Steve Calderwood's - "From the Grapevine"
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble -- It Must Be the Holidays!

By Steve Calderwood

During the holiday season, it seems as if every party has corks a-poppin' all over the place. Champagne and sparkling wine sales are going through the roof. On New Year's Eve we consume more of it than Valentine's Day even.

But what is the stuff? Why does it bubble? And what should one know about it?

Volumes and volumes have been written about champagnes and sparkling wines and obviously we won't be able to cover the entire subject in this column. But we can visit some of the more salient points.

Let's start off with a couple of definitions.

First of all, true Champagne comes only from the Champagne district of France. Anything else is sparkling wine and several countries have their own names for it. In Italy it's Asti, in Germany it's called Sekt, in Spain it's Cava and in France, outside of Champagne, it's called Crémant.

In the U.S. we get really creative and call it sparkling wine. However, only in America will you find sparkling wines that say Champagne on the label that were not made in Champagne. In 1992, the U.S. signed a European Union agreement banning the use of the term -- but our law grandfathers people who were already using the term. I know it's hard to believe but that $4 bottle of Andre Brut doesn't come from France yet Gallo refuses to quit labeling it as Champagne.

So, why does the stuff bubble? This is due to sugar and yeast being added to the bottle after the initial fermentation and bottling. The byproduct of the yeast eating sugar is, as we all know, alcohol. What you may not know is that the yeast really do emit it as gas -- a byproduct of fermentation known as carbon dioxide.

This is not an issue for a still wine since its fermentation occurs in vats that are open to the air and the carbon dioxide just dissipates. But when the wine goes through a second fermentation in a corked bottle, the carbon dioxide builds up inside the bottle and creates the bubbles.

Our fun wine fact of the week: If you ask most wine geeks who invented Champagne, most will blurt out Dom Perignon. Wrong! It was a Brit by the name of Sir George Etheredge who first intentionally made Champagne. The bubbles in Dom Perignon's wine were actually viewed as a major flaw in the wine of Champagne that was trying to compete with the wines of Burgundy. Nobody wanted fizzy wine.

The climate in Champagne makes for one of the world's coldest wine-growing regions and, although the wine makers didn't know it, the cold weather would make the yeast hibernate and stop the fermentation. Then they would bottle the wine. In the spring, when the weather warmed up again, the fermentation started all over again in the corked bottle and the bubbles could not escape. One of Dom Perignon's stated goals was to try and figure out how to get the bubbles to stop forming. Not only was the wine fizzy, the added pressure of the carbon dioxide kept causing bottles to explode. Luckily, he never figured it out.

This method of making champagne is known as méthode Champenoise, or the traditional method, and in general it produces the best sparkling wines. There is another method and that's called the Charmat bulk method (think Andre); instead of allowing the second fermentation to occur in the bottle, it occurs in huge sealed vats and then piped into bottles.

Check the bottle's label and it will tell you which method was used to make the bubbles. If it says Charmat, this is a bottle with a message in it and the message is Beware! It's a process that makes wine with large bubbles mean large headaches the next morning. One thing about sparklers is that the smaller the bubbles, the better the wine.

One final point of interest is that most champagne is actually made from red grapes. The predominant grape in Champagne and sparklers is pinot noir, a red grape, followed by chardonnay and then pinot meunier, another red grape. The juice is not allowed to stay in contact with the skins after the pressing -- so one ends up with a white wine (unless it's a rosé sparkler, where they let the juice and skins commingle for a while, or simply add some red wine to the mix; or a blanc de blanc, which is 100 percent chardonnay).

On to our upcoming wine events. First, Michael's is having its monthly "5 Wines for $15" tasting on Monday, Dec. 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Most of the wines will cost $15 or less and you get a $15 discount on any case purchase. This time they're even going to have gift wrapping available.

The Tasters Guild has its next wine dinner on Tuesday, Dec. 8, at 7 p.m. at the Shor restaurant in the Hyatt on Front Street. It costs $55 including tax and tip and the menu looks outstanding. Call Terry at 292-4004 to join the guild and/or reserve your seat for the dinner.

On Tuesday, Dec. 15, the Grand Vin is having a wine tasting with a holiday theme from 6 to 8 p.m. The cost is $10, refundable on a case purchase.

Hot Tin Roof is having its "Big Bordeaux Wine Pairing" on Wednesday, Dec. 16, at 5:30 p.m. The cost is $32, including tax and tip; reservations are recommended, call 296-7701.

Until next time -- wine a bit, you'll feel better.