Christopher Merret and the birth of Sparkling wine with Keith Moore
This show was published 02 December 2012
- Christopher Merret and the birth of Sparkling wine with Keith Moore
Overview
Keith Moore of The Royal Society talks to us about natural philosopher Christopher Merret whose paper on sparkling wine is the earliest evidence of how sparkling wine could be created. The Royal Society was founded in 1660 with Charles II as its first patron. Christopher Merret was one of the early fellows of the Society, and his paper on the ordering of wine was submitted in December 1662 but not published. The paper sets out the ingredients of various wines from Europe that had been transported to London and arrived in poor condition. He writes 'our wine coopers use sugar and molasses to make them drink brisk and sparkling to give them spirit'. This was clear evidence on how the wines could be made more drinkable but specifically more sparkling. The popular myth is that the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon invented Champagne but he was actually trying to stop the secondary fermentation in the bottle and his rules for making wine weren’t published until 1718.
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