The process of creating Champagne is called Méthode Champenoise. The European Union does not allow use of this expression outside of Champagne, France.
The grapes must first be harvested, a process which usually takes place in late September or early October. The harvest is dependent on how ripe the grapes are because the grapes must contain the appropriate amount of sugars and acids.
The next step in how Champange is made involves pressing the grapes. Only two pressing of the grapes are permitted. The best Champagnes, or cuvée, are usually made from one pressing. The second pressing, or taille, is usually blended with the cuvée to make vintage and non-vintage Champagnes.
The Basics of How Champagne is Made
The process where the grape juice is converted to wine is called fermentation. Fermentation can be explained by this simple formula: Sugar + Yeast = Alcohol + C02. All Champagnes undergo a first fermentation.
Probably the most important step in how Champagne is made involves blending. Here the winemaker has to decide which grapes to blend (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier) and in what quantities. Other decisions regarding how Champagne is made entail choosing the vineyards for the grape harvest; and if the current year's harvest. should be blended with grapes from past harvests.
After the blending process, the winemaker adds Liqueur de Tirage (a blend of sugar and yeast) when creating champagne. The wine's second fermentation begins, and the wine is placed in a permanent bottle. The carbon dioxide now stays in the bottle, giving Champagne its characteristic bubbles.
Another important step in creating Champagne is aging the wine. Wine bottles are placed in A-frame racks and turned by a riddler, or remueur, each day. The bottles are gradual tipped forward until all sedimentation is collected in the neck of the bottle.
After the appropriate amount of aging, the top of each bottle is dipped into a brine solution to freeze it and the temporary bottle cap is removed. The frozen sediments pop out due to the pressure of the carbon dioxide. This process is called dégorgement.
Some wine and sugar are added to the bottle after dégorgement. The amount of sugar added will determine if it is a sweet or a dry Champagne.
The wine is now fitted with a real cork instead of a bottle cap.
Are Sparkling Wine and Champagne the Same Thing?
Authentic Champagnes and some excellent sparkling wines are created by the Méthode Champenoise which is labor intensive and quite expensive. A cheap bottle of sparking wine definitely wasn't created by this process. There are other methods for making vast quantities of inexpensive sparkling wines.
One method involves using large tanks for secondary fermentation. These tanks are sometimes large enough to produce 100,000 bottles of sparkling wine.
What's a Good Vintage Year for Champagne?
A vintage wine is made from grapes that were all, or primarily grown and harvested in a particular year. There is a misperception that vintage refers to exceedingly old or fine wine when all it refers to is the year it was made.
This situation is made more complicated with the definition of vintage for Champagne, which does refer to the quality of the harvest. A vintage year for Champagne is one good enough to declare the wine a cut above other years.
There is even more precision involved in determining the quality of the harvest in Champagne production because it is up to the individual wine making houses, rather than a regional consensus, to determine a vintage year.
Vintage Champagne must be 39 months old before it is sold.
Most houses declared vintage Champagne years in 1995-96, 1999, 2000, and 2002.
Sources:
- Smith, Brian H. The Sommelier's Guide to Wine. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc, 2008.
- Zraly, Kevin. Windows on the World Complete Wine Course. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2007.
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