SPARKLING UNDERSTAND THE BASICS.

At the end-of-year meetings of friends and family, always the same subjects, and the same information, renew with good content and good words at the end of the year, but first let's go to a little history.

A little of history

With great tales and stories from mythology and the modern world, wine is one of the oldest drinks on the planet, archaeologists have found accumulations of grape seeds as evidence (at least likely) of making wines whose oldest have an average age of 7000 - 5000 BC

Since then there have been numerous legends about the theory of wine production and the first of them comes from the old testament in Genesis 9 “And Noah began to be a tiller of the earth, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine, and he became drunk.” Even without knowing for sure how this precious liquid started, we can study and appreciate its evolution, and today we will talk about a variation that has the power to bring the stars to the glass, that's right champagne or champagne . But we will be more generalists giving an introduction to sparkling wines in general, with a week of tastings ahead where you can follow us here on the blog.

As many imagine or have heard, Dom Pierre Pérignon , a Benedictine monk, invented champagne , certainly not. But his work was crucial for the process of making sparkling wine to be understood and improved.

No one knows for sure who made the first sparkling wine, but the first to be recorded was the sparkling wine from the Abbey of St.-Hilaire , in the Limoux region, Languedoc , in 1531 . More than 100 years before Dom Pérignon began his experiments.

What then did Dom Pérignon do? Although there are records of the making of sparkling wines before champagne , the discoveries of the Benedictine monk became essential. He did not create champagne , nor did he invent natural carbonation, but he created the second fermentation in a bottle , the traditional champagne press, he was one of the first to use the newly invented English thick glass bottles and introduced the cork stopper for closure. the bottle.

Now let's talk a little about the methods most used today, from which we will learn to characterize these precious drinks by the names adopted either by region or by characteristics.

Champenoise or Traditional Method

In this method, sparkling wines undergo two fermentations. The first is to obtain the base wine (simple white wine), and the second is for the production of carbon dioxide, with the second fermentation being inside the bottles themselves, also called the traditional or classic method.

Understanding a little more, the harvested grapes are taken to the winery, where they will be prepared for fermentation. The must is fermented in stainless steel tanks at a controlled temperature between 13 °C and 18 °C. Fermentation rarely takes place in wooden barrels, but there are exceptions, and some companies use oak in the preparation of the base wine. Among them, the exceptional Krug and Bollinger (the champagne of 007 and Christian Gray ) stand out.

After the proposed rest time for the base wine, the sparkling wine bottling process begins for the second fermentation and it is this fermentation that is responsible for the carbon dioxide bubbles. tasting.

This second fermentation is complex, the sparkling wine rests in the bottle for about one to five years, depending on the product. After this period, the bottles are placed on shelves with the neck down. Each day, the bottles are remuées , that is, rotated a quarter turn, in a dry movement, in order to detach the lees from the wall of the bottle and make them go down to the neck. In some producers this practice is still done manually while the large producers already do it with automated equipment. To remove the sludge deposit, the neck is then frozen in a brine bath at -25°C, the capsule is removed and the sludge is expelled by the gas under pressure. The volume of champagne thus lost is replaced by a mixture of wine and sugar, called liqueur or dosing wine . The amount of sugar present in the liqueur will determine whether the sparkling wine will be brut, sec, demi sec , etc., here we are talking about a light addition of sugar, not muscatel .

Although the method mentioned above is responsible for the production of the best sparkling wines, regardless of whether it is a champagne or crémant (sparkling wine produced in French regions other than Champagne), or a Spanish Cava , among other sparkling wines around the world, it is a method time-consuming and expensive, which led producers to seek cheaper and simplified alternatives. This does not mean that it is an inferior wine production, just a lighter drink, to be consumed at a young age.

Charmat method

Well, in that the USA lost the patent, created by the Italian Frederico Matinotti, in 1895 and patented by the Frenchman Eugéne Charmat in 1907 , simplifies the complex part of the traditional method , making the second fermentation in stainless steel tanks. The sparkling wine , once ready, is bottled under pressure so as not to lose its precious bubbles.

