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The Mark of Excellence
Champagne – has the bubble burst? Mimi Avery of the British wine dynasty that is Averys wine merchants, reviews the current market favourites. Getting bubbles in the first place is an interesting story in itself. The method of producing a secondary fermentation in bottle was, often questionably, discovered by the English in the mid 1500s, when Charles Merret (who now has a Ridgeview English aparkling wine named after him, Merret) added sugar to create the second fermentation. The Methode Champenois for volume production was then perfected by the French: Dom Perignon, a monk, started at the monastery six years after Merret’s work and took forty years to complete the process….