10 Interesting things you didn’t know about Champagne

Champagne for many of us will mean celebrations, success, good times or simply symbolic of a high lifestyle of living. It is though known around the world as the King of Wines and usually our favourite celebrities and sports personalities are seen together with the well known brands, but did you know the following:

• Champagne is always known as being expensive, but did you know the most costly Champagne label is Taste of Diamonds that sells for approximately $2 million a bottle!
• Each bottle of Champagne contains approximately 49 million bubbles.
• Stored around the world, mostly within the region of Champagne itself, there is said to be over 1 billion bottles waiting to be opened.
• Champagne is not a wine that should always be stored away for a long time, many will be best drunk fairly young and by storing some too long you will lose the quality in flavours!
• Vintage Champagne does not mean the Champagne is old, vintage simply means that the wine in the bottle is made from the grapes during a single year harvest – Other Champagne are mostly non-vintage and will contain a mix of grape juices from different years.
• The pressure in an average Champagne bottle is said to be more than three times the amount of pressure in an average car tyre so be very careful when opening!
• Each year it is said that approximately 25 people are killed by Champagne and most via opening and being hit by the cork.
• Champagne can only be called Champagne if it is produced from a small dedicated region of France that has the classification required to grow the grapes and produce the wine that is Champagne.
• Champagne bottles come in all sizes from miniature up to mega huge! The largest bottle is called a Melchizedek which is equal to 40 standard bottles!
• Shaken, not stirred for his Vodka Martinis may be what many of us associate with re James Bond and his favoured drink, but did you know that the most frequent drink he enjoys during the film series is Champagne with over forty glasses being drunk by him!