Fact or fiction?

[Thomas]

Dan,

I've removed my earlier post because it is a truly confused bit of history and I see no reason to try to claim an absolute when the history books don't do so.

Some historians note that sparkling wines were cloudy because the producers could not get all the yeast out. Cliquot apparently designed an efficient, workable method for doing that.

Many of the stories passd down in books like Johnson's are indeed just that--stories. A lot of the stories emanate not from historians but from personal interests, like the producers themselves or personal diaries.

Wine history wasn't exactly a major course of study--still isn't, come to think of it...

But it is documented that sparkling wine was produced commercially in Limoux about 75 years before Champagne (1535). Champagne did the marketing better, it being closer to German wine merchants and with better access to Paris and the king's court.