this for no definitive reason.
Well those appalling goblets that some people insist on drinking champagne from were modelled after Marie Anntoinette’s breasts…
Good champagne is not sweet, it is yeasty and astringent. This does make it a good aperitif to a long celebratory dinner.
But my guess is… marketing.
picmr
picmr says:
I’ve heard this before too. I don’t suppose you have a cite?
This is just a WAG too, but I think it’s a pretty good one.
I’d suggest: rarity and exclusivity.
Wine has been around forever. Grapes (and other fruits) have been fermented into alcoholic beverages throughout recorded history. Wine’s actually pretty easy to make, although good wine is more difficult. Some vineyards in Europe go back hundreds and hundreds of years; generations of tradition have taught the winemakers how to grow specific grapes in specific climatic zones, and then how to turn those grapes into wine in order to get the best possible flavor from them based on everything that went into growing them: length of season, type of soil (known as “terroir”), and so on. Still, wine in general was hardly an exclusive commodity.
But then the mad monk Dom Perignon (recognize the name?) developed the “methode champagnoise,” i.e. the means of making champagne. To do this, you ferment your wine the same as you would any other, but then you transfer the wine from the cask to the bottle and re-ferment in the bottle to create the carbonation. Then you add a few other ingredients (such as sugar) to stop all fermentation, leaving a certain amount of carbonation in the wine, and cork the bottle.
Way back when, this was an extremely difficult procedure, and Dom Perignon jealously guarded his secrets. Consequently, the champagne product was very, very hard to come by. You can see where this is going: If something is rare and expensive, it will be considered very special, and will be consumed only by the wealthy on special occasions.
As the methode champagnoise spread, it became available to the wealthy on a more regular basis, but among the plebians, it would then be the same sort of special-occasion rarity.
That brings us to today. First, it’s important to realize that the democratization of winemaking is a fairly recent event. These days, you can go down to any grocery store and find a good ten-dollar bottle, comparable to some of the better wines from two hundred years ago. (St. Supery makes an outstanding Sauvignon Blanc that retails for twelve dollars.) And for six or seven bucks you can get a bottle of cheap champagne, say an off-label production of Gloria Ferrer or Freixenet. Because this happened so recently, though, champagne still has that certain cachet.
Of course, there are much nicer champagnes available. For fifty bucks, you can get a very nice White Star, or maybe a Veuve Cliquot. And a bottle of Cristal can run two hundred dollars or more.
So, based on history: Rarity, exclusivity, and expense dictated that champagne would be a “special-event” consumable, and the tradition holds fast.
Not bad for a WAG, huh? 
Oops!
I knew that that Marie Antoinette thing rang a bell…
Well google came up with 1300 hits for “antoinette champagne”. Of the few I checked out, most of them began “legend has it…” but http://denver.citysearch.com/E/F/DENCO/0000/08/36/ “Dr Wine” says:
My recollection is that I have seen footage of these glasses. And no, the modern ones are not original size. You’d need a jeraboam if you had guests.
More importantly, there is http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_151.html
I’ll keep looking.
picmr
Yes, but would we want to know whose breasts inspired the champagne flute? :eek: No, I don’t guess we really would.
from www.intowine.com/champagne2.html
Well, we have a purported location and a description. Sounds pretty good until you realise this expert can’t spell “bowls”.
picmr
Nor brandy snifters. :eek: :eek:
Sorry, Milo, I guess I assumed your answer would be in there SOMEWHERE. Guess not.
Oh, well, how about this for a WAG?
Marketing.
The same way that the DeBeers Company has convinced every engaged couple for the last 75 years that “a diamond is forever”, so the champagne people have pushed champagne as a celebratory drink, aided and abetted by the East Coast Intellectual Elite (Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and her “400”, the New Yorker etc.), and Hollywood, who ever since the turn of the century have all continually portrayed champagne as the drink of the elite.
P.S. I am truly sorry that Cecil went over to your house and held a gun to your head and made you read all those links. I tried to stop him, but you know how he is…
P.P.S. I frequently give people ties AND socks for Christmas.
