The Stars Fell Down

When he first sipped champagne in the late 17th Century the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon cried rapturously: "Oh, come quickly! I'm drinking stars!"

Like most of history's great inventions, champagne was probably not created suddenly by one man; it was slowly bubbled into being. But Perignon, who was head cellarer at the Abbey of Hautvillers in northern France, is generally considered history's greatest champagne pioneer. Almost singlehanded, he founded France's flourishing champagne industry. Under his guidance, the making of champagne became at once a science and an art. Vintaging operations each fall virtually came to require the discipline and organization of an army. A decent bottle of Veuve Clicquot or Piper-Heidsieck takes years of care.

Last week, Moscow had some news that would have horrified Dom Perignon. Triumphantly the Wine Industry Administration announced that it had discovered a Stakhanovite process for making champagne which would bring it from grape to palate in 45 days.*

In the Russian Caucasus, viniculturists like Armenian Marker Grigoryan have been producing champagne by more generally accepted methods. By the new process, for which Chemist Frolov-Bagreev received a Stalin Prize, the champagne will be speedily fermented in giant 1,300-gallon containers. A new factory--"the largest in Europe"--will be specially built in Moscow. Its products will include white champagne, as well as sweet and demi-sweet pink champagne.

The average Russian is not likely to be jubilant over the news. Champagne has long been used to wash down caviar at official Soviet blowouts. But at 80 rubles a bottle (the equivalent of three days' average pay), champagne for Ivan is still as unattainable as the stars.

*Properly, champagne is fermented and aged in wooden casks through the winter, then pumped into large blending vats where rock candy is added to induce fermentation. The brew is then bottled and corked. The bottles are stacked on their sides for two or three years, then restacked cork down. Daily, an expert workman grasps and shakes each bottle, thus precipitating the sediment onto the cork. Five or more years after the date of vintage, the bottle is recorked for shipment. Speedup methods have long been used by American companies. The trick consists largely in maintaining vat temperature at 70DEG F., thereby stimulating the action of tiny, funguslike organisms known as saccharomycetes, which cause fermentation.

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