“In victory, you deserve Champagne, in defeat, you need it.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Champagne was not only made popular by such cool dates, but also by celebrity endorsements or excesses. It’s no secret agent 007 James Bond always had a strong penchant for Bollinger champagne (and vodka). And it’s been reported that Marilyn Monroe once filled her bathtub with 350 bottles of champagne and took a long, luxurious soak in it.

 

Champagne, the dry sparkling wine from the northeastern region of France (East of Paris) that bears the same name, has long been considered the best drink for toasting or celebrating a special occasion. Its image as a celebratory drink and the high price of champagne, along with the preference of North Americans for sweeter-style drinks, have caused the image and sales to plummet over the years. Fortunately, with the proliferation of both dry and dry sparkling wines from almost every wine-producing region in the world, bubbly is slowly regaining some of its lost popularity.

 

Gone are the days when sparkling wine was only drunk to celebrate a special occasion or to accompany luxurious delicacies like caviar. Sparkling wine makes a great appetizer on its own or with simple hors d’oeuvres, seafood dishes, or sushi, or can be enjoyed with dessert if the wine is dry or sweet. It doesn’t have to be a Moët & Chandon Cuvée Dom Pérignon, Bollinger Grande Annee, or other expensive bubblies. Some of the best bubbles in the world are now produced cheaply in the wine regions of the New World and other regions of the Old World, such as Italy, Spain and countries in Eastern Europe.

And as wineries attempt to demystify table wines by simplifying labels – first by identifying grape varieties rather than strict provenance – sparkling wine marketers are also working hard to make sparkling drinks more user-friendly. the consumer and the food, which can be enjoyed any day.

Not all bubbly is champagne

The popularity of Champagne has made the name synonymous with sparkling wine, but not all sparkling wine is Champagne. Only sparkling wine produced in specific regions of Champagne, for example Reims and Épernay, produced by the traditional method using only Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and / or Pinot Meunier can be labeled as Champagne. (There are other production criteria, however, these are the main ones). Other sparkling wines from France, but outside of Champagne, made with the traditional method are called Crémant, while in Spain they are known as Cava.

 

The traditional method, more often referred to as Champagne method gold traditional method, requires the bubbles to be produced naturally within each bottle through a second fermentation, known as mousse award, which is started by adding a tirage liqueur, a mixture of sugar and yeast, to a still wine. Still wine is known as base wine, or Classic, and consists of a blend of many different wines carefully blended by the cellar manager, or cellar master. The cuvée can often be a blend of hundreds of different wines. If all the wines that compose it are from a single vintage, the final sparkling wine has a vintage date. Wineries that choose to make a consistent style year after year will blend wines from two or more vintages to produce a non-aged or multi-vintage sparkling wine.

 

During bottle fermentation, yeast consumes sugar to convert it into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas, just like in any alcoholic fermentation; however, the gas is trapped inside the bottle, dissolved in the wine. The pressure inside the bottle can reach up to 6 bars, approximately 90 pounds per square inch, or psi, the equivalent of three times the pressure in automobile tires.

 

The wine is left to ferment for several weeks and mature very slowly at cool temperatures, between 50 ° and 54 ° F (10 ° and 12 ° C), with the bottles in a horizontal position, or in latte. This prolonged contact with yeast cells depleted from fermentation, a process known as yeast autolysis, is what gives sparkling wine its yeasty, nutty aromas and complex flavors. It can last from a few weeks to several years, depending on the desired flavor profile and the patience of the cellarmaster. After a long stay in the bottle, the dead yeast cells are dropped and accumulated in a special crown cap closure, known as the contraption, through a labor-intensive method known as riddles.

 

Riddle, gold riddles, is the process of twisting, turning and tilting bottles from a horizontal to a quasi-vertical position on a guessing rack, or desk, to allow spent yeast cells to accumulate in the bidule, a process that takes about three weeks. The cellar manager can choose to further age the sparkling wine by transferring the bottles in their upright position, or on top, to a storage container.

 

When the wine has reached its optimal and desired flavor profile, the cellar manager removes the spent yeast deposit from each bottle through a process known as disgorging, or disgorgement. The bottle is held vertically, pointing downward, and with a disgorging wrench the crown cap and bottle are removed while the bottle is placed in a horizontal position. This allows the sediment to fly off the neck of the bottle leaving the wine crystal clear, if done correctly. The process is often made most effective by first freezing the neck of the bottle in a brine solution to freeze the sediment.

 

The last critical step, the Dose, consists of adding a small volume of cuvée to which a little sugar is added to balance the acidity of the wine and achieve the desired style, from dry to sweet. The French refer to this cuvée solution as the expedition liquorand often contains a distilled brandy such as cognac.

