In the desire to keep this blog honest
I feel it necessary to tell you, my readers that I got the Champagne
making process (only) from another website. While I did tweak the
wording at times a lot of it remained intact from the original
writer. I was going to reveal his name but believe it or not the
article did NOT have an authors name to post. The rest of the article
is mine. I hope you enjoy the article as a whole and learn a little
bit about Champagne or Sparkling Wine as I have done.
The holidays are over but throughout
the year we still find cause to celebrate special events. Today we
will talk about Sparkling Wine and Champagne. Lets start off with a
fact that I don't think most people know. The only Champagne on the
store shelves come from the French region of …...you guessed it,
Champagne, France. Technically, it is the only sparkling wine that
can be referred to as "Champagne."Until recently, some
American wine-makers took advantage of a loop-hole in international
law and were calling their sparkling wine ‘Champagne’. As you can
probably already guess the French government as well as the French
people were upset. That issue has since been fixed and now no decent
and respectful wine maker outside the Appellation of Champagne would
dare call their product, however refined, champagne. I don't know
about you but I didn't learn that until about a year ago and it was
from reading an article in Wine Spectator Magazine. By the way in all
the wine reading and research I have done over the last few years the
name Dom Perignon does not even come up anymore. I haven't seen them
even in the top 20 ratings of Champagne. Keep that in mind the next
time you are out somewhere and you see this wine and it's price on
the menu. What is Champagne besides that bubbly, fizzy loudly cork
popping drink that we celebrate with? Champagne is actually mostly
made from the wine grapes Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
although there are 8 different types of grapes that can be used. The
entire process involves the following steps.
Pressing: Grapes will be pressed as soon as possible, especially with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, as skin contact with these dark skinned varietals will soon begin to taint the juice if left on the skins.- First Fermentation: The next step is the first of a total of two fermentation’s takes place. A key factor in this first fermentation is that it be relatively quick and warm. The emphasis here is to produce a relatively neutral wine that is high in acidity.
- Blending: The blending process in Champagne is what sets this region apart from just about any other wine producing region in the world. Most wine regions produce a new vintage of a particular wine every year, the Champenoise are master blenders. Although in a good year many domains will produce a vintage champagne, the Champenoise pride themselves on their masterful skills of blending multiple vintages to create a signature “house style”. Perhaps the epitome of this artful skill is evidenced in the wines of Krug, where up to 7 different vintages are blended to create their multi-vintage cuvee.
- Second Fermintation: The wine is then bottled with a crown cap like beer and left to begin a secondary fermentation in the bottle. Here, active yeast will begin consuming the available sugar, resulting in the anaerobic production of alcohol within this sealed bottle. A by-product of this fermentation is carbon dioxide, which if not allowed to escape into the atmosphere, results C02 which is dissolved into the wine a.k.a., bubbles. This second fermentation generally takes between 4-8 weeks.
- Lees aging: The wine now starts a period of ageing in the bottle where the wine will interact with the dead yeast cells (lees) and which will mostly influence the flavor and texture of the champagne when completed. This process is known as “autolysis”. Flavor characteristics relative to this bio-chemical process include nuances of baked bread, roasted nuts, and salty cheese. Chardonnay in particular is a varietal that benefits greatly from this lengthy autolytic ageing process. By law, non-vintage Champagne must age a minimum of 15 months on their lees, although most age between 18-24 months. Tarlant’s NV Cuvee Louis spends an incredible seven years on the lees. Vintage champagnes must age a minimum of 3 years on the lees, with many wines far exceeding this requirement.
- Remuage / riddiling: Once the champagne has completed its extended lees ageing and is ready to be bottled it will go through a process known as “remuage”. This procedure is aimed at loosening the dead yeast cells and sediment that has formed at the bottom of the bottle, and slowly moving it towards the neck of the bottle which it will be removed or disgorged.
- Disorgement: This process involves removing the dead yeast/sediment in the neck of the bottle. Most often this is achieved by submerging the neck of the champagne bottle into a cold brine, thus quickly freezing the dead yeast matter that has collected in the neck. Once the crown cap is removed, pressure from the dissolved Co2 expediently pushes out this yeast plug, and voila, the champagne has been disgorged.
- Dosage: A measured amount of champagne and cane sugar will be added to the finished wine. This is known as the “liqueur d’expedition”. The amount of this mixture, known as “dosage” will determine the final sweetness level and style of champagne. In certain instances, no liqueur d’expedition will be added, resulting in a wine with zero dosage. Brut style champagnes are next on the dryness level with residual sugar falling between 5-15 grams per liter. Brut champagnes are amongst the most popular style of Champagne in the United States.
- Re-corking: After a cork is inserted, a protective wire cap is placed over the bottle to help secure the cork and bottle. The wine is then shaken vigorously, in order to help integrate the wine with the liqueur d’expedition. The finished wine will now rest anywhere from several weeks to several months (and in some cases longer) before it is sent out into the big bad world of wine shops, restaurants and connoisseurs.So now we have learned a little bit about the drink so many of us love to to celebrate good times with. I myself don,t like Champagne. I do however like a Spumante (Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante) in a Sparkling Wine which is the sweetest type of Sparkling Wine with a Brut being the driest.
The Desert Wine Guy
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