The Buzz About Bubbles: A Delve into Sparkling Wine Methods
Sparkling wine is created by trapping CO2 in the bottle during fermentation.
While Champagne has always been a treat, we’ve become accustomed to drinking more bubbles since Prosecco became more easily accessible. But sometimes while enjoying that bubbly, have you thought about how it’s made? To pare sparkling or semi-sparkling wines down to the bare minimum, they are created by trapping the natural carbon dioxide created during fermentation and maintaining it with a high enough level of pressure to cause the molecules to meld with the wine. These CO2 molecules are what is released in the form of bubbles when the bottle is opened. While some methods of this are more famous than others, it may be surprising to learn that there are seven different methods of creating sparkling wines! What differs in these methods? To understand, let’s have a look of sparkling wine and its ancestry.
So What Defines a “Sparkling Wine”?
By definition “sparkling wine” can be anything that has residual CO2 in the bottles, causing bubbles to form when opened. Making bubbles can be done by many methods using wine made with any grape. Yet, we are exposed to a very small cross section of the types of sparkling wines, mainly Champagne made in the Traditional method with pinot noir and chardonnay grapes and Prosecco made in Charmat method with Glera (aka Prosecco) grape. Yet, there is a whole world sparkling wines out there, made by even other methods and with a huge variety of grapes. With the holidays just around the corner, now’s the time to find out more.
Sparkling Wine in History
Historically, sparkling wine can be traced back as early as the 1500s in a French monastery of Saint Hillaire in south-western France (in the total opposite direction of the now world famous Champagne region!). In fact, the famous Champagne Dom Perignon takes its namesake from a French monk in the 1600s who noticed bottles in monastery cellars exploding which drove him to study sparkling wine. When the English moved to shipping Northern French wine in glass bottles instead of wood casks, they also noticed the tendency for wine to become sparkling.
Ancestral Method or Pet Nat
In cold winters, wine could not fully finish its fermentation, and when put into these new English glass bottles the wine would pop corks and froth in the glass of patrons in England! This ancient natural method of sparkling wine making is called, the Ancestral Method, also known as “Pet Nat” or pétillant-naturel sparkling wines, and it became the way to make wine in Italy too in the olden days.
The Ancestral method basically means that wine is bottled before fermentation is completely finished. This means, some sugars and yeasts are still being actively produced when the bottle is sealed. This creates the perfect conditions to fuse the wine and CO2, and, it does leave a little residue, known as ‘fondo’ in Italian. This produces a unique wine, low in alcohol but very aromatic and flavorful. It requires relatively little equipment, however, it requires a very skilled winemaker to correctly balance the yeasts, sugars, and acids. Sometimes the wines are not disgorged, so left unfiltered, known as ‘col fondo’ in Italian Pet Nats.
Got you curious? We have several Pet Nats available. They can be made with Glera (the Prosecco grape) like the Col del Balt Codolà and the Zanon Col Fondo. Go red and sparkling like a Lambrusco pet nat: the Frignano Scurone. Also always fun to try are unique or rare grapes made into pet nat wines, such as the Frignano Sgarbato made with Uva Tosca and the Zanon Boschera.
Traditional or Champenoise Method
All Champagne is sparkling wine… but not all sparkling wine is Champagne! This is partly due to the region in which it is produced: a sparkling wine may be produced with the champenoise method, but unless it is made within the delineated boundaries of the Champagne region, it cannot become ‘Champagne’ the wine. However, there are many sparkling wines outside the Champagne region that are made with the same expensive, rigorous, and intensive process that Champagne undergoes. They are sparkling wines described with different names like Traditional Method, Classic Method, translated in italian as Metodo Classico.
To begin, the wines are fermented normally as other wines, however, they then undergo a second fermentation in individual bottles. To accomplish this, winemakers add a dose of yeast and sugar to the bottles once filled, before corking. As the second fermentation occurs, residue from the yeast begins to form, so the bottles are place neck down at an angle, and are then rotated every so slightly.
