Anthony Rose: Fizz! Champagne and Sparkling Wines of the World Académie du Vin Library, 2024, 388 pp. ISBN 978-1913141776, $47.95

Few beverages elicit as much delight or inspire as many memorable quotations as sparkling wine."Champagne is the only wine that leaves a woman beautiful after drinking it, " Madame de Pompadour famously declared, while Winston Churchill reminded his officers that "it's not just France we are fighting for, it's Champagne!"For centuries, bubbles have accompanied celebration, marking life's milestones and elevating the mundane.Anthony Rose's Fizz! Champagne and Sparkling Wines of the World is a fitting tribute to this remarkable beverage.Published by the Acadmie du Vin Library, a house known for its beautifully produced and intellectually engaging wine literature, Fizz! succeeds in being both accessible and comprehensive.Anthony Rose's global survey does not limit itself to the grandeur of Champagne, but ventures thoughtfully into every significant sparkling wine region, style, and production method.The book provides a detailed history of sparkling wine -and no, Dom Prignon didn't invent it.Rose credits Dr. Christopher Merrett's 1662 paper to the Royal Society, which described the deliberate method of creating bubbles by adding sugar.This practice was made feasible only once English glassmakers, using coal-fired furnaces, produced bottles sturdy enough to withstand the resulting pressure from secondary fermentation.While Dom Prignon's famous quote "come quickly, I am drinking the stars" is surely apocryphal, Prignon was indeed important in blending different grapes, vineyards into one assemblage -one of the hallmarks of Champagne to this day.But why let the facts get in the way of great marketing?While there are many styles of sparkling wine on the market today, dry to off-dry styles dominate, although this was not always the case.Madame Pommery is credited with developing drier styles of Champagne and leading the trend towards Brut wine in the late 19 th century.Prior to this most Champagne was incredibly sweet, often beyond normal scales, as was preferred by the Russian Imperial Court.