No. 445

Champagne Sauce, Also with Chablis, Rhine Wine, Sauterne or Gravewine

Sauce au Champagne, Chablis, Vin du Rhin, Sauterne ou Grave

The sauces may be made white or brown for a base; for white, using veloute (No. 415), for the brown, having a brown espagnole (No. 414). Reduce one quart of espagnole with half a pint of mushroom essence (No. 392), or the liquor in which they have been cooked, also a pint of mirepoix stock (No. 419), add a pint of champagne or any other wine and reduce once more until the sauce be sufficiently consistent. If made with veloute thicken it with egg-yolks, cream and small pats of butter.

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For the Modern Kitchen

This is a compound sauce in the classical sense: it assumes you already have a mother sauce and two flavoring stocks in the kitchen, and it only tells you how to combine and reduce them. Everything hangs on how far you take the reduction and, in the white version, on not boiling the sauce once the egg yolks go in.

The hinge: the liaisonIf you build on velouté and finish with egg yolks and cream, the sauce must not return to a boil or the yolks will curdle and the sauce will break into grains. Hold it below a simmer, around 170-180F, and whisk in the cold butter off the heat.
What the numbered references meanNo. 414 espagnole is a brown sauce of veal stock, brown roux and aromatics, reduced over hours; No. 415 velouté is the same idea with white stock and a pale roux. A good reduced brown stock or a demi-glace stands in for the first, and a light stock thickened with a blond roux for the second.
Mirepoix stockRanhofer's mirepoix (his No. 419) is not raw diced vegetables but a cooked preparation of carrot, onion, celery and often raw ham or bacon moistened with wine and stock, then strained. A well-flavored ham-and-vegetable stock reduced by half gives the same effect.
Mushroom essenceThis is the strained, reduced liquor from cooking mushrooms, which is exactly what the recipe offers as the alternative. Simmer sliced mushrooms in a little water or stock with lemon, then strain and reduce; half a pint of essence takes a good quantity of mushroom liquor cooked down.
Quantities and yieldA quart of espagnole plus a pint of mirepoix stock, a half pint of mushroom essence and a pint of wine is about nine cups before reduction, and even reduced to a spoon-coating consistency it leaves restaurant-scale quantities. Quartering everything brings it down to a household amount.
The wineChampagne, Chablis, Rhine wine, Sauterne and Graves are all listed as interchangeable, so no one wine is essential, and any bubbles will be gone within seconds of hitting the pan. What Ranhofer meant by 'Sauterne' is not certain: the spelling without the final s was common in the period, and the name was later applied in America to generic white wine, but sweet Sauternes was also used in French kitchens. If you use a sweet wine, expect a noticeably sweeter sauce.
Reduction and consistency"Sufficiently consistent" means it lightly coats the back of a spoon and leaves a clear track when you draw a finger through it. Skim the surface as it reduces and strain through a fine sieve or chinois before finishing.
SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified; the espagnole, mirepoix and stocks would have carried the seasoning. Taste at the end of the reduction, when concentration has settled, and correct then rather than earlier.
ServingWine sauces of this kind were used for poached and braised fish, sweetbreads, poultry and veal, the white version generally with pale delicate meats and the brown with braised joints and game, though this page names no dish. Serve it hot, and if it must wait, hold it in a bain-marie rather than over direct heat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer published The Epicurean in 1894 after decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the book is organized like a professional kitchen rather than a home one: a numbered scaffold of stocks and mother sauces, with hundreds of derivative sauces such as this one built from them by reduction and addition. The practice of naming a sauce for the wine reduced into it belongs to the same French codifying impulse that Escoffier set down in print a decade later. The list of five interchangeable wines suggests the name was doing work on the menu as much as in the pan, since the finished sauce carries a great deal of veal stock, ham and mushroom. Note also that "Grave" is Graves, the Bordeaux district, and that "Sauterne" without the final s was a spelling widely used in American writing of the period; the name was later applied to generic white blends on domestic California bottlings.