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Put some sparkle into your glass |
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Put some sparkle into your glass
The word "champagne" has gathered an aura around it like no
other in the wine world. The very word evokes romance,
sophistication and celebration. Most of us probably first
experience champagne, or at least an imitation of it, as a drink
to toast a wedding.
Understanding the language of sparkling wine gives an insight
into the history, politics, economics and production methods of
these wonderful wines.
Champagne is only one of hundreds of differing sparkling wines,
but as the best and most expensive it has given its name to the
style. Legally only wines made from grapes grown in a defined
area of France can be called "Champagne" but over the years wine
producers all over the wine world have used the name for their
own sparkling wine. Producers in the Champagne region have
successfully fought to change national and international laws to
prevent the word "champagne" appearing on the labels of
sparkling wines from other regions.
The bubbles that give the wine its sparkle are the familiar gas
carbon dioxide, just like the bubbles in beer or soft drinks.
Under pressure carbon dioxide is dissolved in the liquid, when
the bottle is opened the pressure is released and the carbon
dioxide gas comes out.
In most wines the presence of bubbles indicates that something
has gone wrong with the winemaking. In fact Dom Perignon, the
reputed inventor of Champagne, spent a great deal of his time
trying to prevent secondary fermentation.
All sparkling wines are made from a base wine that is made just
like any other white wine. The winemakers select a number of
base wines often from vintages and blend them to get the
required characteristics. You can often find the words 'Non
Vintage' or 'NV' on the label, this indicates that you have a
blend made from several vintages. In exceptional years a vintage
champagne or vintage sparkling wine will be made, and labelled
with the year.
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a number of different methods used to put the bubbles
into sparkling wine. The method champenoise is the most
meticulous and therefore the most expensive. Base wine, usually
a blend of wines from several vineyards and vintages, is
selected and bottled along with some sugar and yeast. The
secondary fermentation converts this sugar to alcohol and carbon
dioxide and the yeast dies and becomes lees. A period of aging
allows the wine to pick up extra flavours from the lees. The
bottles are gradually inverted and the lees is removed by a
method called disgorgement. The wine is topped up and sealed
with the familiar champagne cork.
Other methods of putting the fizz into wine are less labour
intensive and therefore less expensive, but the end product is
of lower quality. Very cheap sparkling wines are gassed with
carbon dioxide from a cylinder just like soft drinks.
The grape varieties permitted to make Champagne are Chardonnay,
Pinot noir and Pinot meunier. Two of these are red wine
varieties, but the juice is usually run off the skins as soon as
the grapes are crushed so it only picks up a tiny amount of
colour. Champagne made from Chardonnay alone is labelled "blanc
de blanc"
Outside of the Champagne region many other varieties are used to
make sparkling wines. Most producers however use the recognised
champagne varieties, or at least the Chardonnay and Pinot noir.
In Australia many sparkling wines are labelled "Pinot
Chardonnay" which indicates the varietal blend.
The sweetness of Champagne and other sparkling wines is
described by the terms Extra Brut, Brut, Sec, Demi-sec and Doux.
Another word you will often see on the label of sparkling wines
is Cuvee. This has several shades of meaning. It is derived from
the French word for vat. In the context of sparkling wines it
means the vat with the best base wine, but the usage of the word
Cuvee is rather loose and is used more for its marketing appeal
than for any real information
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TODAY'S NEWS:
MADISON - Wine lovers, jazz fans and arts patrons will come together for “Wines of the Americas,” a wine tasting benefit for the New Philharmonic of New Jersey from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 15, at 1 Giralda Farms in the scenic Giralda Farms office campus off Madison Avenue in Madison.
Duckhorn Wine Company has been selected by lending partner GE Capital as a feature company for a national ad campaign that launches today in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
It's the moment many people dread - when they are asked to chose the wine. Not only do they not know what to pick, they don't even know how to pronounce it, according to a survey.
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about the wine.
French sparkling wines made outside of Champagne but using the
traditional method are called Cremant. These are often excellent
wines and less expensive than Champagne.
Spumante is the Italian word for sparkling. Spumante can be dry
or sweet, but the dominance of the cheap sweeter versions in the
marketplace makes it hard to convince anyone that a wine
labelled 'spumante' could be dry.
The base wine for sparkling wines needs to have high acidity and
this quality is best achieved in cooler regions. It is no
accident that Champagne is one of the coldest wine regions in
the world. In Australia the premium sparkling wine producers
tend to be in Victoria or Tasmania. For example the popular
brand Yellowglen is based on a vineyard in the Ballarat region
where the climate is unequivocally cool.
Several large companies have vineyards in Tasmania specifically
to produce base wine for sparklers. Taltarni originally built
their reputation around red wines from the Pyrenees region in
Victoria but they established Clover Hill in Tasmania spefically
to make sparkling wine.
The largest producer of Champagne is Moet and Chandon. They are
the parent company of Domaine Chandon, based in the Yarra Valley
and one of the best Australian sparkling wine producers.
Finally, what glassware is best for drinking sparkling wine? The
traditional flat, saucer shaped coupe has been largely replaced
by the flute. The advantage of the flute is that it allows the
bubbles to stay in the wine longer. My answer is that the best
way to drink these wines is in convivial company, with whatever
glassware is available.
About the author:
Darby Higgs is an expert on Australian wines made from less
common grape varieties. He is author of the forthcoming book
Emerging Varietal Wines of Australia, which will be available
from his website at www.vinodiversity.com fromjanuary 2006.
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