Tutored Wine Tasting BUBBLY Speaker: Eric LAGRE Sommelier Tutored Sparkling Wine Tasting Thursday 19 th July 2012 Speaker: Eric LAGRE, Sommelier TASTING LIST Kiki (Ant Moore), Sparkling Sauvignon Blanc, Brut, Marlborough, New Zealand, 2009 Mauzac Nature (Robert & Bernard Plageoles) , Domaine des Très Cantous, Gaillac AC, France, NV Club Champagne, Edouard Brun (Aÿ, Grande Vallée de la Marne), Brut, NV Champagne Moutard-Diligent (Buxeuil, Barséquanais), Cuvée 6 Cépages, Brut, 2005 Nyetimber, Blanc de Blancs, West Chilington, West Sussex, England, 2003 Abrau Durso, Cuvée Alexander II, Brut, Krasnodar, Russia, NV Codorníu, Reina Maria Cristina, Blanc de Noirs, Brut, Reserva, DO Cava, Penedès, Spain, 2008 Frassinelli, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG, Extra Dry, Veneto, Italy, NV G.D. Vajra, Moscato d’Asti DOCG, Piemonte, Italy, 2011 Cascabel (Duncan Ferguson & Susana Fernandez), Sparkling Shiraz, McLaren Vale, South Australia, 1998 Introduction: The ten sparkling wines featured in the present tasting were chosen to illustrate different aspects of winemaking and wine style. A wine description sheet for every single one of these ten entries includes a technical description, tasting notes and a paragraph placing the wine in its context. These sheets are in order of tasting and follow a narrative. By the end of your read, as you leaf through from one sheet to the next, a global picture of the sparkling wine industry and its market should emerge. In order to make that read easier, the narrative had to be introduced by an essay about the different techniques used nowadays to turn a wine sparkling, plus another essay about the determining factors of style, and some basic statistical data. Websites are quoted along the way to allow you to seek further information. Additional articles and maps follow the series of sheets when the paragraph format does not allow space to be thorough enough. A booklet published by the CIVC will also tell you everything you need to know about Champagne. What is Sparkling Wine? Sparkling wine is a generic term that applies to an incredibly diverse category of wines. “Vin effervescent”, as sparkling wine is called in France, is defined as follow in the 1988 edition of the French “Dictionnaire du Vin”: “Sparkling wine is a wine that releases carbon dioxide in the shape of bubbles that rise then burst to its surface”. Sparkling wines might have the bubble in common, but the bubble is achieved through a variety of winemaking techniques. Beyond the degree of impact each winemaking technique has on the aromatic profile of the resulting wine, style is determined by a series of factors: - internal atmosphere of pressure - sweetness level - blend - colour How does one put bubbles into wine? A variety of winemaking techniques has been developed over the ages. Each development was made possible in its day by the invention of new technologies. According to www.effervescents-du-monde.com , these methods are: - méthode rurale or méthode ancestrale - méthode Champenoise or traditional/classic method - transfer method - tank method or metodo Italiano - continuous method or Russian method - Dioise/Asti method - Carbonation/gasification/injection method METHODE RURALE: Also dubbed méthode ancestrale , this is the first method ever devised to produce sparkling wines. In 1531, monks at the abbey of Saint-Hilaire, Languedoc-Roussillon, were already employing this method to produce Blanquette de Limoux. Nowadays, Blanquette de Limoux is made by the traditional method, but Blanquette méthode ancestrale is still produced and has its own appellation. The method is also used to produce Mauzac Nature in Gaillac, Southwest, where it is known as méthode gaillacoise , and Bugey- Cerdon méthode ancestrale in Bugey-Cerdon, Ain. In France, the last remaining home to the method, total volume of production is microscopic, if not near insignificant, for more reliable methods have now taken over. All sparkling wines but injected wines are made by natural methods according to a basic principle: the dissolution of endogenous CO 2 under pressure in a sealed container in a process known as “prise de mousse”. The méthode rurale is the precursor of the méthode Champenoise, both methods seeing the prise de mousse take place in the bottle. In the méthode rurale, wine is bottled before it is fully fermented to dryness. Therefore, a fair amount of residual sugars remains hence the wine is unstable, which means that no addition of sugar and/or yeast is needed for the fermentation process to start again in the bottle. As a matter of fact, no sugar and/or yeast can legally be added by this method. Historically, the fermentation of the base wine would be stunned naturally by cold weather conditions at the end of the harvest season, but nowadays, the purpose is served by refrigeration equipment. After winter, the single fermentation process resumes naturally in the bottle with the new warm season. Yeast metabolises more natural sugar in the