Bursting Bubbles

Robert Walters is a respected wine merchant, vineyard owner and writer with over 25 years of experience in the trade. His deep knowledge of the Champagne region comes from working with some of the pre-eminent growers of Champagne from Europe, Australia and New Zealand for close to 15 years, giving him a unique perspective.

Foreword — Andrew Jefford
Disclaimers
Prologue

Part 1: Where we follow sparkling Champagne's remarkable metamorphosis from faulty to fabulous

Myth 1: In the name of the father: Dom Pérignon was the father of Champagne

Part 2: In which we drive along a haunted racetrack in search of a singular grower and discover, not for the last time, that all is not what it seems in the world of Champagne

Part 3: Where we meet the revolutionary parents of modern Champagne — science and industry

Myth 2: First place: Champagne was the original sparkling wine

Part 4: In which the author travels to the mountain to meet the rock of Ambonnay, tries to get blood from a stone and ends up leaving on better terms than when he arrived

Myth 3: The good and the great: Grand cru vineyards produce the best wines

Part 5: Where we head to 'Rahnse' to visit the cathedral and then travel south to Épernay, for a stroll down the legendary Avenue de Disney

Myth 4: Silver spoon: Placing a spoon in the top of a Champagne bottle helps preserve the bubbles for longer

Part 6: In which the wine traveller drives south from Épernay to Avize and discovers that all that glitters is not gold

Part 7: Where we encounter more threats to Champagne's 'Great Wine' pretensions and find out what conventional Champagne has in common with baked bread, roasted nuts and seared steak

Myth 5: Holy Trilogy: Only three grape varieties are used to make Champagne

Part 8: In which we pay a visit to Pascal Agrapart, and where the author acknowledges that he can sometimes miss what is right under his nose by playing the man and not the ball

Part 9: Where we unearth even more image problems for Champagne (by comparing the 'approach Champenois' with best practice in Burgundy) and where we learn that the English are the necrophiliacs of the wine world

Myth 6: Blending is better: Champagne is blended in order to produce a better balanced, better quality wine

Part 10: In which the author tries to comprehend Anselme Selosse via a blend of pop psychology and historical minutiae and then plays word games with the man himself

Part 11: Where we blend a few things together in order to produce a histoire vraie of Champagne and then explore the extent to which the brand has come to dominate land in this famous region

Myth 7: Simple fizzics: Where bubbles come from

Part 12: In which we head south to Vertus and visit a great grower making 'crazy wine' in order to remind ourselves, once again, that Champagne is a wine, first and foremost

Part 13: The continuation of our histoire vraie, where the author views advanced capitalism through the rosiest of glasses and perhaps takes the friendship too far by comparing the history of Champagne to that of Camembert and free-range chicken

Myth 8: The shape of things to come: Champagne should be served in flutes

Part 14: In which we travel from Vertus to the historic market city of Troyes, all the while grappling with the ideologies of Champagne's separatists

Part 15: Where the author discusses the problems with the term 'grower revolution' and then offers the reader a choice between two radically different worlds of Champagne

Part 16: In which we visit our first Aube grower and learn what it means to be an outsider in your own wine region

Part 17: The final instalment of our histoire vraie, where the true grower revolutions are revealed — and yes, there were more than one

Myth 9: In the beginning: Champagne is mentioned in the bible

Part 18: In which we visit a vigneron farmer — or is that a farmer vigneron?

Part 19: Where we delve into the remaining key factors that led to the development of Champagne's current batch of great grower-producers

Myth 10: Bursting Bubble: Smaller bubbles are a sign of a high-quality Champagne

Part 20: In which we visit the last of our growers in the Aube and learn that, no matter how seriously we take it, wine's main work is to make us happy

Epilogue: A short manifesto in which the author asks you, the wine lover, a simple, somewhat rhetorical question: 'What sort of Champagne do you really want to drink?'

Notes
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index