Discombobulating Bubbles! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Benedictine

Dom Pierre Pérignon (1638-1715) was born in a small village in the Champagne valley. He joined the Benedictine order and entered the abbey in Saint-Vannes, near Verdun. Soon he was transferred to the abbey of Hautvillers near Epernay.
Strange as it may seem, it was an Englishman who first described the method for producing sparkling wines in 1662. But his essay was forgotten, and around 1700 Dom Pérignon rediscovered the procedure that nowadays is known as "méthode champenoise". As a second fermentation in the bottle could increase the pressure to the point where the bottle would explode (frequently causing a chain reaction, sometimes with losses of between 20% and 70% of the stock in storage), Dom Pérignon tried to limit the second fermentation.
Capuchin monks have not been active in developing new drinks. The cappuccino coffee owes it name only to the resemblance in colour to the Capuchin habit.
In the field of producing drinks, Trappists are renowned for brewing strong ales.
The Carthusian order has given its name to a French liquor - Chartreuse, originally distilled by the monks themselves. Nowadays the process has been industrialised.
Dom Pérignon is the top brand of the house of Moët & Chandon.

Answer: Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin

François Clicquot was born in 1774 and in 1798 he married Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, born in 1777.
In 1805, François died - officially from tuberculosis but there were rumours went he had killed himself. So Barbe-Nicole had only two options: either sell and try to survive on the income, or to take charge of the champagne house herself. And she still had a young daughter to take care of - Clémentine was born in 1799.
Although it looked very unlikely (given the attitudes of the time) that a woman would make a living by heading a company, Barbe-Nicole succeeded - not only making the company survive, but making it grow to become of the greatest champagne producers.
I find it therefore quite fitting that the champagne house now is named after Barbe-Nicole's full name after 1805: Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.
The champagne house led by Barbe-Nicole developed the technique of the riddling rack: bottles are stored upside down to let the superfluous yeast collect near the cork, and every day every bottle is turned 90 degrees to speed up the yeast gathering. And then the cork is removed briefly to get rid of the overabundance of yeast.
Barbe-Nicole Clicquot née Ponsardin died in 1866.
Brigitte Bardot (born 1934), Catherine Deneuve (born 1943) and Juliette Binoche (born 1964) are famous French actresses who may sip champagne, but have never headed a champagne producing house.

Answer: No

Jean-Rémy Moët (1758-1841) was the second Président-Directeur-Général (the French term comparable to CEO) of the champagne house Moët. When Jean-Rémy died, his son Victor Moët and Jean-Remy's son-in-law Pierre Chandon took charge of the company, which then was renamed Moët & Chandon.
Jean-Rémy was a personal friend of Napoleon's. Jean-Rémy had met Napoleon at the military academy. Soon Napoleon came to visit Jean-Rémy and buy some crates every time he departed for any battlefield.
When Napoleon was finally defeated, the European armies opposing France decided to occupy several French regions. The Russians occupied the Champagne region, and they looted the champagne cellars. Jean-Rémy declared "Why resist? They're going to get hooked up on this wine, so our future is safe" or words to that effect.
Indeed: Jean-Rémy Moët did not file for bankruptcy. On the contrary, soon after the Napoleonic era Moët conquered the Russian market, and profits went sky high.

Answer: Carl Fabergé

Florens Heidsieck (1749-1828) was a German immigrant, son of a Lutheran minister. Without any affiliation to the Champagne region or a family involved in viticulture, Florens succeeded nevertheless in founding a leading champagne house. In 1828, Florens was followed by his nephew Christian Heidsieck and his cousin Henri Piper. When Christian died in 1838, Henri married Christian's widow.
When the champagne house celebrated its first centennial, the marketing team chose Carl Fabergé to design a special bottle. Later on other champagne houses asked other contemporary artists to design special labels for their special vintages.
Fabergé (1846-1920) was named Russian imperial goldsmith in 1885. He also designed the first of the famous Fabergé eggs in the same year.
If you took the time to look this up, you've noticed that the red herrings could not have designed a bottle in 1885. Goya (1746-1828) was already dead, Picasso (1881-1973) was too young, and Duchamp (1887-1968) wasn't born yet.

Answer: Wool merchant

The history of champagne house Pommery indicates two different dates of establishment: 1836 and 1858. How does one explain this peculiar fact? Well, the company was created in 1836 by Narcisse Greno (1810-1893), a young wine maker who retired in 1856 in favour of the Pommery couple. Greno continued to work for the champagne house, but only in a marketing role.
Alexandre Louis Pommery (1811-1858), aka Louis Pommery, was in fact a wool merchant, and even after joining the Greno company (which was then renamed "Pommery & Greno"), he did not meddle in the champagne production. It is only after Louis-Alexandre died, that his wife Jeanne Alexandrine Louise Pommery, née Melin (1819-1890) took control of the champagne house, which then dropped the name Greno.
Jeanne Pommery bought 50 hectare (123.55 acres) of fine land in 1868, and had dug 18 km (11 miles) of cellars under this tract of land. All these cellars were used to produce champagne, and Jeanne increased annual production from about 45,000 bottles (in 1836, the founding by Greno) to over 2,250,000 bottles at the year of her death.
The red herrings all refer to occupations that didn't even exist in 1858, the year when Louis-Alexandre died. The first car was made in the 1880's, the first plane flew in 1903, and although there were already similar devices, the first machine which we could name a computer was assembled in the twentieth century.

