14 Essential Bottles of Champagne [Timeline]

More than just a bottle to pop to commemorate a special occasion, Champagne is a category with a deep history. Many label designs are associated with neoclassical art, its golden hue with Gilded Age luxury, and its effervescence with honoring the passage of time.

Today’s Champagne supply sees a breadth of iterations, from Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs, to varying dosage levels, and even lush pink rosés — and its development can be seen through the bottles that act as milestones in tracking the long history. Within the vast, if not overwhelming, current state of Champagne lies a throughline that delivered the market to its modern state: the pivotal bottles that invented, innovated, and changed the game. One by one, each of these wines shaped what we know as Champagne today.

From the invention of the wine’s meticulous production methods to the category’s rise to ultra-luxury status and the modern grower-producer revolution, here are 14 of the most notable moments in Champagne’s history and the bottles that represent them.

1693: Dom Pérignon ‘Discovers’ Champagne
Bottle: Dom Pérignon

Before his name graced the label of one of Champagne’s most prestigious bottles, the legendary Dom Pérignon was a Benedictine monk at a monastery in Hautvillers in Champagne in the late 17th century. Legend has it that on Aug. 4, 1693 he “discovered” Champagne, apparently exclaiming, “Come quickly! I’m drinking the stars!” when he encountered the sparkling wine. While that myth has been largely discredited, there’s no denying that Dom Pérignon introduced several innovations that elevated the region’s wines.

Prior to his arrival at the monastery, winemaking monks noted the natural effervescence that would come from their wines as a result of spontaneous secondary fermentation. But they neglected to experiment with other techniques to perfect sparkling wine. Dom Pérignon sought to refine the beverage: He introduced the concept of blending grapes from different plots to balance flavor and implemented thicker glass bottles and corks secured with rope to prevent explosions. These improvements helped shape Champagne as a category, setting the base for what the sparkling wine giant is today.

1729: Ruinart Launches the First Commercial Champagne House
Bottle: Ruinart

Dom Thierry Ruinart — a contemporary of Dom Pérignon — first encountered sparkling wine after moving from Champagne to join the esteemed Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. There, he noticed sparkling wine piqued the interest of well-educated and well-off French aristocrats.

In 1728, the King of France, Louis XV, passed an edict permitting the shipment of sparkling wines in bottles, reversing the prior regulation that required it to be distributed in barrels. The new legislation was crucial to the burgeoning interest in sparkling wines in France and across Europe — the liquid needed to be packaged in bottles for the second fermentation to occur.

After returning from Paris, Dom Thierry Ruinart passed his knowledge to his nephew, Nicolas Ruinart. On Sept. 1, 1729, in Reims, the largest city in the Champagne region, Nicolas wrote the charter for Maison Ruinart, marking the start of the Ruinart brand and, more importantly, establishing the first commercial Champagne house.

1815: Madame Clicquot Refines the Fermentation Process
Bottle: Veuve Clicquot

Born Barbe Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, Madame Clicquot made essential contributions to the process of making Champagne. She was widowed at the age of 27, inspiring the name for the wine Veuve Clicquot (“veuve” meaning widow in French). She was passionate about innovation, and is thought to have created the first vintage Champagne, first blended rosé Champagne, and also invented the riddling table — a method still used today. She found that placing the bottles face down diagonally on an A-shaped apparatus helped the yeast sediment populate at the bottle’s beck. She also noticed continually turning the bottles further encouraged yeast particles to the top of the bottle.

Prior to the invention, Champagnes were riddled with flaws — residual yeast sediment caused a cloudy appearance and unpleasant texture. The riddling process refined the beverage after the second fermentation. After the process completely clarifies the liquid, the Grande Dame of Champagne discovered that freezing the portion of the bottle containing the yeast solids made for an easier disgorgement.

1844: Advent of the Wire Cage
Bottle: Champagne Jacquesson

Even in the contemporary era, handling Champagne comes with its dangers, so it’s imaginable how in the early days of Champagne, possessing a bottle had sizable risks.

