Bookends: Beaded bubbles

Mark Mason has written the Bookends column in this week’s issue of the magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog:

One day in the late 17th century, goes the legend, a French monk named Pierre called out to his colleagues: ‘Brothers, I am drinking stars!’ The French for ‘monk’ is Dom. Pierre’s surname was Perignon. He had invented champagne, and the world had changed forever.

Which explains the appear-ance, over 300 years later, of Champagne: A Global History by Becky Sue Epstein. The Perignon tale is in there, along with many more lively and engaging stories from the history of sparkling wine (which, Epstein assures us, goes back much further than those three short centuries). We learn that the term ‘Champagne Charlie’ originated with Charles Heidsieck, that the fountain at Laurent-Perrier HQ is engraved with the motto ‘Never Drink Water’, and that 11 million bubbles escape from a single glass.