Once the winemaker decides to remove the lees, the necks of the bottles (still pointed downward) are frozen to solidify the yeast gunk. When the cork is removed, the pressure inside the bottle forces the frozen mass out. Then the wine is topped off with fermented wine and a traditional cork and wire cage are fitted, and the wine is ready for resale.
Different traditional method wines have different aging period ‘on the lees’ or with this yeast; for example Champagne must stay a minimum of 15 months in this position, and some stay more than 3 years. However, all agree, the more time spent like this, the more the wine becomes well-rounded. We have two traditional method sparkling wines which were on the lees for twice as long as the Champagne minimum! They are the Sandro de Bruno Durello and the Ivaldi Andrea Alta Langa.
Charmat or Tank Method
Developed in Italy in the 1890s, the Charmat method is what makes your traditional Prosecco. This wine is not ‘bottle fermented’ as the Ancestral or Traditional methods are. Instead, after the first fermentation, the wine is further fermented with sugar and yeast in large tanks, pressurized to trap in the carbon dioxide. Once the process is completed, the yeast is filtered and removed, and the wine is bottled normally. Because of the less intensive process, the Charmat method is considerably easier for a winery to undertake and less costly as well. It is used frequently in Italy to produce Prosecco and Spumante wines. We have some delicious Charmat Method Sparkling wines made from out-of-the-ordinary grapes, such as Col del Balt Prosecco Superiore Brut and the Col del Balt Prosecco Superiore Extra Dry, which was actually listed as one of Vinepair’s Best Proseccos!
Semi-Sparkling or Frizzante Wines
In Italian, frizza is used to describe something that is tingly on the tongue; imagine the classic Pop Rocks feeling, called frizzy pazzi in Italy. So, it takes no large leap of imagination to guess what frizzante means when describing wines: a light bubble sparkling on the tongue. It is not a still wine, but yet does not contain the mouth-full of bubbles expected with a traditional method wine. In Northern Italy, where cured meats, pork and cream play are part of the traditional cuisine, frizzante wines are traditionally paired with food since the slight effervescence contrasts nicely with the fat in their dishes.
Delightful and exciting, these wines can be either dry or sweet, and are always surprising in their uniqueness and diversity. Created in a methodology similar to the Charmat method (fermented in pressurized barrels then bottled after filtering), frizzante wines take on a less bubbly texture as winemakers choose to add less sugar and yeasts to the secondary fermentation phase. Frizzante wines won’t create a big frothy ‘head’ of bubbles when poured into a glass, but instead offer a slight… well in English we have yet to define a word so perfectly… it offers a slight frizza sensation of bubbly, but not too much.
Bright, bubbly, ruby red Brachetto d’Acqui in the glass.
The Asti Method
To create sweet sparkling wines, winemakers can used halted fermentation, like we talked about in our article about sugar in wine, or a technique specifically called “the Asti Method” as it was invented by a winemaker in the Monferrato region of Italy. The juice starts off it’s journey in a way very similar to the charmat method, in that the sugars are left to ferment into alcohol in a sealed pressurized tank, causing the CO2 to dissolve. However, when only part of the sugars have been converted, usually when the wine reaches around 5% or so alcohol, the wine is cooled to stop fermentation and halt the yeast action. At this point, the wine is filtered to remove any remaining yeasts (to prevent refermentation in the bottle alà Pet Nat) and bottled. This leaves a wine with a bubbly texture and a sweet flavor thanks to the residual sugars. This is a method traditionally used in the Asti area, and most often used for aromatic grapes like Brachetto and Moscato. Wines made in this method are Ivaldi’s Brachetto d’Acqui and Moscato d’Asti. Coincidentally, the Ivaldi Brachetto d’Acqui makes an amazing base for a wine cocktail.
Ready to Put Your Sparkling Wine Knowledge to the Test?
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