After Louis XV passed the edict allowing the distribution of Champagne in bottles, safety measures started to come into question — namely, how to secure the cork in the bottle. Champagne manufacturers began to fasten corks by hand-tying hemp string with three knots. But the string would sink into the cork, making the opening process more difficult. In 1844, Adolphe Jacquesson of Champagne Jacquesson patented a method that placed a metal plate between the top of the cork and the now-used steel wire. This more secure method inspired other inventions that developed the wire cage used today.

1852: Charles Heidsieck Brings Champagne to the U.S. Market
Bottle: Charles Heidsieck

Coming from a lineage of Champagne producers, Charles Heidsieck founded his own house in 1851. Quickly after, he felt the Champagne market in Europe was overwrought, so he looked elsewhere.

In 1852, much of the U.S. consumer market had yet to see any Champagne. So, Heidsieck set out for the States, traveling to Boston, New York, and New Orleans to capture the attention of American imbibers with Champagne Charles Heidsieck. But the process wasn’t entirely easy: It’s said that his profits were stolen and his wines mislabeled. Yet driven by the ambition of introducing the region’s sparkling wines to a young country rife with economic potential, Heidsieck instilled consumer interest in Champagne with skillful advertising in newspapers and giving potential patrons tastes at events. These strategies worked, and thanks to this charisma, Americans assigned him the nickname “Champagne Charlie.”

1874: Brut Enters the Lexicon
Bottle: Pommery Cuvée Louise Brut Nature

In the early days of Champagne, sweet styles were all the rage. That was until Madame Pommery of Champagne Pommery popularized dry-style sparkling wine. After taking the helm of Champagne Pommery in 1858, Madame Pommery released her dry Champagne, titled Pommery Nature, in 1874. Though brut Champagnes had been produced before, her style was the first to find success: She was keen to the wishes of English consumers who, at the time, were massively interested in Champagne and drier wines in general.

Brut Champagne requires more finesse, as the grapes must be riper and the flaws are more difficult to hide without the additional sugar — hence their lack of popularity early on. Madame Pommery’s success was revolutionary to the larger industry. Now, the overwhelming majority of Champagnes are dry.

1876: Cristal Gives Champagne a New Look
Bottle: Louis Roederer Cristal

Once Napoleon introduced Champagne to Russian consumers in the early 1800s with the French invasion of Russia, the Russian aristocracy particularly loved the sparkling wine. In the late 19th century, while Russia was rife with social and political unrest with a revolution brewing, Tsar Alexander II feared revolutionaries would attempt to assassinate him. To avoid the chance encounter with an object that could double as a weapon, the tsar asked Louis Roederer for a particular bottling. He required the bottle to be clear and without the typical punt at the bottom, thinking an adversary could plant an explosive within the bottle or tucked into the dimple.

The singular bottle design would not be available to the public until 1945, but its regal, royal look influenced others to market their bottles in a similar way, adding to Champagne’s status as a luxury product.

1889: The Category Gains Global Attention
Bottle: Champagne Mercier

Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle of 1889, and though the event is now known for presenting several cultural touchpoints — the building of the Eiffel Tower, for one — the world’s fair helped gain Champagne worldwide recognition.

In an effort to ensure consistency among his Champagnes, Eugène Mercier of the House of Mercier decided to blend his expressions in a large barrel in 1870. Champagne Mercier first used the massive barrel for its 1887 vintage, and two years later, Mercier saw an opportunity to take his grand barrel to an even larger scale. On May 7, 1889, 24 oxen drew the Mercier barrel from the estate in Champagne to the foot of the Eiffel Tower as an exhibit in the fair. Mercier’s hopes of attention were fulfilled: The stunt garnered global press coverage.

1920s: Champagne Becomes Symbol of Post-War Relief
Bottle: Champagne Ayala

Thoughts of the Jazz Age in the United States almost always conjure images of Champagne. After the end of the First World War, the ‘20s were met with an era-defining exuberance, which was largely caused by post-war celebrations. Fittingly, it seems that, in the 1920s, the sparkling wine was always being poured. But there was one bubbly constantly foaming over: Ayala. A dry-style Champagne, Ayala churned out upwards of 1 million bottles per year in the 1920s. Though Champagne in general is a symbol of the age of opulent jubilance, Ayala was the particular favorite in the U.S.

