This popular, luxurious sparkling wine is mostly produced out of black grapes in the towns of Epernay and Reims, in the Champagne region of France.

Apart from being frequently drunk on its own in a Flute glass, champagne is used in a variety of popular cocktails, including Kir Royale, Air Mail and Buck’s Fizz.

It is also often used to create ‘Royal’ variations of other famous cocktails, such as Royal Cosmopolitan and Royal Mojito. In these cases, it is often used as a ‘luxury’ replacement for soda water.

The bubbles in champagne add an interesting fizz to cocktails. Depending on the type of champagne, the sparkling wine can be more or less dry, which can suit certain cocktail recipes better than others. The degree of sweetness of champagne is determined by the amount of sugar added after the fermentation and aging process.

Champagne is classified according to 7 categories, depending on the amount of sugar per litre. Brut champagne (featuring less than 15 grams of sugar per litre) is relatively dry, making it a suitable ingredient for many cocktail recipes.

Champagne is typically made of 3 grapes called Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. This order also reflects how commonly each grape is used, with Chardonnay (the only white grape), representing less than 30% of the vines in the region. Most champagne today is a blended product of grapes coming from different regions (hence the classification, “Non-vintage”).

There are 4 principle types of champagne available: ‘cuvée de prestige’ (usually the highest quality produced); ‘blanc de noirs’ (made entirely from black grapes); ‘blanc de blancs’ (made entirely from Chardonnay grapes) and ‘rosé’ (usually produced by adding a small amount of Pinot noir red wine to the sparkling wine itself).