“All Champagnes are sparkling wines but not all Sparkling Wines are Champagne”
Falsely, people tend to confuse and name all sparkling wines as Champagnes. However, the latter, Champagne, only comes from a single region in the northern eastern wine region of France, which surprise-surprise, is called Champagne.
Apart from the geographical importance of this wine, it is also different from the rest of its Sparkling kind, because of viticulture practices, grape hand harvest, challenging climate conditions, grape varieties (only Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier), soil of the vine, production and many more factors.
Champagne is twice fermented. The first fermentation develops a still wine, far from what we expect Champagne to be. During the Vins Clairs 2018 tasting week, I tried and tasted this kind of wine, very acidic and sour, with its primary aromas easily identifiable, which sometimes lacks complexity. This is the part where the Champagne Houses create their house blends that represent the Character of each brand.
Interesting fact: Non-vintage Champagnes make up the vast majority of production in the region; made from the best grapes harvested over the course of several years. Vintage Champagnes, on the other hand, are made only in outstanding years, using only the harvested grapes from that specific year!
Whether vintage or non-vintage, the wine undergoes a second fermentation, in the bottle, by the addition of liqueur de tirage, a mixture of wine, sugar and yeast. This dissolves into the wine magically creating bubbles! And that’s how you get your sparkling wine. The bottles are then aged for minimum 18 months (for the non-vintage) and 36 months for the vintage Champagnes, by law, before released to the market.
When finished, the sparkling wine holds sediments of dead yeast which is not very pleasant to see or drink. In order to clear it from all the dull sediments, the bottle should be riddled. This means that each bottle should be slightly turned from its horizontal position, into a vertical one, in order for the sediments to fall to the neck of the bottle. This process is mainly done by machine. However, in some houses, like Champagne Bollinger, it is done by hand, which takes around 2 months.
Then, disgorgement follows, which happens when the sediment lies frozen at the neck of the bottle after passing through a deep-freezing bath, it is after this that the frozen dead yeast pops out.
Champagne is different than the rest of the sparkling wines, not only because of its origin, but due to it being costly, time consuming and carefully made. Its prestige is made up of a long process that nature and humans put into bringing it to our flutes!
Champagne is indeed, the most special drink in the world! It has the magical power of transforming ordinary drinking time into a special occasion!
See you next week!
Cheers, Santé and Yiamas…
Until then.. Strike for a glass half full !
Nicole x
