Champagne
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Champagne. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an old province in the N. E. of France, bounded on the N. by Belgium, on the E. by Lorraine, on the S. by Burgundy, and on the W. by Ile-de-France and Picardy. It is now embraced in the departments of Ardennes, Marne, Haute-Marne, and Aube, and parts of Yonne, Aisne, and Seine-et-Marne. It is a rolling country of calcareous formation, and from the vineyards on its hills are produced the famous wines of Champagne. It formed part of ancient Gaul, became known as Campania in the 6th century, and was ruled by independent native counts from the 10th century until 1284, when it was united to the crown of France by the marriage of Joanna, heiress of Navarre and Champagne, to Philip IV. (the Fair). It was formally incorporated with France in 1361. During the 12th and 13th centuries its court was an important literary center, and the language employed there (langue d'oïl) became that of the court of France. At this epoch lived the celebrated chroniclers Villehardouin and De Joinville, and the poets Chrestien de Troyes and Count Thibaut IV. On account of its frontier situation and natural conformation Champagne has been the scene of many military operations, notably during the campaigns of 1792 and 1814, in the Franco- Prussian War, and again in the World War. CHAMPAGNE (from Champagne, in France, where it was originally made), a kind of brisk, sparkling wine. Cham pagnes are divided into four categories: Sparkling Granot, Ordinary Sparkling, Half Sparkling, and Tisane de Champagne, or they may be classed as still, sparkling, and semi-sparkling. They are either sweet or dry, according to the extent to which fermentation has been carried. In the manufacture of Champagne black grapes of the first quality are usually employed.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
sham-pan', an ancient province of France. Its frontier lies east of Paris at a distance of perhaps fifty miles. It was incorporated with France about 1361. Troyes was its capital. It is celebrated for the sparkling red and white wines of the name, especially those produced on the banks of the Marne. Growers press four and one-half pounds of grapes to a quart of champagne. By a law of France the name champagne is restricted to wine produced in a district of about forty-five square miles in the immediate vicinity of Rheims. See Wine ; Rheims ; Burgundy
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts treat Champagne as a place first and a drink second, and Aiton's claim in 1910 that French law confined the name to about forty-five square miles near Rheims was already a rough sketch: the boundaries were fought over violently by growers in 1911 and were only settled by the delimitation laws of 1908-1927, which fixed an appellation spread across some 320 villages in the Marne, Aube and Aisne, with roughly 34,000 hectares now under vine and around 300 million bottles sold a year. Collier's, writing in 1921, noted that Champagne had again been "the scene of many military operations" in the World War, and understated it: the front ran through the vineyards for four years, Rheims cathedral was shelled to a shell, and much of the trade was carried on in the chalk cellars beneath the city. The old province has also vanished administratively, absorbed into the Champagne-Ardenne region in 1956 and then into the larger Grand Est in 2016. The wine's own vocabulary has moved on too: Collier's categories such as "Tisane de Champagne" are gone, the sparkling red Aiton mentions is no longer made, and the hillsides, houses and cellars were named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2015.
Written for this edition, 2026.