Dec. 29–The grand irony of champagne, the beverage, and Champagne, the place? The former is intrinsically linked to the kind of celebrations, full of merrymaking and fellowship, that many of us will be attending Thursday night to ring in the new year. But the latter, if you understand the history, can feel haunted.
As 2015 turns into 2016, Champagne's eponymous bubbly connotes good times and high living, although it remains an all-purpose elixir. As Paul Claudel, the French poet and diplomat, spoke in a toast on the brink of the Great War, "Gentlemen, in the little moment that remains to us between crisis and catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of champagne." And, of course, from Napoleon: "In victory one deserves it. In defeat one needs it."
A century ago, when 1915 turned into 1916, the Champenois had no idea whether victory or defeat awaited, or what either would look like.
The prized vineyards were frighteningly close to the trenches of the Western Front, with nearly a million and a half German soldiers dug in to the east, preparing for the assault on the heavily fortified French town of Verdun, which had to be taken if Paris was to be brought to its knees. As bleak as life had become, the worst horrors still lay ahead. The Battle of Verdun began on Feb. 16 and continued for 10 months, until the week before Christmas, laying waste to the once fertile and verdant landscape and killing more than 300,000 soldiers.
To put this number in context, it's nearly half as many as died in the American Civil War, which dragged on for five years. It was an apocalypse.
A witness quoted in Don and Petie Kladstrup's riveting book, "Champagne" (Harper Perennial), described the bombardment of Reims, which continued for 1,051 consecutive days, as "an avalanche of iron and fire." It transformed the city's great cathedral — French kings had been crowned there since the Middle Ages — into a smoldering ruin. More homes were destroyed than were left standing, leaving some 20,000 people to take shelter in the region's limestone cray?res, where they shared space with millions of bottles of champagne. In these same vast caves, early Christians had hidden from the Romans.
By the end of 1916, it's estimated that 200,000 bombs had fallen on the Pommery & Greno Estate alone. Nearby Ruinart, also within easy range of the German artillery, was virtually destroyed, too, although Andr? Ruinart determinedly continued to work in his flooded basement, having mounted his desk on a floating raft. Sadly, according to the Kladstrups, the cold, damp conditions gave him pneumonia, and he soon died.
Nonetheless, the grapes were harvested that fall, just as they had been in 1914 and 1915. Hundreds of workers died in the vineyards as the shells rained down. But what else could the Champenois do? It was their livelihood, their lone source of income. Business was abysmal with overland transit disrupted and the Atlantic ports blockaded. Sales deteriorated further when the Russian Revolution began, cutting off access to a large chunk of the market in a matter of months.
By the late 19th century, Russia was accounting for 80 percent of Roederer's global sales. Cristal, a name that referenced wine's clear glass bottle (as opposed to the dark-green one that most champagne makers used), had come about specifically to satisfy Czar Alexander II's thirst. It's said he purchased 700,000 bottles per year from Roederer. Later, the Bolsheviks, however, championed vodka instead, having branded champagne a "degenerate capitalist habit."
By war's end, roughly 50,000 acres of prime champagne vineyards had been rendered permanently unusable because of the stew of chemicals in the soil. Also, the French franc quickly lost 80 percent of its value, and millions of bottles that had been shipped to Russia, Germany and Austria remained unpaid-for. Exports dropped by two-thirds. Roederer, with its huge exposure in Russia, stayed in business only because the great champagne house's rivals were equally destitute and couldn't buy the family out.
According to the Kladstrups, when President Woodrow Wilson arrived in Reims for an official visit in January 1919, he was told by the mayor, Jean-Baptiste Langlet: "You have seen (other French) cities celebrating, pressing about you, waving flags and saluting you with excited enthusiasm. You will not see that here. This is a city in mourning. Here, you will find nothing but solitude and silence."
Champagne's travails weren't over, either. Within a decade, Prohibition became the law of the land in the U.S., and champagne sales took another catastrophic hit. The Great Depression followed, then World War II, when the Germans occupied Champagne and stole much more wine than they purchased. Remember some of this when you pop your first cork Thursday evening. Champagne is a remarkable wine made by remarkably resilient people.
Let's raise a glass to them. Salut, and Happy New Year!
