Champagne the wine was bottled before the initial fermentation had finished. Champagne did not use the "" until the 19th century, about 200 years after Merret documented the process. The 19th century saw an exponential growth in Champagne production, going from a regional production of 300,000 bottles a year in 1800 to 20 million bottles in 1850. In 2007, Champagne sales hit an all-time record of 338.7 million bottles. In the 19th century Champagne was noticeably sweeter than the Champagnes of today. The trend towards drier Champagne began when Perrier-Jouët decided not to sweeten his 1846 vintage before exporting it to
History of Champagne wine and suggests that British merchants were producing "sparkling Champagne" even before the French Champenois were deliberately making it. Concurrently, advances in glass manufacture in Britain, by George Ravenscroft and others, allowed more robust wine bottle to be made which could contain the effervescence without exploding. The popularity of sparkling Champagne steadily grew. In 1663, the British poet Samuel Butler penned the first written English reference to "brisk" (i.e. frothy) Champagne in his poem "Hudibras". The 1698 George Farquhar play "Love and a Bottle" featured one of the characters marveling at the steady stream of bubbles in a glass of