Another Reason I Love Champagne

Posted 03/18/2008 at 05:50 AM by Ben

Last night I enjoyed the wonderful 1998 Pol Roger vintage Brut Champagne, which cost me a hefty $80 a bottle. Tonight, I'm going to enjoy it again, but it will cost me absolutely nothing. That's because I'm not opening a second bottle, but will be finishing the one I started last night.

All one needs to preserve an open bottle of Champagne is to put a specially designed Champagne stopper on the bottle. The one I have, which looks something like a chrome clothespin with a rubber stopper in between, cost me about three dollars at my local wine shop. The springy wings of the device press a rubber stopper into a tight seal over the lip of the bottle, which keeps out air, and keeps virtually all of the wondrously tiny bubbles inside.

This rare ability to rise phoenix-like the next day is a big reason I love Champagne so much. Unlike almost any other wine I know of, Champagne has the ability to taste every bit as good the next day as it did the night the cork was popped.

Of course, one can keep a bottle of still red wine or white wine overnight, and nothing awful will happen. However, in my experience, the leftover wine almost always looses something. The taste may be flat, or the bouquet will lack the prettiness and freshness of the night before. In the case of old wine, it may go completely over the hill, tasting like a tired brown liquid. I find that this is true even when using a wine preservation system, including some that are very expensive.

This isn't a problem with Champagne because it has its own built-in preservation system -- -- the zillions of tiny bubbles made of CO2. Once the bottle is opened, the CO2 released from the wine form a natural antioxidant layer to keep the air away from the wine. Although theoretically the loss of CO2 would make the wine a bit less sparkling, in practice it's unnoticeable, because Champagne has far more CO2 dissolved in it than say a soft drink or a bottle of Perrier mineral water. I've kept open bottles of Champagne in refrigerator with my stopper two or even three days without any noticeable loss of zing in the the bubbles or the flavors.

When one considers that the cost of a bottle of Champagne can be spread over two or three days, this changes its popular image. Yes, it's still a luxury, but instead of being an extravagance, it begins to look like an affordable luxury. And with wine prices seeming to go up all the time, that's really something to celebrate.

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