Champagne, lying to the east of the Paris region, is one of the great historic provinces of France. As far back as the times of the Emperor Charlemagne, in the ninth century, Champagne was one of the great regions of Europe, a rich agricultural area that was famous for its fairs. Today, thanks to a type of sparkling wine to which the region has given its name, the word Champagne is known worldwide – even if many of those who know the drink do not know exactly where it comes from.
Champagne, that most delightful of sparkling wines, was not actually invented in the region. According to legend, it was monks who bought the method for making sparkling wine up from the Languedoc, in the south of France; but they soon discovered that the chalky soil and climatic conditions in the Champagne region produced a bright bubbly wine that Map of Champagne regionwas in many people’s opinion better than the sparkling wines produced further south. There was of course more to the story of champagne than that; commercial success over the centuries had as much to do with the fact that the Champagne region was close to Paris and other great European cities, as with the inherent qualities of the product. But there is no region in France – perhaps no other region in the world – whose name has been made so famous by a local product.
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