Wine historians now claim that champagne did not even originate in France. Champagne was first “invented” in Great Britain, where there was already a small commercial market for sparkling champagne by the 1660s. British enthusiasts were investigating ways to control the production of its so-called mousse—the fizz—several decades before the wine was sold at all in France. It seems that wealthy British consumers, anxious to prevent their imported barrels of wine from turning to expensive vinegar, first bottled wines from the Champagne region and, in doing so, discovered sparkling wine.
