Pt. 2 – other sparklers
Guest Blog Post by Carlene Wilson
While my French friends die a little inside each time it happens; its fairly common to refer to almost any sparkling wine as champagne. Champagne though is a very specific beverage; made only in a small region of France and under very strict rules.
In part one of this blog series we looked at Champagnes and the wines made in the same “traditional method”. Here in part two we’re going to look at all those other types of sparkling wine.
Pet Nat or Ancestral Method
All the cool kids are drinking Pet Nats – short for Petillant Naturel or naturally fizzy. But while it’s a style which has captured the imagination of younger wine drinkers it is also known as the ancestral method – because it is the oldest way of making a sparkling wine.
Essentially the wine is bottled before the first fermentation has fully finished. The remaining sugar in the wine is consumed by the remaining yeast and the by-product of this is carbon dioxide – natural fizz! Because the wine is not disgorged, as in the traditional method, the yeast remains in the bottle. This means there will often be a little sediment at the bottom of the bottle and the wine can be slightly cloudy. This has no impact on the taste – on the contrary, it can provide an enhancement of flavour and provide wines with a lovely mouth-filling texture.
Wine makers can get quite experimental with their pet nats – using interesting combinations of grapes and making everything from fairly traditional looking white bubbles to roses to sparkling reds and orange wines – where there’s been some skin contact.
Charmat, Tank or Prosecco Method
Prosecco, made from the Glera grape, is known for its fresh, fruity flavours and these are best showcased with this method of sparkling wine making. Here the wine is made in steel tanks and, once fermented, transferred to a new tank for its secondary fermentation – when the bubbles are produced. Then it’s bottled under pressure.
Prosecco therefore tends to have less dense bubbles, a fresh, fruity, sometimes slightly sweet flavour, and none of the bready flavours that come from having spent time on yeast.
Carbonation Method
My friends and I (and even some winemakers) refer to this as the soda stream method. If you’ve ever been tempted to run a boring bottle of wine through the soda stream – as well as probably ending up under a wine fountain – you’ll have discovered that it does put bubbles into the liquid.
Winemakers carbonating their wines are using equipment a little more sophisticated than a home soda stream – but the theory is the same. And while its certainly a cheaper and easier method of creating a sparkling wine, there’s no reason to look down on the wines made this way. If the base wine is high quality, then this is a good way for winemakers to get the bubbles we like without having to charge us premium prices.
Finally a note on closures…
We probably all associate the fun of celebrations with the popping of a cork but many producers now – even of quality tradition method sparklings – are choosing to use crown caps. A crown cap is the metal cap most of us would associate with beer bottles – but they have long been used by sparkling wine makers for ease of removal before disgorgement and now more often as a final closure. They reduce costs for the winemaker and therefore reduce the overall cost of what remains quality products – plus they are an awful lot easier (and safer) to remove.
