How
Champagne is Made
Champagne
is typically made from a blend of three grape varieties,
Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier. Each grape lends
a special character that blend to create a unique symphony
of flavors.
Creating
The Base Wine (Cuvée)
Before
the blending though, the grapes are carefully pressed to
release the juice while not allowing the color and bitter
qualities from the skins of the black grape types to flow
into the juice.
Then,
the juice from these individual grape varieties are fermented
and set aside for either aging or blending.
After
the first fermentation, the winemaker will take the fermented
juice from the three different grape varieties mentioned
above to make a base wine or cuvée. Often, the winemaker
will blend in some aged samples and samples from different
vineyards. In extreme cases, there may be over 100 different
samples of these three types of grapes to make the base
wine.
The
Second Fermentation
There
are two main techniques for the second fermentation. The
first one was developed in order to greatly reduce the expense
and time needed to produce the wine. It is called the charmat
(pronounced shar mah) method or tank method.
The
other method is the traditional or champagne method. This
is the preferred and only method that is used to make true
Champagne. It is a laborious process that involves the second
fermentation to take place in small bottles instead of a
large, closed tank.
If
you're wondering how the sparkling wine gets its bubbles,
it's from the second fermentation. After the base wine has
been blended, more yeast and sugar is added. Then the wine
is sealed off (in bottles for the traditional method and
in a refrigerated tank for the charmat method).
Note:
The cheapest sparkling wines get their carbonation just
like your colas do... with compressed carbon dioxide blasted
into the wine. This creates large bubbles that are aggressive
in the mouth and very short lived.
As
the yeast consumes the sugars, alcohol and carbon dioxide
are produced. Since the carbon dioxide cannot escape, it
absorbs into the wine until it can be liberated by some
lucky fellow in the form of tiny, streaming bubbles.
After
the yeast has finished the second fermentation, it settles
to the bottom and forms a sediment called lees. In the charmat
method, this is simply filtered out from the tank. The traditional
method involves turning over the bottles and rotating them
over a period of up to three months to allow all of the
lees to settle into the necks of the bottles. Then they
are flash-frozen and the sediment is removed as a frozen
plug.
And
Finally...
After
the lees are filtered or removed as plugs, more sugar is
added to balance out the high acidity of the sparkline wine.
Then a super strong cork is inserted and the bottles are
ready for further aging or selling.
Things
to Know When Buying a Sparkling Wine
Champagne
is more complex, toastier, and has more and smaller bubbles
than sparkling wines from the charmat method because of
its long term exposure to lees.
Sparkling
wines may be high quality, but the charmat method was chosen
because it creates a fruitier flavor from limited exposure
to lees. An example would be Italy's Asti.
The
sweetness of a sparkling wine or Champagne ranges from:
