Champagne or sparkling wine is often labeled as a wine that was invented by mistake mostly due to a not quite perfect secondary fermentation. But in fact everyone familiar with winemaking knows how problematic this process is and that champagne could hardly be a result of just a bad batch with good taste.
Most of the sources cite the legendary monk Dom Perignon as the inventor of champagne. The legend says that he by mistake or for some other reason sent few of the strange bottles with bubbles to the local aristocracy and they were impressed by the interesting taste and feel of the wine. But in fact he was more like a godfather of this great beverage, the sparkling wine was invented decades before him and he made a huge contribution to the process of shaping champagne as we know it today. Champagne is achieved through the process of secondary fermentation, when special elements are added during the storing process, like the basic fermentation this leads to additional release of carbon dioxin. The dioxin causes numerous problems during the storage of the wine, the biggest of them that barrels exploded often causing a chain reaction that could “ignite” the whole wine cellar. But due to the contribution of various winemakers and of course the famous monk, barrels were replaced with bottles and the whole technology got a safe way to manufacture relatively dangerous product.
The funniest thing is that Dom Perignon spent lots of years trying to remove the bubbles from champagne, because he thought of it as of a negative element. Of course he never succeeded and thanks to this champagne exists as we know it today.
Another interesting thing is that Champagne is a registered trademark that can be applied only to sparkling wines produced in the Champagne Region in France. So most of the countries and even other provinces of France that manufacture champagne have to use different names. The protection of the brand is nearly arcane and everything is very serious.
As for the common competition in the world of beverages, like the release of Bud Light beer that eventually took sales and beer enthusiasts from the original Bud beer, there was no such thing between wine and champagne. They managed to take their own spots in the complicated world of alcohol. Champagne became a symbol of a celebration (which is not surprising, because it was initially used during crowning of monarchs) and wine became a more sophisticated and slow drink aiming at taste qualities. Nevertheless both wine and champagne offer various tastes and brands for people interested in enjoying these magnificent drinks.
P.S.
By the way the famous tradition of spraying champagne around after a victory, which became a pretty common thing today, was started in 1967 at the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans by the legendary race winner Dan Gurney. Champagne bottles were presented to the winners years before that, but according to the legend he was either really happy to finish the race or wanted to have a little revenge on few journalists who predicted that he would lose, in any case he started spraying champagne around and established champagne as a worldwide symbol of victory.