Answer: Adolphe Jacquesson

Memmie Jacquesson (1779-1835) founded a champagne house in 1798. His son Adolphe (1800-1876) patented the muselet in 1844. Adolphe hoped that one of his sons (Ernest or Eugène) would take over the company, but both died at age 29 - Ernest in 1860 and Eugène in 1865, the year Adolphe wanted to retire. So the company went to the children of Eugène Juglar, a nephew of Adolphe's.

They kept the initial name, for the Jacquesson company had already absorbed the Juglar champagne house in 1829. A quick browse on the internet shows us that the red herrings all founded their champagne houses at least a century after Adolphe Jacquesson's death. Bruno Paillard started his company in 1981. Alain Thiénot founded his champagne house in 1985. And the Mignon company was established by Charles Mignon in 1995.

Answer: Legacy

Alphonse Pierlot (1812-1881) inherited the vineyards bought by his father in 1812. When Alphonse died in 1881 without issue, he left in his will his entire estate to his cellar master, Eugène Laurent (1843-1887) and his wife Mathilde Perrier (1850-1925). Once again, it was the widow who took over the company and made for formidable growth. (The champagne houses Pommery and Veuve Clicquot have a similar story).
A legacy is a gift of property by a will and testament. If one wants to leave certain property (be it movable property or real estate) to an unrelated person after one's death, one should write a will indicating what property should go to whom. The executor will see to it that the correct person acquires the correct property, unless some legal problem arises.
A tontine is a contract in which people who jointly own property, agree that their shares will be distributed to the surviving parties in case any one of them dies.
A leasehold is the temporary right to use buildings or agricultural land (or crops) on a tract of land belonging to someone else. For instance, in some developments the village owns the land, and leases the houses to individuals or families for 99 years.
Usufruct is a legal term for the situation in which someone holds the title to a property (in most cases real estate), and someone else has the right to use this property and to receive the fruits (including the rent, for example).

Answer: Andrea

Peter Arnold Mumm (1733-1797) was a wine merchant in Germany. He had four sons: Wilhelm (1774-1832), who founded a bank, Jacob (1779-1835), Gottlieb (1781-1852) and Phillip (1782-1842). The three youngest sons bought some vineyards in the Champagne region and founded a champagne house in 1827. The next generation were Jacob's son Jules (1809-1863), Gottlieb's son George (1816-1887) and Phillip's son Edouard Frederic.
Andrea is a first name usually given to a daughter in Germany and France, while in Italy and Greece it is usually a boy's name.

Answer: Art Nouveau

Perrier-Jouet was the first champagne house to market the champagne brut (with less added sugar) in 1846. Pierre Nicolas-Marie Perrier (1786-1834) started his career as cork maker, but decided to produce champagne himself. His wife Rose Adelaide (1792-1841, commonly named Adele) decorated the rooms in the champagne house, not only those for private use by the family, but also the visiting rooms. Adele was fond of the newest trends in art, and their children and grand-children were brought up in a similar way.
Charles Perrier (1818-1878) inherited the company and stimulated rapid expansion.
The third generation of the family saw the rise of Art Nouveau, developed in the late 1890's by (among others) the Czech lithographer Alphonse Mucha. Art Nouveau used many floral illustrations. The Art Nouveau was not limited to the traditional arts of painting, sculpting and architecture, but also explored new techniques, for instance decorating glass household articles. Among the most famous glass decorators in the Art Nouveau were Louis Tiffany in the USA and Emile Gallé in France, followed by Emile's compatriots René Lalique and the brothers Antonin and Auguste Daum.
Gallé (1846-1904) started his own workshop in Paris soon after 1870. At first he decorated transparent glass with enamel, but soon decorated opaque glass with floral motives.
The bottles for the Perrier-Jouët champagne Belle Epoque were decorated by Emile Gallé with white anemones.
If you visit the champagne house of Perrier-Jouët in Epernay, you'll find many pieces of furniture and many decorations in Art Nouveau style.

Answer: Mainz, Germany

Johann Joseph Krug was born in Mainz in 1800, when this city (nowadays in Germany, in the state Rhineland-Pfaltz) was incorporated in the French Republic. Indeed: prior to Napoleon's coronation as Emperor, France had already conquered several territories in Europe, extending to the west bank of the Rhine.
Johann Joseph was hired by Jacquesson Champagne house in 1834 as one of the directors. There he learned all he needed to know about the champagne business. In 1841 Johann Joseph married the English Anne Jaunay, and in 1843 he founded his own champagne house. Johann Joseph died in 1866, and his company went to his only son, Paul Krug (1842-1910). Paul had no fewer than eleven children, and so the family held control of the company.
Mendoza, Napa Valley and Stellenbosch are famous other wine regions.