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Sparkling wine production

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are four main methods of sparkling wine production. The first is
simple injection of carbon dioxide (CO2), the process used in soft drinks,
but this produces big bubbles that dissipate quickly in the glass. The second
is the Metodo Italiano - Charmat process, in which the wine undergoes a
secondary fermentation in bulk tanks, and is bottled under pressure. This
method is used for Prosecco and Asti in particular, and produces smaller,
longer-lasting bubbles. This is now used widely around the world to
produce light, delicate sparkling wines. The third method is the traditional
method or méthode champenoise.[a] With this method the bubbles for
more complex wines are produced by secondary fermentation in the bottle.
As the name suggests, this is used for the production of Champagne and
other quality sparkling wines, but is slightly more expensive than the
Charmat process. The fourth method is the "transfer method". This method
All production methods for
will take the cuvee to bottle for secondary fermentation, which allows for the
sparkling wines have one thing
additional complexity, but then will transfer the wine out of the individual
in common: they have the
bottles into a larger tank after it has spent the desired amount of time on
purpose of introducing enough
yeast.[1] carbon dioxide in the wine to
make it sparkling, i.e., "bubbly".

Contents
1 Harvest and primary fermentation
2 Traditional method
2.1 Second fermentation
2.2 Aging on lees
2.3 Riddling
2.4 Disgorging
2.5 Dosage
3 Other methods
3.1 Metodo Italiano (Charmat process) Champagne bottles in racks in
3.2 Transfer method underground cellars.
3.3 Gas injection
4 Bottle aging
5 Vintage vs. non-vintage
6 Wine faults
7 See also
8 References

Harvest and primary fermentation

Grapes used for Champagne are generally picked earlier, when sugar

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levels are lower and acid levels higher. Except for pink or rosé
Champagnes, the juice of harvested grapes is pressed off quickly, to
keep the wine white. The first fermentation begins in the same way as
any wine, converting the natural sugar in the grapes into alcohol while
the resultant carbon dioxide is allowed to escape. This produces the
base wine. This wine is not very pleasant by itself, being too acidic. At The larger Champagne producers
this point the blend, known as the cuvée is assembled, using wines have a number of press houses
from various vineyards, and, in the case of non-vintage Champagne, situated throughout the region, such
various years. as this Moët & Chandon facility.

Traditional method
The traditional method is the process used in the Champagne region
of France to produce the sparkling wine known as Champagne. It
used to be known as the méthode Champenoise but the Champagne
producers have successfully lobbied the European Union to restrict
that term to wines from their region. Thus wines from elsewhere may
not use méthode Champenoise when sold in the EU, and instead
A bottle of undisgorged Champagne traditional method, méthode traditionnelle or the local language
resting on the lees. The yeast used in equivalent can be seen. Consumers outside the EU may still see
the second fermentation is still in the méthode Champenoise on labels, but it is becoming less common.
bottle, which is closed with a crown
cap. After primary fermentation and bottling, a second alcoholic
fermentation occurs in the bottle. This second fermentation is induced
by adding several grams of yeast (usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae although each brand has its own secret
recipe) and several grams of rock sugar. At this time the champagne bottle is capped with a crown cap. The
bottle is then riddled (see below), so that the lees settles in the neck of the wine bottle. The neck is then frozen,
and the cap removed. The pressure in the bottle forces out the lees, and the bottle is quickly corked to maintain
the carbon dioxide in solution.[1]

Second fermentation

The blended wine is put in bottles along with yeast and a small amount of sugar, called the liqueur de tirage,
and stored in a wine cellar horizontally, for a second fermentation. Champagne requires a minimum of 1.5 years
under the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée to completely develop all the flavour. For years where the harvest is
exceptional, a vintage (millesimé) is declared and the wine has to mature for at least 3 years.

During the secondary fermentation the carbon dioxide is trapped in the bottle, keeping it dissolved in the wine.
The amount of added sugar will determine the pressure of the bottle. To reach the standard value of 6 bars (600
kPa) inside the bottle, it is necessary to have 18 grams of sugar, and the amount of yeast. Saccharomyces
cerevisiae, is regulated by the European Commission (Regulation 1622/2000, 24 July 2000) to be 0.3 gram
per bottle. The liqueur de tirage is then a mixture of sugar, yeast and still Champagne wine.

