Blog

Bubbles, Bubbles, Everywhere! Everything You Need to Know about Sparkling Wine

 

---

Sparkling wine is almost universally associated with celebrations. Yes, bubbly wine is a happy drink and happy drinks are great for celebrations, but that’s not why the association. It is largely due to how expensive sparkling wine tends to be. People generally, therefore, save it for special occasions. Why is sparkling wine so expensive? How are sparkling wines made? Let’s pop a cork and get into it!

This post ended up being way longer than I expected. So, I’m trying for the first time to add a table of contents. 

Table of Contents

• Everything You Need to Know about Sparkling Wine
• Traditional Method Sparkling Wine
• Martinotti Method Sparkling Wine
• Ancestral Method Sparkling Wine
• CO2-Infused Sparkling Wine

Everything You Need to Know about Sparkling Wine

Some Sparkling Wine Vocab 

Knowing the lingo doesn’t make wine taste better, but understanding the terminology on the label might help you decide which bottle to buy. This list is by no means exhaustive!

• Blanc de Blancs: A wine made from only white grapes.
• Blanc de Noirs: White wine made from black grapes.
• Dosage: The sugar added to sparkling wine after disgorgement to balance the wine’s acidity.
• Disgorgement: The process that removes yeast from (usually traditional method) sparkling wine.
• Autolysis: The breakdown of yeast after fermentation. Mostly used in traditional method wines.
• Lees: The dead yeast that forms sediment in wine.
• Sur Lie: Autolysis is the actual breaking down of yeast in wine, sur lie is aging wine contact with those dead lees. Sounds gross, but adds complexity and yummy. bready flavors.
• Autoclave: The pressurized tank used in the Martinotti Method.
• Mousse or perlage: The effervescence of sparkling wine. The best sparkling wines have a mousse with small and persistent bubbles.
• Non-Vintage (NV): A wine made by blending different vintages.
• Cage: That annoying metal thingy that holds the cork. 
• Residual Sugar: Literally the amount of sugar left in the wine after fermentation.
• Riddling: The process of slowly and gradually turning (usually by hand) bottles upside down to encourage yeast to gather near the crown cap.

Traditional Method Sparkling Wine

Traditional method wines are the most labor-intensive sparkling wines to make. They being by blending and bottling the base (fully fermented) wine and adding a mixture of yeast and sugar. Bottles get sealed with a crown cap. The second fermentation takes place in the bottle. Yest eats the sugar, as it does, increasing the alcohol by as much as 1.5% and producing carbon dioxide which makes the bubbles. 

Aging sur lie is common for sparkling wine, sometimes for years even. After however long the wine spends on the lees, it’s riddled and disgorged to remove the dead yeast. The wine then gets topped up with more (still) wine and usually a dosage before being closed with a cork. Traditional method sparkling wine continues to develop in the bottle even after the lees are removed. Despite the metal cage that hugs the cork, teeny tiny amounts of oxygen still get into the wine, deepening and rounding flavors.

The most famous traditional method sparkling wine is Champagne. Crémant (aka sparkling French wine made in not the Champagne region), Cava, and Method Cap Classique are all made in the traditional method, as are some Prosecco and Sekt.

Dr. Heidemanns-Bergweiler Riesling Brut Sekt, NV

Before it became the Dr. Heidemanns-Bergweiler Estate, the founding families, the Bergweilers and Pruems from Wehlen, had been growing grapes since the early 16th century. It wouldn’t be until the end of 19th century that Zacharias Bergweiler expanded the vineyards and got down to the business of serious (i.e. at volume) winemaking. Today, his grandson Dr. Peter Pauly manages the estate, including the 30 acres of Riesling vineyards in the steeply sloped Middle-Mosel. Devon slate, shallow topsoil, and the cold climate give their Riesling wines the tension and minerality typical for a Moselle Riesling. 

I could find zero winemaking notes for this aside from “Riesling” and “traditional method.” Probably doesn’t make it the greatest example to talk about in this particular post, but I did want to feature a Sekt. 

Nose of apple, pear, citrus, and oatmeal. A medium effervescent mousse dissipated into dryness on the tongue, leaving flavors of apple, quince, and candied citrus along with honey, some minerality, and herbs, light up by Riesling’s electric acidity. Crisp from start to finish. Yummy (super technical wine vocabulary that).  

Gruet Domaine Saint Vincent Rosé, NV

Domaine Saint Vincent is a sparkling wine label that belongs to Gruet Winery. However, Gruet’s website makes no mention of the label, nor does it have a website of its own. Laziness? Is this label the winery’s red-headed stepchild that it doesn’t want to acknowledge? Inquiring minds want to know!

Per Gruet’s website, the New Mexico-based winery sources grapes from several states within the US; but we’re led to believe that the majority comes from high elevation vineyards in New Mexico. 

The Domaine Saint Vincent Rosé is a 100% Pinot Noir that spent an indeterminate amount of time on its lees before disgorgement and was disgorged who knows when. Seriously, If you’re not going to have a website, put winemaking notes on the label already. Based on some limited tasting notes I found online, which gave fresher notes than I found, I’m betting that the wine had been disgorged a a fair while before I got it. Not that my wine was bad – far from it!

