Champagne
From LoveToKnow Wine
Let's Talk about Champagne — American and French
In the Sparkling Wine article, we talked about the process of making traditional French style Champagne or sparkling wine in the Methode Champenoise. Remember, that is fermenting the wine in the bottle to achieve secondary fermentation and then ageing it for 3-4 years in the bottle before releasing it. Let’s take this opportunity to discuss other types of methods for making champagne (and sparkling), talk about vintage vs. non-vintage and what that means, and sugar levels and what they are called. To finish, we’ll discover an old (but very unique) way of opening a bottle of bubbly!
Charmat Method
There are more inexpensive and faster ways of making Champagne. The first method, called the Charmot process (or bulk process) is named after Eugene Charmat. Still wine is put in cold, large pressure sealed tanks where yeast and sugar (liqueur de tirage) is added and allowed to ferment. The fermentation creates carbon dioxide (the bubbles) and then it’s filtered to remove sediment. This is done under pressure so the wine remains "bubbly". The now "sparkling wine" is adjusted for sweetness, then bottled, and then shipped out. This takes special equipment since the whole tank is under pressure and you need to keep the bubbles when transferring to the bottle. This entire process can take as little as three weeks! Most of the inexpensive champagnes are done this way (Cook’s, Tott’s, etc.)
Injection
The most inexpensive way, and rarely used, is carbon dioxide injection. Like basically making a soda from syrup and CO2. It’s ultra-cheap, and not associated with quality at all. If champagne is in a can, for instance, chances are (ahem) you should avoid it. The bigger the bubble, the bigger the headache (it’s true). Methode Champenoise gives the tiniest bubbles, followed by the Charmat process with the next smallest, then the injection method. The bubbles deliver the alcohol to your bloodstream faster…so when you hear people say “Champagne makes me tipsy” they aren’t lying.
Sugar Levels
So, what kind of bubbly to buy? Well, how much sweetness do you want? Here is the list—the term description is followed by the percentage of residual sugar:
- Extra Brut, Brut Sauvage, Ultra Brut, Brut Integral, Brut Zero. These have trace amounts of sugar (0-.5%)
- Brut .7-1.1%
- Extra Dry, Extra Sec 1.2 to 2.0%
- Sec 2.0 to 3.5%
- Demi-Sec 3.5 to 5.0%
- Doux (sweetest) 5% and up
Most Champagnes made (in USA and France) is made at the brut level. The most confusing part is the term “extra dry”—most people think, logically, that extra dry is more dry than brut, but it’s actually not. The reason being a long while back the wine was drunk with a higher level of sugar, so when they backed it off to the extra dry level of sugar, it was really considered to be “extra dry” compared to what everyone was used to. Brut came along afterwards, which is dryer yet.
Vintage or Non-Vintage
When buying a Champagne, vintage is not as important as when buying a regular still wine. Vintage basically means that the grape (95% in this country) is from that year when harvested. A non-vintage bottle is a mixture of different vintages that the winery has held back to blend with every year to keep the taste and style the same year in and year out. The more correct term for non-vintage for Champagne is actually multi-vintage, since it actually is multi vintages of wine that goes into the final product. For instance, let’s take Korbel Brut, the most popular Champagne sold in the U.S. If you bought it 5 years ago and drank it, and then you bought it today and drank it, it would taste the same as you remember…thus the advantage of blending many vintages together to keep the wine style the same. Vintage Champagnes are a little trickier to keep the same year in and year out because of different vintage years being better than others, etc. In France, vintage Champagnes are made in exceptional years. On average you usually pay more for a vintage Champagne than for a non-vintage one.
You Can Open a Bottle Like That?
So, you’ve chosen your bottle, and now you want to open it. We talked about in the sparkling wine article about being careful about opening it, and trying not to pop the cork to expel the gas faster than normal. That’s all fine and good, but if you want to make a big show and lose some wine in the process, you may want to take a look at the process of “sabering”. Sabering goes way back to the 1800's when wars were fought with bayonets on the rifles. When the soldiers, as the story goes, opened up wine they didn't have time for "proper" ways of doing things, so they would take their sabers (bayonets) and just chop the bottle at the neck. It’s not for the faint of heart, and you may want a professional to show you how it’s done, but once you learn it’s a snap, and a crowd pleaser for sure! If you don’t own a saber, you can use an old, but big, kitchen knife. How you do it: First, remove the foil from the bottle so all you’re left with is the wire hood. Undo the hood slightly, and bend a section of the wire at the bottom up and over the glass lip of the bottle. Now, hold the bottle at a 45 degree angle and take your knife, and like a backhand in tennis, slide it up the bottle where it hits the glass lip where you removed the hood wire and continue the motion until your hand with the knife is high in the air above your head. Don’t chop at the bottle, and make sure it’s a solid maneuver and that you follow through on your “stroke.” The lip of the bottle breaks, taking the cork and hook with it leaving you a sharp but smooth lip. A little bit of the champagne is expelled from the bottle so that any glass shards can’t fall in. This is not only fun, but entertaining for your guests as well…make sure you have plenty of space, and that no one is in front of you when you attempt this. Good luck, and happy bubbles! Cheers.
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