To give customers the jarringly sweet champagne they wanted, winemakers added generous dollops of sugar syrup and brandy to the bottle before the final corking, and the brandy often tinted the wine a light golden brown. The pink color came when the skins of the grapes stained the clear juice inside. It was a sign that the red grapes had not been crushed quickly enough at harvest or early enough in the morning to produce a perfectly clear white liquid, known as the must. A bit of staining was so common that even when the technology improved, some winemakers began deliberately coloring their
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