Hi!
I wanted to write a post about how I’m choosing sparkling wine or as I say bubbly wine for my celebration and parties. But while writing it, I realized that the post is way too long to stay as stand alone post, so I had to break it up into a series of posts about choosing sparkling wine. Hopefully this will help you to choose the best bubbly for your next special event.
For the new year’s eve celebration we always buy at least a small bubbly wine. And for last couple of years we have been using the same brand. I wanted to try something new this year, but when we tried the samples we again resorted to buying the old faithful.
Choosing sparkling wine – theory of bubbles
First let me give a quick explanation about the method used in getting the wine with bubbles and why we usually stick to traditional method wines.
Being the winemakers daughter I was learning about wine, wine making and wine tasting from an early age. So if it’s not tasty and nice on my tongue, I don’t buy it. I don’t care if it’s the most expensive wine in the world. IT HAS TO TASTE GOOD. And for sparkling wines, it’s not only the flavour that determines the taste. It’s the texture of bubbles as well. And that is caused by the methods used to produce bubbles. There are two most common methods: Traditional and carbon injection.
Traditional method vs. Carbon injection
I won’t go into a detailed explanation of the processes involved in production. This outlook is more the subjective feel of the wine than how it’s produced. It’s how wine behaves and in what situations to use the wine produced with what method that is important here. Only a basic outlook of the methods is given. So you know how bubbles are made.
Traditional method
This method is used to get one of the most famous sparkling wine – the Champagne. It is done by careful manipulation of the brewing processes. The wine is actually brewed two times. First to make the wine, then to get the bubbles. Bubbles in it are caused by the second brewing that catches the carbon dioxide gass (CO2) that the wine yeast produces. So these wines have usually smaller bubbles then the carbonized ones. The sugar that is added in the bottle to encourage the second fermentation needs to be carefully measured because if too much is added, the bottle may explode, too little and wine is not bubbly enough. The bottles are carefully rotated in the end of second fermentation to remove the yeast residue and the wine is then topped with the sugar mixture to give it the desired sweetness.
Both me and hubby prefer the wines that get their bubble texture from this method. The reason is – it rolls over you tongue more smoothly. The bubbles can be felt, but it glides. There’s no pressure from the bubbles. The wine doesn’t seem sharp because bubbles are smaller. These wines are not very good if you want to use them to squirt the wine all around. They will give you a good pop when you open them but won’t necessary “boil” from the bottle. If the boiling effect is what you want, then most likely you will be disappointed a bit and also the wine will loose it’s texture.
Carbon injection
Carbon injection produces more bubbles, it’s more reliable, so the wines are cheaper. But results in much sharper feel of the wine. The bubbles are bigger, and I really don’t like the feel, the sharpness of the bubbles, on my tongue. These wines are usually over carbonized – meaning they have more carbon dioxide injected then they actually need. But the reason they are created like that is because they are created to give you the boiling effect. If the effect with a loud pop is what you’re after, then this is the wine you should use. The amount of carbon in it will insure that AFTER it has boiled from the bottle it still has the bubbles and the texture. If you try to use the wine without the boiling effect, then it will be very, very sharp, even unpleasant, for drinking because of the amount of bubbles. You will have to leave it to sit open, until the carbon dissipates a bit.
For our testing wine, it took half an hour to get to the more pleasant bubble texture, and it even boiled a bit when we opened it, but not enough to get to the pleasant stage. So at first all you could taste was an extreme amount of bubbles and a bit of acid. No wine taste. The bubbles killed it. Then after it settled a bit you could start enjoying the wine.
Other methods
There are other methods of getting the boubles in sparkling wine, but these two are the most opposite ones. Most of other methods either follow the traditional method but have the second fermentation in a barell such as: Continuous method which circulates wine during second fermentation so it clears up, or Transfer method where the sparking wine is transfered to barrels after second fermentation in bottles to remove the yeast residue. Or it’s fermented in steel pressure tank (Charmant method) and after the fermentation removed from the yeast. Charmant method is especially popular in U.S., Italy and for low cost Sekt wines in Germany. It produces sparkling wine at much lower costs than traditional method.
Ancestral method
One other method is Ancestral method that preceedes Traditional method by couple of centuries. The first fermentation is cut short and the remaining yeast produces the bubles in sparkling wine. These wines are usually low in alcohol and highly aromatic. But they can be murky because the remaining yeast residue is not removed.
Conclusion
In short – if you want to buy more drinkable wine, and enjoy the texture – go for the traditional method wines. If you want a loud POP and good boiling effect – go for the carbonized ones.
Labels of traditional method sparkling wines
Crémant – french sparling wines, made by traditional method
Cava – spanish sparkling wine produced by traditional method
Espumante – portuguese sparkling wine produced by traditional method