WTF Fun Fact 13141 – Making Champagne Secular

As you likely know, champagne production for the masses started with a Benedictine monk named Dom Perignon. And while it might seem odd that we have a French Abbey to thank for our New Year’s bubbles (after all, he made it so they could be mass-produced and shipped worldwide), it actually took time for the drink to lose its religion and to make champagne secular.

How champagne became secular

Fr. Dom wasn’t the reason champagne was associated with religion, to begin with. In fact, he’s one of the reasons it became a worldwide phenomenon.

You see, bubbly was not only difficult but dangerous to produce because bottles would explode. For a long time, sparkling wine was confined within the walls of the institution that made it. That is until the French kings got involved. Eventually, it became a celebratory drink for things like baptisms and coronations.

As VinePair (cited below) puts it:

“Before the abolition of the French monarchy, France’s royal family had longstanding ties to the Champagne region. The multi-century connection began in 496, when reigning monarch Clovis I was baptized in a small church in Reims. The city and that exact spot (which was eventually replaced by a grand cathedral) went on to become the traditional location for French coronations, and cemented the link between region and royalty.”

In other words, wine from Champagne (pre-bubbles) started out as a holy wine.

Of course, red Burgundian wine was long the official celebratory wine of France. But when secondary fermentation was discovered by Dom Perignon in 1668, things changed…slowly.

Rise of the champagne industry

In the 18th century, King Louis XV became a champagne lover, making it very fashionable. It was also chic because he made sure it was the only wine that could be sold in glass bottles (which also made it dangerous because of all the exploding glass, but that’s not really a matter for kings to care about).

Eventually, if you wanted to be cool in France, you had to buy wine from Champagne.

At this point, champagne had made it out of the Abbey walls and into castles. However, this is all pre-French Revolution, in a time when kings and Catholics ruled.

Then came the Revolution. Heads came off, heads of state were replaced, and people became far more skeptical of powerful institutions, including the church.

There’s no one moment (that we know of) when champagne became untangled from production by religious workers, but the Revolution certainly changed the nature of all things elite.

Marketing secular champagne

By 1796, George Washington was serving champagne at a state dinner.

And, according to VinePair, “Within a century, one didn’t even have to hold office to toast with Champagne. In the latter half of the 1800s, increasing supply and better worldwide distribution channels made Champagne a commodity most middle-class families could afford…The period also saw significant marketing efforts from Champagne houses to place their bubbles as the celebratory beverage. The images and language on many bottle labels targeted newly engaged couples and soon-to-be parents…”

It was no longer associated with religion, but with any kind of celebration.  WTF fun facts

Source: “Religion, Royalty, and Bubbles: How Champagne Became the Go-To Drink for Celebrating” — VinePair

WTF Fun Fact 12782 – Bastille Day

France’s national holiday is called Bastille Day, named after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. In French, it’s called Le quatorze Juillet, so the first thing you ought to know is that a French person might look at you funny if you wish them a Happy Bastille Day (although they might look at your funny regardless, so maybe just say what you want).

Anyway, to Americans, Bastille Day looks a lot like the 4th of July. FIreworks, parades, food, the works.

But why celebrate the storming of a building which was, at the time, a prison? Democracy, of course!

Why is “Bastille Day” a big deal?

If you remember back to high school history class, you may remember that the French grew tired of their monarchy in the 18th century. The working class weren’t getting much for their labor while the royal and upperclasses lived in luxury. That might sound familiar, but in this case, a group of people organized enough to light the spark (literally – because the Bastille was also full of gunpowder) of the French Revolution.

Now, the Revolution wouldn’t take place right away. Those things really are hard to organize. But if you really didn’t excel in high school history, you may remember this revolution simply as the one where the royals (including Marie Antoinette) lost their heads at the guillotine. (Long story short, France got a had constitutional monarchy after the first Revolution. It would take more revolutions to get to an actual democracy.)

In the end, Bastille Day is a celebration of independence from what the French saw as the tyranny of monarchy. It was the tipping point towards democracy.

What happened on Bastille Day?

So, what exactly happened on July 14, 1789? What does a “storming of the Bastille” even mean? Well, it involved revolutionaries heading to Bastille to liberate people they saw as political prisoners.

Interestingly, most of the actual political prisoners were moved to a more fortified location a bit earlier, and all that remained in the Bastille that day were 7 people – 4 who were in for forgery, an Irish man labeled a “lunatic” and accused of spying, a guy who had tried to assassinate the King Louis XV, and an aristocrat suspected of murder. But they did escape!

Some people like to tell the story that the aristocrat in question was the Marquis de Sade, a revolutionary philosopher and writer of erotic fiction depicting unrestrained sexual activity, some of which was violent (Sadism/sadist is derived from these works). But he had actually been transferred to another facility a few days earlier. What he had in common with the aristocrat is that they had both been imprisoned by a letter from family involuntarily committing them. But that’s really besides the point and just a bit of trivia.

The interesting part is that the the liberation of prisoners didn’t really mean much. Also, the Bastille was going to be leveled and turned into an open space soon anyway. The reason it still stands today is because it’s the symbol of a movement (or the beginning of one, anyway).

Now, If that wasn’t a satisfying description of the storming of the Bastille (and if you’re truly interested in history, it shouldn’t be), then check out the Wikipedia page dedicated to that fateful day. We know, we know, Wikipedia has it’s issues. But professional historians are typically the ones editing those “major” pages, and we confirmed it’s one you can trust.

For proper book-length treatments of the French Revolution, try this list.

 WTF fun facts

Source: “What Actually Happened on the Original Bastille Day” — Time Magazine