Glassware

Few glasses are as tied up with a myth as the flat Champagne saucer, the coupe. Legend has it that it was modeled on Marie-Antoinette's breast. There's no evidence for this whatsoever. Not a single source from her lifetime mentions it, and the shape already existed before she was born. Even so, the coupe is a mistake when it comes to actually drinking Champagne. Its wide opening lets carbonation and aroma escape within minutes, before anyone's even had a chance to smell it.

For a long time, the flute was considered the standard: narrow and tall. It's good for the perlage, the fine chain of rising bubbles that marks a cleanly fermented Champagne. Its drawback is the narrow opening: it shows off the bubbles beautifully but leaves little room for aroma. More and more houses in Reims and Épernay are therefore switching to the tulip glass, with a rounded bowl that narrows again toward the rim. It's wide enough for brioche and yeast aromas to develop, the kind that build up after years in the crayères, and narrow enough to concentrate them at the top rather than simply losing them.

When it comes to temperature, every degree counts. Eight to ten degrees Celsius is right for a young, non-vintage Champagne. An aged vintage wine can take two or three degrees more, since otherwise its aromas never really make it out of the glass at all. Served too cold, any Champagne tastes of little more than acid and fizz, because cold numbs the nose. It's a common mistake, precisely because people mistake it for caution.

Pouring happens in two stages: a first splash that foams up and settles, then the rest, filled up to just below the widest point of the glass. Fill it to the brim right away and you'll lose half of it onto the tablecloth — and with it, most of the carbonation disappears too. A tiny groove or a roughened spot at the base of the glass helps bubbles form. Perfectly smooth crystal glass sometimes barely produces a single bead, the surface is polished so clean.