fermenting juice into alcohol, with CO 2 as a by product. Pressure mounts, eventually causing the gas to dissolve into the wine. Once most sugars and nitrogenous compounds are depleted, the yeast dies by lack of nutrients then forms sediments known as lees. As the fermentation process stops, the prise de mousse is complete. A complex chemical reaction between the decomposing dead yeast and the wine, in a process known as autolysis , results in yeastiness and more subtle bakery aromas and flavours. Since the wine is partially fermented prior to bottling and no yeast is added, there is but a small amount of lees hence its impact on the aromatic profile of the wine is limited and not so complex. Regulations do not impose disgorgement, a process aiming at removing the sediments, hence possible cloudiness from the lees. No filtration is imposed either, and since the prise de mousse is rather unpredictable by this method, the resulting wine can display variable levels of sweetness; dry mostly, but possibly off dry or even medium dry. When disgorgement/filtration is used, not only control on clarity is gained, but also on sweetness. Wine is lost during the disgorgement process, and when topping up prior to commercialisation is required, the wine cannot be sweetened, for no sugar can be added at any stage of the winemaking process by the méthode rural. METHODE CHAMPENOISE: As we just saw, the first purposely sparkling wine was not made in Champagne. Regardless, through centuries of refinement, Champagne has become the world’s leading sparkling wine and the vinous embodiment of luxury and celebration. The term méthode Champenoise , like Champagne itself, is protected by EU regulations, and may only apply to sparkling wines produced according to the prescribed method within the delimited Champagne region. Wines made in the fashion of Champagne but produced elsewhere may be labelled as traditional method or classic method . In South Africa, the method is more specifically known as méthode Cap Classique (www.capclassique.co.za ). Some producers, particularly in the US and in Russia, still label their sparkling wines as Champagne, but such wines cannot be sold on the EU market. The history of the traditional method is as murky as the resulting wine is now clear and bright. Sparkling winemaking was only revived in the Franciacorta region of Lombardy in the second half of the last century, but some claim that the first sparkling wine ever made by the traditional method was produced there in the early 1500s, even though production seems to have stopped virtually as soon as it started. As for Dom Pérignon , the Benedictine monk was aware of the méthode rurale, having stayed at the abbey of Saint Hilaire before being appointed as cellar master at the abbey of Hautvillers, near Epernay, from 1668 to his death in 1715. There, the story goes that he invented the méthode Champenoise, crying “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars” after sampling the fruit of his experiments. But the story is an embellishment, to say the least, which was put together in 1821 by Dom Grossard to raise the abbey’s profile, and probably his own, having been reduced to simple priesthood after the French revolution of 1789. Even so, in 1889, the Champagne “Syndicat de Commerce” declared that Dom Pérignon was the father of the method Champenoise, and Moët & Chandon is more than happy to exploit the legend as a marketing tool. The méthode Champenoise involves fermenting dry base wine a second time in the bottle, the second fermentation in the bottle being triggered by the addition of liqueur de tirage , a cocktail of sugar and yeast. The first sparkling Champagne by that method was most probably drunk in London. In taverns, it was common practice to sweeten wine prior to drinking it, as observed by Fynes Moryson in 1617. Wine was shipped in cask, and in order to replenish their cellars, gentlemen would send their own bottles, often stamped with the family crest, to be filled by their merchants. It is not unconceivable to imagine a gentleman having had sugar added at bottling rather than in the glass with each serving, unknowingly triggering the sparkling winemaking process. This is pure speculation, but one thing is for sure: in 1662, the English scientist Christopher Merret presented a paper on winemaking at the Royal Society which included a demonstration that adding sugar to wine in a bottle, and then sealing it, produced a second fermentation in the bottle and resulted in bubbles when the bottle was open. This took place thirty years before the technique was first documented in France. Dom Pérignon had not yet entered the abbey of Hautvillers. Some even say that actually, contrary to popular belief, the monk’s first project was to get rid of the bubble, for re-fermentation of still light wines, a common feature in the Champagne region, where the climate is so marginal, caused bottles to shatter and a great deal of the production to be spoilt every year.