Aging on lees

Main article: Autolysis (wine)

Wines from Champagne cannot legally be sold until it has aged on the
lees in the bottle for at least 15 months in the case of non-vintage
Champagne. Champagne's AOC regulations further require that
vintage Champagnes are aged in cellars for three years or more
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before disgorgement, but most top producers exceed this minimum
requirement, holding bottles on the lees for 6 to 8 years before
disgorgement.

Riddling
After aging (a minimum from one and a half to three years), the
sediment (lees) must be consolidated for removal. The bottles
undergo a process known as riddling (remuage in French).[2] In this Champagne bottles undergoing aging
stage the bottles are placed on special racks called pupitres. This in the cellars of Veuve Clicquot.
places the bottles at a 45° angle with the cork pointed down. Every
few days the bottles are given a slight shake and turn and dropped back
into the pupitres (eventually the angle is increased). The drop back into
the rack causes a slight tap, pushing sediments toward the neck of the
bottle. In about 6 to 8 weeks the position of the bottle is pointed straight
down with sediment in the neck of the bottle.[3] This manual way of
riddling sparkling wine is still used for Prestige Cuvées in Champagne,
but has otherwise been largely abandoned because of the high labour
costs. Mechanised riddling equipment called gyropalettes are used
instead.

Many stores now sell riddling racks simply for decorative storage of
wine.

Disgorging
The removal process is called disgorging (dégorgement in French), and
Le Remueur: 1889 engraving of
was a skilled manual process, where the cork and the lees were
the man engaged in the laborious
removed without losing large quantities of the liquid, and a varying
daily task of turning each bottle a
amount of sugar is added. Until this process was invented (by Madame fraction
Clicquot in 1816) Champagne was cloudy, a style still seen occasionally
today under the label méthode ancestrale. Modern disgorgement is
automated by freezing a small amount of the liquid in the neck and removing this plug of ice containing the lees.

Dosage
Immediately after disgorging but before corking, the liquid level is
topped up with liqueur d'expédition. At this time, it is common to
add a little sugar, a practice which is known as dosage, which means
that the liqueur d'expédition consists of a mixture of base wine and
sucrose, plus 0.02 to 0.03 grams of sulfur dioxide as a preservative.
Some maisons de Champagne (Champagne brands) claim to use
their own secret recipe for the liqueur d'expédition, adding various
ingredients such as old wine, cognac, and candi sugar. In the Traité
théorie et pratique du travail des vins (1873), Maumené lists the
additional ingredients "usually present in the liqueur d'expédition":
port wine, cognac, elderberry wine, kirsch, framboise wine, alum
solutions, tartaric acid, and tannins.

Some milliliters of liqueur d'expédition are injected to the bottle and

the amount of sugar added will determine the sweetness of the
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Equipment for effecting dosage Champagne, since the sugar previously present in the wine was
through the addition of 'liqueur consumed in the second fermentation. Most of the time, sugar is
d'expédition. added to balance the high acidity of the Champagne rather than to
actually achieve a sweet-tasting wine. Brut Champagne will only have
a little sugar added, but only Champagne called nature or zéro
dosage will have no sugar added at all. A cork is then inserted with a capsule and wire cage securing it in place.

Champagne's sugar content varies. The sweetest level is doux (meaning sweet), proceeding in order of
increasing dryness to demi-sec (half-dry), sec (dry), extra sec (extra dry), brut (almost completely dry), and
extra brut/brut nature/brut zero (no additional sugar, sometimes ferociously dry).

Other methods
While the traditional, or "Champagne method", is the most widely known style of production, there are several
alternative means of sparkling wine production that are less costly and labor intensive.[1]

Metodo Italiano (Charmat process)

The Charmat process is known as Metodo Charmat-Martinotti (or Metodo Italiano) in Italy, where it was
invented and is most used. The wine undergoes secondary fermentation in stainless steel tanks or steel vessels
covered with vitreous enamel rather than individual bottles, and is bottled under pressure in a continuous
process. Many grape varieties, including Prosecco, are best suited for fermentation in tanks. Charmat method
sparkling wines can be produced at a slightly lower cost than méthode champenoise wines.[1]

Sovetskoye Shampanskoye or 'Soviet champagne' was produced using a similar method.