This method became better known from the elaboration of the beautiful Proseccos Italians.

But how is it bottled with gas already? The same process is used with other carbonated drinks, such as soda and beer. In this specific case, we have some characteristics due to its high gas value, with sparkling wines above 4 atm and sparkling wines up to 2 atm. For the gentleman who was talking in the chemistry or physics class, making a parallel, we can consider that the pressure inside a bottle of sparkling wine must have a pressure four times greater than the pressure outside the bottle, considering the sea level.

In order not to lose the hook…

Sparkling or Sparkling method

It is a very simple wine, it has a sweeter flavor (although it is not a rule), artificially carbonated with CO2 pressure. The production cost is low and they are usually cheap. One of the best-known sparkling wines is Lambrusco , made from the Lambrusco grape in the region of Italy called Dell Emilia. In Italy some quality Lambruscos are produced, but I don't need to tell you that they don't arrive in Brazil. You know that famous cider you find in the markets and every year you think about giving it to your doorman? Yes, it is considered sparkling because it goes through the gasification method and has its alcohol content, but it is a fermented made from apples and not grapes, and to the surprise of some inattentive people, it is not champagne either here or in China …

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It undergoes just one fermentation , inside stainless steel vats, the same used in the Charmat method. Starting directly from the grape must and not from the base wine, usually Moscato Bianco and Moscato Giallo grapes, fermentation is interrupted when the grape's natural sugar graduation is between 65 and 80 grams/liter, resulting in a pleasantly sweet sparkling wine , with lower alcohol content around 7% to 7.5% vol alc and of great aromatic expression .

Not that it's my favorite on the palate, but I have a particular fondness for this method, as it's my wife's favorite, I remember as if it were tonight that we drank 2 bottles of a beautiful Asti , in which I asked her to marry me. Whenever I go somewhere to buy wine and I see a bottle like that, I remember it.

#FicaDica If your wife, fiancée or girlfriend is not the type to appreciate wines, serve her a glass of this beautiful sparkling wine and wait for the comments.

styles of sparkling wine

Ultra-brut or Nature : the bottle is corked without the addition of expedition liqueur.

Brut : dry sparkling wine, with a sugar content below 15 grams/liter.

Extra-sec : sugar content between 15 and 20 grams/liter.

Sec : contains sugar volume from 20 to 35 grams/liter.

Demi-sec : sugar volume from 35 to 50 grams/liter.

Sweet or Moscatel : sugar content greater than 50 grams/litre.

Now with a good base, let's know how to serve, taste and treat a sparkling wine with style?

Important tips to impress at the end of the year party

– It is good to know that the ideal temperature to serve a sparkling wine is 6 to 8ºC;

– To open a sparkling wine , open it without spilling. The pop and bubble bath only work on the Formula 1 podium and, eventually, between four walls. Socially, it is infinitely more charming to open the bottle discreetly.

– So that it doesn't burst, just tilt and turn the bottle, not the cork. And remember: if the foam overflows, it's probably because the drink wasn't cold enough.

– Sparkling wine is not draft beer. So you don't need a collar. To avoid this effect, tilt the glass when serving .

– Champagne and other sparkling wines are wines, so whenever you write or ask for it to be in masculine 'o champagne' (in lower case). 'The Champagne' (in capital letters) refers to the city.

– This is good and I use it at home, to quickly cool down or maintain a good temperature of a bottle of white, sparkling wine or champagne, the best way is an ice bucket with water. For sparkling wines, a proportion of half ice, half water;

– Avoid using a freezer, it can take the drink to very low temperatures and close its aromas;

– Never… Never… refresh it by putting ice in the glass;

– The appropriate glass for sparkling wine is the flûte, or flute (tulip is for personal beer);

– Bubbles, yes the bubbles, please, this is called perlage , and it can be commented by the size of the bubbles, quantity and persistence.

And if you want more information, wikipedia is a good source ( here ).

Always in moderation, but as our friend Napoleon Bonaparte said “In victories it is deserved, in defeats it is necessary”.

And good tasting!!!