Alone, in pairs, or as small groups they gathered at Capitol
Cellars one Saturday to prime themselves for the year-end holidays.
They’d come to the Roseville, shop to sample champagnes and
sparkling wines. I’d come to ask what they wanted to know about
champagne and sparkling wine.
Alone, in pairs, or as small groups they gathered at Capitol Cellars one Saturday to prime themselves for the year-end holidays. They’d come to the Roseville, shop to sample champagnes and sparkling wines. I’d come to ask what they wanted to know about champagne and sparkling wine. I figured I’d use their questions as the basis for a primer on the most festive beverage of the season.
What’s the difference between champagne and sparkling wine?
To the French, champagne can be made only in the Champagne region east of Paris. That area has the chalky limestone soil, the challenging northerly climate and the winemaking traditions that can’t be duplicated elsewhere, argue the French. All champagne is sparkling wine, but not all sparkling wine is champagne.
The French have persuaded much of the winemaking world to not use “champagne” to describe sparkling wines not made in Champagne. In Spain, they’re called cava or espumoso; in Italy, spumante; in Germany, sekt.
But American vintners ignore the French. Some call their sparkling wines “champagne,” some don’t.
Regardless of what they’re called, sparkling wines made in the United States and elsewhere often use the same grapes and abide by the same techniques perfected by the French.
For quality, the crucial consideration isn’t whether the wine is called champagne or sparkling wine, but that somewhere on the bottle you find the words “methode champenoise,” “methode traditionelle” or “methode classique,” declarations that the producers aspire to emulate the classic style associated with champagne.
Are sparkling wines made in the U.S.?
Besides California, look to the Pacific Northwest, New York and, get this, New Mexico.
The French family Gruet, which had been making champagne in Bethon, France, since 1952, discovered the American Southwest in 1983, planted a high-elevation experimental vineyard in New Mexico the next year, and today makes 80,000 cases of seven types of sparkling wine.
At Capitol Cellars, the Gruet Nonvintage New Mexico Blanc de Noirs ($18) was being poured, showing tasters that a lively, fine-boned sparkling wine of refreshing fruit and acidity with a touch of lime can be made in the darnedest places.
Why only special occasions?
The association of sparkling wine with celebration may have begun with the coronation of a French king a few centuries ago.
French royalty customarily first donned the crown at the Cathedral of Reims in the heart of Champagne. For the occasion, monarchs from across the continent would gather in Reims to toast the newest member of the club with the most convenient beverage at hand, champagne.
As a consequence, the French began to associate sparkling wine with other fabulous milestones, and champagne houses bought into this relationship with their marketing campaigns.
Today, however, sparkling-wine producers rue the special-occasion association, knowing it doesn’t encourage everyday sales (more than one-third of sparkling wine is sold during the year-end holidays). They’ve been working for decades to persuade consumers to use sparkling wine to make any old occasion special, and not wait for the christening of a ship, the toasting of newlyweds or the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” to release the bubbles.
How do you pop the Cork?
Wine Spectator offers these tips on how to safely open a bottle of sparkling wine:
– Make sure the wine is well chilled.
– Handle the bottle carefully since the contents are under pressure, and make sure you aren’t aiming your cork at a person or anything breakable.
– Remove the foil first.
– With your thumb over the end of the cork, loosen the wire cage but don’t remove it.
– Hold the cork and cage firmly in your hand, while twisting the bottle slowly with your other hand to gently release the cork.
What’s with all these terms?
– Blanc de blancs – “white of white” – is sparkling wine made only from green grapes, usually chardonnay.
– Blanc de noirs – “white of black” – is sparkling wine made with black grapes, though the finished wine could be white or have a pink tint. A blanc de noirs generally is made only with pinot-noir or pinot-meunier grapes, or a combination of both.
– Sur lie, or sur lees, refers to aging the wine on its yeast. The longer the aging, the more complex and robust the wine.
– Natural, extra brut or brut nature is the driest of sparkling wines, customarily between bone dry and .5 percent sugar, generally perceived as dry. “Brut zero” is a relatively new and fashionable way to express the same dryness.
– Brut denotes a sparkling wine more dry than sweet on the palate, though its residual sugar is apt to fall between .5 percent and 1.5 percent.
– Extra dry isn’t dry at all, and will be at least slightly sweet, with residual sugar falling between 1.2 percent and 2 percent.
– Sec, or dry, also isn’t dry, with sugars ranging from 1.7 percent to 3.5 percent, making these sparklers moderately sweet.
– Demi-sec is quite sweet, with sugars generally falling between 3.3 percent and 5 percent.
– Doux is the sweetest of sparkling wines, customarily with more than 5 percent sugar.
– Cremant also is sweet, customarily made in a style relatively soft compared with other sparklers.
What are the best foods to have with champagne and sparkling wine?
A few guidelines help narrow the search.
– The crispness, buoyancy and fruitiness of many sparkling wines make them splendid companions with spicy pan-Asian foods.
– The refreshingly sharp acidity of many sparklers also helps explain why they are so popular when salty and fatty appetizers are passed around at parties.
– Sparkling wines with at least a touch of sweetness go best with dishes also at least a little sweet.
– Among wine connoisseurs, opinion is divided over whether sparkling wine should be served with caviar. Almost all concur, however, that sparkling wine with popcorn rates four stars.
Why such a wide range in prices?
There are four main factors that go into the price of a sparkling wine.
1. Production size: As with any style of wine, the smaller the production, the higher the price.
2. Brand: Over the decades, some brands have gained more prestige than others, perhaps by justifiable acclaim, perhaps by savvy marketing. With high regard comes high prices.
3. Vintage: Vintage champagne is precious because champagne houses declare vintage years only when they have exceptionally favorable growing seasons.
4. Production: How a sparkling wine is made affects price.
n Of the three basic ways to make sparkling wine, the simplest is the charmat process, also called the tank method. These wines go through their secondary fermentation – responsible for the bubbles – in large tanks before they are bottled. These sparklers are the least costly.
– The transfer method is a compromise between the fast charmat process and more traditional and labor-intensive ways to make champagne, and prices are likely to fall between cheap and dear.
– The classic and most precise way to make sparkling wine, variously called “methode champenoise,” “methode traditionelle” or “methode classique,” involves creating a secondary fermentation in the bottle in which the wine is sold; this fermentation creates the carbon dioxide responsible for the wine’s bubbles. Sparkling wines made this way tend to have finer and livelier bubbles, beads more numerous and persistent, flavors deeper and more complex – and prices higher.
Why do some have vintages and others don’t?
A vintage sparkling wine bears the date of the year in which the grapes were harvested. Sparkling-wine producers release a vintage wine only for years when the harvest yields exceptional fruit, or when they’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to create an exceptionally fine representative of the genre.
Most sparkling wine doesn’t bear a vintage date because producers prefer to settle on a particular house style that is consistent from year to year, generally achieved by blending lots from two or more harvests.