Pale onion skin with bubbles that danced in the glass and on the tongue. It absolutely burst with red berries, predominately Bing cherry and roasted strawberry, kissed by crushed, dried flowers. Vivid acidity and the tangy-sweet flavor of balsamic vinegar added a savory layer of complexity on the palate. Described as a “crowd pleaser”, I think this wine punches well above its SRP of $20 (in the US).  

Martinotti Method Sparkling Wine

More commonly called the Tank or Charmat method, the Martinotti Method takes its name from the man who invented the process, Piedmontese oenologist Federico Martinotti. These wines also undergo two fermentations. However, unlike traditional method wines that referment in bottle, Martinotti method wines undergo the second fermentation in a pressurized tank, ergo ‘tank method’ name. After the second fermentation, wines are filtered and bottled without further aging. Some look at this as the “cheaper” method. Indeed, it is more cost effective, but it is also better for preserving the fresher, brighter flavors of aromatic grapes like Glera, the main grape used in Prosecco.

Speaking of Prosecco, you’ll often see one of two terms on Italian sparkling wine: frizzante and spumante. What’s the difference? Frizzante wines have lower atmospheric pressure and are therefore lightly sparkling wines, whereas spumante wines are fully sparkling.

Sparkling wines commonly vinified in the Martinotti method include Prosecco, a lot of Sekt, and Lambrusco. 

Ancestral Method aka Pét-Nat

Ancestral method sparkling wines are affectionately called, pét-nat from difficult to pronounce French name: pétillant natural. Unlike both traditional and Martinotti sparkling wines, the ancestral method has only one fermentation. Not two. Just the one. Before the first fermentation finishes, the wine is bottled and closed with a crown cap. It then finishes fermenting in the closed bottle, resulting in the capturing of CO2. This is likely the oldest method of creating sparkling wine-thus its name. 

This method leads to a few differences in the wines:

• The final product is less predictable. It may ferment fully dry, it might be off-dry. Who knows! Perhaps that’s half the fun?
• Usually wines are semi-sparkling (or frizzante) leading to a softer fizz.
• Wines often have a lower final alcohol by volume (ABV) than do those made via the traditional or tank methods.
• In order to preserve the more ‘rustic’ style, they’re often unfiltered and may have some sediment and/or look cloudy.

Fio Piu Piu PétNat, NV

Another winery that shies away from the spotlight, I couldn’t find anything about Fio Wein aside from its general location in Piesport in the Mosel. Happily, its US importer Skurnik at least gave some basic wine information. Basic information, but far from basic wine. 

Fio Wein farms organically, ferments with native yeast, and adds a minimal amount of SO2 only at bottling. The Piu Piu PétNat is unusual in the world of pét-nat. Usually, these wines are bottled with a single vintage. This one, combines multiple vintages, half of which fermented in stainless steel, half in a mix of Fuder (an oak cask that holds 1000 L) and Döppelfuder (2000 L). The wines partially fermented before moving to a part of the winery’s cellar where the cold naturally stops fermentation from continuing. The various vintages get blended and bottled, then move to a warmer place where remaining yeast and sugars in the wine naturally re-start fermentation. Fio Wein does not filter its pét-nat, leading me to learn a new German word: Hefetrüb – yeast cloudy!

Let’s start with the label. I was looking for some interesting bubbles on my last US visit and this label caught my eye right away. It’s adorable and it shall take a spot on my Christmas tree.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover how bubbly the wine was, despite being a frizzante, or possibly I’m just used to the relative flatness of most local pét-nat. From there, it just got better. This wine was all kinds of yummy. Think fleshy peach, quince, and lemon wrapped in marzipan then rolled in elderflower blossoms. Zippy acidity, a gentle perlage, and a dry finish. 

Yaban Kolektif Rosé Pét-Nat

Founded by Umay Çeviker and Levon Bağış, Yaban Kolektif is an effort to, as their website says, “…reunite viticulture and winemaking in Turkey with its past and forgotten values.” They source grapes largely from independent growers around the country as well as from their own Karasakız vineyard in Bayramiç. Neither Umay nor Levon are themselves winemakers. Instead, they work with José Hernández and Heraki who crafts Yaban Kolektif’s wines. 

This is Yaban Kolektif’s second pét-nat, the first being a Sungurlu originally released in 2022. The rosé blends not only grapes but regions with Karasakız (75%) from Bayramiç in the Aegean with Erciş Karası (25%) from Van in Eastern Anatolia. Pretty ballet slipper pink in the glass with equally pretty aromas of wild strawberry, kizilcik, pink grapefruit, and rosemary. Distinctly off-dry-feeling on the palate and just barely fizzy. Flavors of mountain strawberry jam, grapefruit and apricot with a biter, pity finish. 

CO2-Infused Sparkling Wine

We can dispense fairly quickly with this style of sparkling wine, a winery takes the base wine and infuses it with CO2. Like a soda. Although if you have one of those soda machines at home, I wouldn’t recommend doing that to wine. These are the cheapest of the sparkling wines, in price and quality. 

Hopefully now you have a slightly better idea of what are the different styles of sparkling wine, what goes into making them, and why they’re often so pricey. Sure most of us can’t afford to pop the cork on bubbles just because we want to (sad for us). But that also doesn’t mean that we have to wait for a special occasion to open one. Make a special occasion! 

Thirsty for more? Check out all my sparkling wine posts and reviews.