1980: Selosse Changes the Game
Bottle: Champagne Jacques Selosse

Though Jacques Selosse opened his eponymous Champagne house in the 1950s, the brand became a trailblazer when his son Anselme took the helm in 1980. At the time, the quality of grape growing practices — and, in turn, the quality of the fruit — was an afterthought to many of the massive Champagne houses. The large estates sourced from smaller growers who, needing to appeal to the houses’ astronomical needs, dismissed quality-focused growing, such as organic viticulture.

Anselme returned home in 1974 after a formative education in Burgundy, where he learned what it takes to produce singular wines that are celebratory and expressive of terroir. When he took over Champagne Jacques Selosse, he upended Champagne convention, introducing considerable changes to production. He drastically reduced yields, focused on ripeness, and implemented organic farming. In the cellar, Selosse worked with barrel aging and implemented the solera method, adding deep complexity to the wines. Now, the Selosse wines have a cult following and sell for thousands of dollars, making them some of the most expensive Champagnes on the market today.

1987: LVMH Brings Champagne Into Its Luxury Era
Bottle: Moët & Chandon

From its early days, Champagne had inextricably carried a sense of luxury with it. But never before was that status as explicitly solidified as with the formation of the French conglomerate of luxury goods Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH). Moët & Chandon and Hennessy joined forces in 1971 to form Moët Hennessy. Sixteen years later, Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy merged into LVMH, now the pinnacle of haute couture.

The merger marked a new beginning for luxury goods — and for Champagne. Under the LVMH wing are prestigious maisons across various sectors like Tiffany & Co., Dior, Veuve Clicquot, Dom Pérignon, Krug, Bulgari, and Givenchy. The coalition of product excellence that LVMH created only crystallized Champagne’s stature. LVMH formed a band of French luxury goods, portraying to consumers that each of its brands shared the same level of grandeur as the others. It placed Champagne on the same commercial pedestal as designer brands and other products.

2000: Grower Champagne Takes Hold
Bottle: Cédric Bouchard

After working as a sommelier in Paris, amid a burgeoning natural wine scene, Cédric Bouchard returned to his father’s estate in Côte des Bar and took ownership of the house in the 1990s. But it wasn’t until the launch of his own label in 2000 that he became known as one of the most important, youthful voices in Champagne. Cédric’s label, Roses de Jeanne, is the result of his motivations in wine: producing single-vineyard, single-variety, single-vintage, and zero-dosage Champagnes. Bouchard operates an organically farmed estate that is one of the lowest-yield houses in the region and minimizes intervention once the grapes are harvested. Bouchard was a revolutionary in considering the production of Champagne to be like the production of still wine — one where celebrated terroir, quality fruit, and overall purity were of utmost importance. His label also grabbed attention in the midst of the movement toward grower Champagne, representing what a new generation of producers believed would be the future of the region.

2016: Krug Introduces ‘Éditions’
Bottle: Krug

Joseph Krug founded his eponymous Champagne house in 1843 with the ideal of producing the highest-quality Champagnes no matter the year. He rejected the concept of vintage Champagnes in an effort to ensure each of his releases — despite year-by-year variations — met his standard for quality. Though most Champagne houses’ most premier bottlings are vintage Champagnes, Krug’s high-end “Grande Cuvée” line stands on its own as a blend across many vintages. Though Krug had long used this style of winemaking, in 2016, the brand introduced “Éditions,” numbered labels that indicate from which blend the bottle comes. The number refers to the year since the house’s origin to celebrate the length of Krug’s founding principle.

2019: Champagne Goes After a Younger Audience
Bottle: Champagne Chavost

Though it was founded in 1946, Champagne Chavost has recently gained significant popularity among younger, trendier crowds of wine drinkers. In 2019, winemaker Fabian Daviaux took over the operation and shifted the co-op’s focus to organic wines with no added sulfur, marketing the wine to the demands of younger consumers. With approachable prices and labels depicting colorful drawings, bottles of Champagne Chavost populate the shelves of natural wine shops, making it a frequent eye-catcher for their consumer bases.

*Image retrieved from Ilshat – stock.adobe.com

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