Just like the sound of the ocean reverberates within a shell, if you put your ear to a glass of sparkling wine, it sounds like the beginning of our universe—echoes of earliest creation. There’s something cosmic about the beads of bubbles rising in a glass. An entire galaxy, colliding chemical elements and working physical laws, contained beneath a cork.
          Fast forward 13.7 billion years to a mere five hundred years ago, when Benedictine Monks accidentally invented the oldest recorded sparkling wine in southern France’s Languedoc area. Up north in Champagne, still wine with a gentle sparkle was widely disdained as “faulty” by early winemakers during the Middle Ages. Dom Pérignon, the legendary “father of sparkling Champagne,” actually worked in his cellar tirelessly in an attempt to prevent his wines from falling prey to the fizz. Early sparkling wines were unlovingly deemed le vin du diable (the devil’s wine), as bottles often exploded in the cellar without warning.
         These violent, misunderstood creations became a thing of beauty, however, once mastered centuries later. Something devilishly powerful, harnessed and tamed. I like to think of monks like Pérignon down in the cellars, puzzling over fizzy wine with the same voracious interest as scholars like Isaac Newton studying the starry skies at the very same time. The famous Pérignon quote—“Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”—is what he is said to have exclaimed upon tasting the first sparkling Champagne (though the first purported appearance of the quote is in a late 19th century print advertisement, more than a century after his death… that’s marketing for you).
         Speaking of marketing, here we have a sampler of six sparkling beauties in all their fizzy glory. From a lightly effervescent Venetian, to a dry, food-friendly Lambrusco, to our tried-and-true “Cachet Or” Champagne, these are sure to ignite your senses, and perhaps even induce lighthearted pondering of the universe! Pop a bottle and toast to the refreshingly simple pleasure of existence.