Champagne's history goes back 300 years, when it was called "leaping light in a glass." It was Dom Perignon, a Benedictine monk who was the chief winemaker of an abbey, located in the historic Champagne region of France, who perfected the technique for making sparkling wine.

In 1743, Claude Moet purchased the abbey and turned it into a winery of great renown. His most celebrated champagne was named after the monk who created it.

There was an early champagne connection between France and America, when in 1787 Moet sent 100 bottles of sparkling wine to the New World. It would be another 200 years before the French would be involved in the building of a champagne winery in the heart of the Napa Valley-Domaine Chandon