Champagne is a cool climate grape growing area and as such grapes do not reach high sugar levels like in warmer climates and have higher acidity hence the need to balance with sugar. The lowest level of sugar produces a base wine with typically 10.0% to 11.0% alc./vol. Fermentation in the bottle adds another 1.5% for a total of 11.5% to 12.5% ​​alc./vol. for the finished wine.

 

The final step is to partially insert a cork (that’s what gives the cork its distinctive mushroom shape once it’s removed) into the bottle and secure it with a wire cage.

 

Most sparkling wines are ready to drink when finished and can last up to two to three years in the bottle; However, the best bubbles in the world, that is, those produced with the traditional method, can live for many more years with adequate storage.

 

This laborious process and long aging explains the high price of sparkling wines made with the traditional method.

 

Other bubblies of the world

The quality of sparkling wine is judged by the complexity of the aroma and flavor and the size of the bubbles; the smaller the bubbles, the higher the quality. Fermentation in the bottle, as in the traditional method, produces the smallest bubbles; however, such sparkling wine is labor intensive and expensive to produce.

The most common and cost-effective alternative to the traditional method is the Charmat or Cuve Close method (sealed tank), which is used to produce many of the world’s inexpensive but good quality bubble bubbles. Bubblies produced with patience and care using this method can rival some of the great Champagnes, although the method is commonly used for the quick marketing of cheaper sparkling wines. The bubbles in these are noticeably larger and the aromas and flavors are not as intense, but they provide excellent value. The intensity and complexity of the flavor, and the quality in general, can be improved by a longer aging of the wine on lees. Asti Spumante, the famous sweet sparkling wine with low alcoholic content (approximately 8% alc./vol.) From Piedmont (Italy), the German Sekt and the sparkling Icewine from Ontario are examples of sparkling wines made with the Charmat method or a variant .

The Charmat method consists of carrying out the second bulk fermentation in pressurized and sealed stainless steel tanks, and avoids the need for bottle fermentation, screening and disgorging. The wine is then chilled to stop fermentation, filtered, a dose added, and then pressure bottled so as not to lose any precious carbon dioxide gas.

A less common method of making sparkling wine has gained great popularity in Russia and Ukraine for the mass production of good quality and inexpensive bubbles. A variant of the Charmat process, the Russian or continuous method uses a series (eg 5) of pressurized tanks linked sequentially. The first tank contains the cuvée and the tirage (sugar and yeast solution). As fermentation begins, the wine is funneled through the second and third tanks, each of which contains wood chips to accumulate dead yeast cells (lees) and allow autolysis to occur. The wine is then channeled through the fourth and fifth tanks where it is clarified before being bottled. Although the wine is in contact with the lees for longer than the Charmat method, the continuous method usually takes less than a month and therefore produces a lower quality wine.

Another less common method is the transfer or racking method whereby the wine fermented in the bottle is transferred under refrigeration to a bulk transfer tank. The dosage is added and the wine is bottled under pressure.

The advantage of all of the above methods is that they eliminate the laborious steps of screening and disgorgement.

Bubbly Styles

The most popular grape variety choices in France for sparkling wine are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or Pinot Meunier, or a blend of any of these. Other popular varieties include Chenin Blanc, Muscat, and Riesling for whites, and Syrah (Shiraz) for reds, but there are no hard and fast rules. Sparkling rosé wine is generally made from red grapes with a very short maceration period to extract a little red color, although a small percentage of red wine can be added to a sparkling white wine to achieve the desired color, albeit with a very different flavor profile. .

A white sparkling wine made strictly from a white grape variety, such as Chardonnay, is known as White of whites Whereas a white sparkling wine made from a red grape variety, such as Pinot Noir, is known as in black and white.

Aside from color, sparkling wines are most often classified based on the amount of residual sugar or relative dryness. For example, a Brut sparkling wine can have up to 15 g / L of residual sugar, while an Extra Brut usually has less than 6 g / L. Countries have different designations and requirements regarding residual sugar content; and different countries use different terminology which can be quite confusing.

Appreciating bubbly

The sparkling wine production methods outlined above should help you better appreciate the difference between a sparkling wine priced at $ 12 vs. $ 50 or even $ 200 or more.

Discover the pleasures of sparkling wine by enjoying it any day of the week and experimenting with different pairings until you discover what pleases your palate the most. So start enjoying it now, unlike John Maynard Keynes, one of the most important figures in the entire history of economics, who once said, “My only regret in life is not having more champagne.”