Everybody loves culinary legend especially one thus

Everybody loves culinary legend; especially one thus poetic as that of a blind French monk who invented gleaming champagne centuries ago, and, following tasting it for the first time called to be able to his brothers, "Come quickly, I will be drinking the stars! "

Alas, have to set the record straight. Dem Prignon was not blind, nor would he invent the champagne named after him. And the lyrical quote caused by him appears to have been from a print advertisements of the late 1800s.

That does not lessen, however, the important contribution Dom Pierre Prignon did make to the sparkling wine industry. Though the Benedictine monk did not actually invent champagne in 1660, as often erroneously recorded, he do develop the

.

In 1668, the Dom transferred from another abbey to the Abbey of Hautvilliers close bordeaux fine wines information to the town of pernay, where he served as cellar master until their death in 1715. The winter seasons were early and cold by his Hautvillers abbey, and wine that had been bottled and cooled by weather before its fermentable all kinds of sugar had converted to alcohol would frequently restart fermentation in the spring, transforming into a bubbly time bomb. The carbonation would pop the corks or perhaps, worse, cause a chain reaction of overflowing bottles.

Naturally, Prignon worked hard to prevent this secondary fermentation, but it was impossible. So instead, he / she perfected the process. The ageing-bottles were riddled so the sediment could be taken out, and more champagne (a "dosage") extra. The bottles were then closed. This, combined with stronger bottles to carry the added pressure, met with some achievement, and the commercial production of bubbly was on its way.

Dom Prignon failed to introduce blending to Champagne wine beverages but rather the innovation of mixing the grapes

to sending those to press. Because he would taste the particular grapes without knowing the source vineyard to avoid influencing his perceptions, references in order to his "blind tasting of wine" have led to the common misconception that will Dom Prignon was blind.

Throughout 1718, a set of wine-making rules considered to be established by Dom Prignon specified that will fine wine should only be fabricated from Pinot Noir. He was not fond of whitened grapes because of their tendency to enter refermentation. Prignon instructed that vines be pruned to grow no higher than one yard and produce a smaller crop, plus harvesting should be done in cool, humid conditions with every precaution being taken to ensure the grapes don't bruise or break. Rotten and overly-large grapes were to be thrown out. Prignon did not allow treading of grapes and favored the use of multiple presses to assist minimize macerations of the juice plus the skins.

Dom Prignon was also an earlier advocate of winemaking using only natural process without the addition of foreign substances. Under his stewardship, the particular Abbey flourished and doubled the dimensions of its vineyard holding. As a signal of honor and respect, typically the Dom was buried in a area of the Abbey traditionally reserved for abbots. A more secular honor was bestowed when Moet &amp; Chandon called its prestige cuve after Prignon in 1936 -

... and the heritage of Dom Prignon lives on.