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News from the Grapevine...

  Gastronomic authorities maintain that a mild alcoholic beverage is required to start up the taste buds and set the gastric juices in motion before a serious meal... that is, the work of the 'aperitif'. As an aperitif, none can equal champagne... the queen of wines. In its authentic version, it is a white, sparkling wine made from a combination of the dark Pinot Noir grapes from the area around Reims and Marne and the white Chardonnay grapes, from Epernay. This limited area comprises the champagne district of Northern France and ONLY the wine made from the grapes of this region can be called champagne. Our Marquis de Pompadour is a good, sparkling, white wine and we may never commit the blasphemy of calling it an Indian champagne.

In champagne, a second fermentation is induced by the addition of grape sugar and selected yeasts. The wine is bottled before the fermentation process is complete so that the bubbles escape exuberantly when the bottle is opened. The man credited with discovering this process was Dom Perignon, the blind cellar master of the Benedictine Abbey near Reims, who found a way of keeping the bubbles in the bubbly by using a cork tied down with wire. The finest champagne in the world is thus named after him. Some of the other well-known brands (Grandes Marques) are Bollinger, Charles Heidsick, Krug, Lanson, Mumm and Veuve Cliquot. In India at present, we have only Marquis de Pompadour from Indage India, but the future holds a sparkling promise.