We will take a different path!
The Soviet approach was fundamentally different. First, the USSR joined the Paris Convention only in 1965 – until that moment, the French monopoly on certain brands worried us little. Second, even after 1965, "Soviet Champagne" continued to be sold on the domestic market, with the forbidden word changed to "sparkling wine" only in export versions. The French managed to completely remove the "trademark" name from our labels only at the end of perestroika. And even then not for long – in recent years, many domestic companies have again begun to call their products "champagne" – and nothing else.
A powerful ideological basis was laid under this back in Soviet times. They started with a definition, postulating that "champagne is a wine prepared by the method of secondary fermentation in hermetically sealed vessels under carbon dioxide pressure." And no Champagnes there! In addition, such a definition made it possible to abandon bottle technology and put champagne production on a flow, using the "reservoir method" (the leading Soviet winemaker Anton Frolov-Bagreev received the State Prize for it in 1942). That is, an initially elite wine was made mass-produced.
Whether this is good or bad is a complex question. But the fact remains: "mass-produced" champagne of the best varieties such as brut "Abrau-Durso" or "Novosvetskoye" was not inferior in quality to the French exclusive, as evidenced by a great many medals, diplomas and prizes collected by it over half a century at various international exhibitions and competitions. True, champagne from Champagne does perfectly well without medals...
In a word, "Soviet Champagne" has every right to exist; after all, we don't live in France, and none of us signed any conventions. Well, except for the polyethylene cork – an absolute nonsense, but then again, the same "Abrau-Durso" has always been sealed with a cork stopper! French champagne is trailed by a train of legends, but ours has plenty of stories too; there is something to remember.
French Lessons
Champagne – this word on the label requires neither translation nor any explanations whatsoever. Nevertheless, producers time and again consider it their duty to write something else on the bottle...
Brut – brut, sugar content in champagne does not exceed 15 g per liter.
Sec – "dry", from 17 to 35 g of sugar per liter.
Demi-sec – "semi-dry", from 35 to 50 g of sugar per liter.
Blanc de blancs – "white from white", wine made only from the white grape variety "Chardonnay".
Blanc de noirs – "white from black", champagne made from Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes, varieties with dark skin and light juice.
Rose – pink champagne, which acquired its color through brief steeping of red grape skins in the must or – more rarely – by blending red and white wine.
Collection – collectible champagne, the batch does not exceed several tens of thousands of bottles.
Cuvee – cuvée, champagne from the highest quality grape juice obtained after the first gentle pressing of the berries, "free-run".
Taille – wine from the first 500 liters of juice after the run-off of the cuvée.
Grand Crus – grapes harvested from the best vineyards of Champagne.
Premiere Crus – grapes harvested from vineyards ranking second in quality after the best.