Canning (who had died in 1827), a protégé of the younger Pitt, was no foe to good wine. But in the matter of champagne he presumably cleaved to the sweeter taste of an earlier generation.
It was supposedly the French man of letters Charles de Saint-Evremond who had introduced the English to this bewitching drink. When he was banished from the court of Louis XIV and exiled to London, he brought the wines of Champagne to the court of Charles II. They seem then to have been variable and unreliable: at their best, enlivening and with a vivacious sparkle, but in bad years thin and sour, with a tendency to cloudiness as a result of over-aggressive pressing of the black grapes which, then as now, often contribute to the blend of champagne. There was also a problem with explosions. The bottles were thin, and the corks were normally nothing more elaborate than a "wooden plug wrapped in a clout, but without any wire cage" such as is used now to retain the cork in position. When the cork was well-fixed, the bottle might explode. If it were less well-fixed, the pressure of the secondary fermentation would often blow the cork.
The remedies for these defects — stouter bottles capable of withstanding the pressures generated by secondary fermentation, and superior corks imported from Spain — are both credited to the English, who were already the most important export market for champagne. Meanwhile the Champenois were also investigating the cause of exploding bottles, which might, if the purchaser were unlucky, account for up to half a shipment. The solution had to wait until the early years of the 19th century, when a local chemist showed how to calculate the amount of added sugar that would produce an exciting but safe degree of sparkle.