Transfer method
This follows the first steps of "methode champenoise" in that after primary fermentation the cuvee is transferred
to bottle to complete secondary fermentation. When the secondary fermentation is complete and the wine has
spent the desired amount of time in bottle on yeast lees (six months is the requirement to label a wine 'bottle
fermented') then the individual bottles are transferred (hence the name) into a larger tank. The wine is then
filtered, the liqueur de dosage added, and then filled back into new bottles for sale. This method allows for
complexity to be built into the wine, but also gives scope for blending options after the wine has gone into
bottle.[1]

Gas injection
Comparatively inexpensive sparkling wine is made by simple injection of CO2 from a carbonator. This way of
manufacturing is not allowed in the European Union.

Bottle aging
See also: Aging of wine

Even experts disagree about the effects of aging on Champagne after disgorgement. Some prefer the freshness
and vitality of young, recently disgorged Champagne, and others prefer the baked apple and caramel flavors that
develop from a year or more of bottle aging. In 2009, a 184-year-old bottle of Perrier-Jouët was opened and
tasted, still drinkable, with notes of "truffles and caramel", according to the experts.[4]

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Vintage vs. non-vintage

The majority of the Champagne produced is non-vintage (also known as mixed vintage or multivintage), a blend
of wines from several years. This means that no declared year will be displayed on the bottle label. Typically,
however, the majority of the wine is from the current year but a percentage is made of reserve wine from
previous years. This serves to smooth out some of the vintage variations caused by the marginal growing climate
of Champagne, which is the most northerly winegrowing region in France. Most Champagne houses strive for a
consistent house style from year to year (largely for reasons related to price-setting and successful marketing),
and this is arguably one of the hardest tasks of the house winemaker.

The grapes to produce vintage Champagne must be 100% from the year indicated (some other wines in the EU
need only be 85% to be called vintage, depending on their type and appellation). To maintain the quality of non-
vintage Champagne a maximum of half the grapes harvested in one year can be used in the production of vintage
Champagne ensuring at least 50%, though usually more, is reserved for non-vintage wines. Vintage Champagnes
are the product of a single high-quality year, and bottles from prestigious makers can be rare and expensive.

Wine faults
Several wine faults can occur in sparkling wine production. Some that were present in early sparkling production
include yeux de crapauds (toad's eyes) which was a condition of big, viscous bubbles that resulted from the
wine spending too much time in wooden casks. Another fault could occur when the wine is exposed to bacteria
or direct sunlight, leaving the wine with murky coloring and an oily texture.[5]

See also
List of Champagne producers
Winemaking
Oenology

References
a. ^ The term "méthode champenoise" or "Champagne method" was outlawed for all wines other than Champagne
(which for obvious reasons does not bother to utilize it) in Europe in 1994, replaced with "traditional method". On
labels it may be referred to as "méthode traditionnelle", "méthode classique", "traditional method", "classic
method", or the ambiguous term "bottle fermented". [6]

1. ^ a b c d e J. Robinson (ed) "The Oxford Companion to Wine" Third Edition pg 657-660 Oxford University
Press 2006 ISBN 0198609906
2. ^ maisons-champagne.com "Pointage", riddling, and "dépointage" (http://www.maisons-
champagne.com/traduction/english/vignes_au_plaisir/pointage_gb.htm)
3. ^ greatgrub.com Overview of Méthode Champenoise (http://greatgrub.com/reference/methode_champenoise)
4. ^ Julian Joyce (20 March 2009). "World's oldest Champagne opened"
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7954876.stm) . BBC News Online.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7954876.stm.
5. ^ D. & P. Kladstrup Champagne pg 45 Harper Collins Publisher ISBN 0060737921
6. ^ winepros.com.au. Oxford Companion to Wine. "champagne method"
(http://www.winepros.com.au/jsp/cda/reference/oxford_entry.jsp?entry_id=644) .
http://www.winepros.com.au/jsp/cda/reference/oxford_entry.jsp?entry_id=644.

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Categories: Sparkling wines | Oenology

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