“And on New Year's Eve you need to buy champagne,” you think. And you buy sparkling wine. There is a real story, how one day a passenger on an airplane sued the airline: they promised to serve a glass of champagne for dinner, and they served a glass of sparkling wine. What's the difference? It is essential, and to understand it, you need to delve into a simple classification.
All wines are divided into still and sparkling. When they say "let's drink a glass of wine", they mean wine that is quiet, ordinary, simple, without bubbles. You like, for example, New Zealand sauvignon - it's still wine. I like the powerful tempranillo tannins from the Rioja region - this is also a still wine. You buy wine in a tetra-pack - this is also a quiet wine.
When they say "let's have a glass of champagne", they mean sparkling wine. But here you have to be careful, because there was confusion. To make it clearer: all wines "with bubbles" are sparkling wines. This is their common name.
What, then, does champagne mean? This is a kind of sparkling wine, its special case. Well, that's how there are all apples in the world and there is, for example, Antonovka - a kind of apples. Or Granny Smith, a kind of apple. Not every apple is Antonovka (not every sparkling wine is champagne), but every Antonovka is obviously an apple (champagne is sparkling wine, its kind).
And how to understand that it is champagne in front of you? According to EU law, the word "Champagne" (in Russian reads as "Champagne") can only be used for sparkling wine that is produced in the Champagne province (this is in France) and only in compliance with the relevant protocol. If all conditions are met, such sparkling wine is entitled to be called Champagne and sold under that name.
If, for example, sparkling wine is produced in Champagne, but without observing the protocol, it will not be recognized as Champagne and will not be sold under that name, you will not see this word on the etiquette.
If, for example, sparkling wine is produced according to the traditional champagne method, but not in Champagne, but in some other region, it will also not have the right to be called Champagne and will not be sold under that name, on the etiquette of this word you you will not see. By the way, such a sparkling wine in France is called "Creman", the label says Cremant.
"Soviet champagne", "Russian champagne", etc. - these are all sparkling wines. This is not champagne.
How to distinguish champagne from sparkling wine at a glance? Quite simply - if the word Champagne is on the label, it is champagne. Not “champagne” in Russian, but Champagne.
Does this mean that sparkling wine is worse than champagne? Not at all. There are many cool sparkling drinks that not everyone has heard of, we will talk about this in the following articles.
