Christie's World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine
Second edition cover
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| Author | Tom Stevenson |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Wine compendium |
| Publisher | Absolute Press |
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Publication date
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November 2002 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 50434255 |
| 641.2/224/03 22 | |
| LC Class | TP555 .S753 2003 |
Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine is an encyclopedia written by Tom Stevenson, published by Absolute Press, which is devoted to subjects relating to Champagne and sparkling wine. The foreword is written by Michael Broadbent. A smaller reduced version, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Guide, is published in the soft cover format.
When first published in 1998, the book became the only wine book to warrant a leader in a UK national newspaper (The Guardian, October 14, 1998), for the first time revealing a 17th-century document proving that the English used a second fermentation to convert still wines into sparkling at least six years before Dom Pérignon arrived at the Abbey of Hautvillers, and nearly 40 years before the French claim that sparkling Champagne was invented. Although Le Figaro accused Stevenson of “trying to burn Dom Pérignon”, the French were prompt to award it The Best Wine Book of 1998 at the Salon International du Livre Gourmand in Périgueux.
Ranked among its "Top Ten Best Wine Books" by The Independent it has been characterised as "still the best guide to fizz”, "authoritative, opinionated and comprehensive", and a vital purchase for any Champagne lover.
The book opens with "A Little History", accounting numerous occurrences throughout time of accidental sparkling wine, and the first documented evidence of a deliberately produced sparkling wine, as recorded by Christopher Merret. In Merret’s eight-page paper "Some observations concerning the ordering of wines", which he presented to the newly formed Royal Society on December 17, 1662, he states “our wine-coopers of recent times use vast quantities of sugar and molasses to all sorts of wines to make them drink brisk and sparkling”. Stevenson explains why the French did not have the technology to produce any sparkling wine in 1662, and how it was almost inevitable that the English did. He explains the paradox of "sparkling champaign", which is mentioned by George Etheredge in The Man of Mode in 1676, yet did not exist in France until the late 1690s. The documentary evidence presented is a significant aspect of Christie’s World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine, though only a part of it.
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