It’s near the end of the year and it’s only a matter of days before the ball will drop and bottles across the world will pop! Let’s send you off in style with your handy MetroWize guide to Champagne. We're covering the basics from Demi-Sec and Bruts all the way to some secrets of the Pro's like safe ways to pop bottles, and bad ass ways like Sabering.

Let's start things off with the bubble factor. Champagne is like most wine in its fermentation process except for the carbon dioxide. This is the last part of the fermentation process and it’s this final factor that puts the fizz in French Sparkling and leaves it out of your Chablis. Both sparkling and flat wines are made by fermenting grape juice, sugars gradually converted by the yeast into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Flat wine is bottled and sent out to be stored, whereas sparkling wines have the last stage of the fermentation happening in the bottle itself, and is then consumed en masse by the MetroWize staff. Because of the fermentation happening in the bottles, sparkling wines are often encased in thicker glass with their corks being wired on for safety.

A champagne flute is like Amy Winehouse, where its flaws create its beauty. You see, in every flute there is a microscopic imperfection that soaks up the Co2 around it and blows it up in the form of bubbles. We should be making a dirty joke right now, but we had a rough night so we’ll leave it up to you.

Then there are the different types of sparkling wines. Champagne is from Champagne, France - sparkling wines come from every where else. Spain calls its sparklings Cava, Italy has Prosecco and Germany has Sekt. There are sweet wines or Sec, semi sweet like Demi- Sec or dry (not sweet) called Brut.

For more on MetroWize Guide to Champagne, check out part 2.

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For more info on popping bottles and what champagne to choose, check out what our friends have to say:
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