Pop goes the alcohol

Call me a cheap date but after one glass of champagne, I am a light-headed, happy woman.

And it is not just in the mind. Champagne and, by association, sparkling wine do get you drunk more quickly, according to a study published in New Scientist magazine in 2001.

The findings were the result of a small study of 12 volunteers, half of whom drank fizzy and half of whom drank flat champagne. After five minutes of drinking, those who consumed the fizzy wine had significantly higher levels of alcohol for each millilitre of blood compared with those who consumed the still wine. After 40 minutes, the fizzy drinkers still had significantly elevated blood-alcohol levels than those who drank the still wine, and their reaction times were more impaired. The tests showed that bubbly drinkers were four times slower than still-wine drinkers to notice peripheral objects than when they were sober.

One theory of the researchers was that wine with bubbles affected people more strongly because the carbon dioxide in the bubbles somehow hastened the flow of alcohol into the intestines, but a definitive answer has yet to be reached.

Top-tasting bubbles are what every wine-drinking mother wants on her special day.

Last month Anne Batley Burton, a wine importer with the nom de plume The Champagne Lady who sells mostly online and in restaurants, invited me to taste a new range of champagnes she is importing.

Batley Burton represents the family-owned champagne house, Comte de Dampierre (pronounced domp-ee-air).

The owners of this tiny company still hand-tie the bottletops of two of their top bubbles with waxed twine. This curious tradition harks back to the days when the company sent champagne to the Russian Czar and tied each bottletop with waxed twine to prevent rats getting in to the precious cargo. Ordinary string was not strong enough to keep the rodents away. And the reason they were so keen to get into the champagne was because, back then, it was significantly sweeter than it is now; a temptation too strong for a rodent to resist.

Not that this is a problem now. Obviously, shipping conditions are more hygienic, but also all champagnes are drier today. Sure, there are sweet bubbles around but they are in the minority and stylistically our tastebuds have grown up.

Which is why Champagne Comte de Dampierre will appeal to New Zealand wine drinkers.

The champagne house produces 200,000 bottles of champagne each year and there are six wines in the range, all of which are imported directly and available only at restaurants and online from Batley Burton's website (see link below).