Sparkling wine, with its playfully playful bubbles that rush up, brings the feeling of celebration, joy and fulfilled life for more than one century.

 

Anton Moisejenko

 

Only an outcast of life can consider that the sparkling is only for the holidays. Almost all wine-making regions in the world can boast excellent sparkling wines. The “simplest” thing remains – to choose your own! There are myths about this sparkling drink, but in fact, the famous French monk Pierre Pérignon did not invent champagne and shout: “I drink the stars!” On the contrary, he tried his best to eliminate bubbles in wine, because in the 17th century, sparkling wine was considered a serious drawback. Something else is important – sparklers are not only amazing, but also underrated. Because sparkling wine is often discovered “by chance”, forgetting that it is wine first of all. We won’t do that!

 

Dom Perignon

Champagne. Good!

Wine: Champagne (classic method)
Main varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier
Highlights: Vallée de la Marne (Marnas upes ieleja), Montagne de Reims, Côte des Blanc

Welcome to Champagne – the most famous region where sparkling wines are produced according to the classic (Champagne) technology, double fermentation in the bottle. Axiom – everything produced outside of this region must not bear the word “champagne” and will have to make do with the phrase “sparkling wine”. The French themselves did not come up with such a seemingly strange name at first – “campania” means “countryside” in Latin, as the Romans called everything that was outside of Rome.

Welcome to Champagne – the most famous region where sparkling wines are produced according to the classic (Champagne) technology, double fermentation in the bottle.

 

Axiom – everything produced outside of this region must not bear the word “champagne” and will have to make do with the phrase “sparkling wine”. The French themselves did not come up with such a seemingly strange name at first – “campania” means “countryside” in Latin, as the Romans called everything that was outside of Rome.

Šampaņas metode

Style: Sweetness, Vintage, Color

 

The style of a particular champagne is often determined by the grape varieties used in the blend. Of all the varieties allowed in the region, the main white is Chardonnay, and the reds are Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier (or, as it is now called, simply Meunier). Wines made exclusively from Chardonnay received the name “white of the whites” or blanc de blanc to distinguish them from wines that are white but made from red varieties, because the juice from grapes of all colors is colorless, almost transparent.

 

Most champagnes are an assemblage of varietals that are created to bring out the wine’s more complex flavors and aromas and give it its own distinct style. Vintage and non-vintage wines are another hint as to what style to expect from the wine – brighter and lighter or more full-bodied and dense. If possible, we choose the vintage, although there is an opinion that the style of the champagne house is determined precisely by the quality of the so-called base champagne. It’s just a lot, and everything in place! A joke, of course.

 

 

 

A separate niche is occupied by the category of pink champagnes, which are more expensive and therefore more prestigious, and in their production both the “bleeding” method and mixing white and red base wines are used. Rose – it’s always in place!

Beyond Champagne: quality, economy, variety

 

Wine: Crémant (classic method)

Main varieties: Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Savagnin, Poulsard and others

Highlights: Alsace, Burgundy, Loire, Jura

 

 

 

When we get beyond the borders of Champagne, we realize that there are a huge number of interesting wines made according to the classic champagne technology in other regions of France, which can be bought at an incomparably lower price. These wines are called Crémant. You don’t have to turn away from them, you have to love them! They are made almost everywhere, but mainly in Burgundy, Alsace, the Loire, and the stylish Jura, which has now become a wine hot spot.

 

Crémant’s appeal lies not only in its quality, which can reasonably compete with champagne in places, but also in the incredible variety of grape varieties that are allowed to be used, thus also in the authenticity of these wines. In the Loire, they are often Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc, in Alsace – Pinot Gris or Pinot Blanc, in the Jura – Savagnin and Poulsard, it is impossible to name them all.

 

The latter are among the most interesting due to their location in a mountainous area, semi-chalky soils and the favorable exposure of the vineyards. In the words of a famous winemaker – why simplify when you can complicate?

Jura And Savoie

The charm of Prosecco

Wine: Prosecco (Charmat method)
Main breed: Glera
The most important place: Veneto

Prosecco’s fame in the world is hard to overestimate, it is so incredible that this name has become a generic name to denote any wine that we drink as an aperitif. Floral, fruity, sparkling. Besides all that – it is also gastronomic. Sparkling wine from the Glera variety (not less than 85%) has another indisputable advantage – it is not expensive. And the famous Bellini cocktail is made from it. In a word – a definite plus. How did they manage to achieve this?

 

 

First of all, unlike champagne, prosecco is made according to the Charmat method, which allows you to significantly reduce the cost of wine. There is no secondary fermentation in the bottle and complicated manipulations with the sediments: the wine ferments under pressure in large tanks and is rapidly saturated with carbonic acid gas.

 

 

Prosecco Spumante differs from Prosecco Frizzante by the pressure in the bottle – for the latter it is less and the wine only sparkles a little, so it is often filled in plain wine bottles, rather than bottles with a champagne cork.

Charmat Method tanks

In recent years, there has been a serious tendency to make prosecco more “complex”: it does not reach the complexity of champagne so easily, but it can compete with slightly less complex and mineral wines. For example, the appellation Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG, which combines vineyards with the best natural conditions to produce the very best prosecco. It is in this zone that there are, for example, the wines of the Rive category, made only from grapes grown on the slopes of the hills, which therefore (in theory) give more complex and interesting wines, thanks to the presence of chalk in the soil and excellent exposure. In practice, as is often the case with Italians, this is not always the case.

 

 

Besides the ones already mentioned, there are other variations of sparkling and slightly sparkling wines. The most popular among them are the sweet Asti from Piedmont, the unusual red sparkling Brachetto d’Acqui, Blanquette de Limoux and many others, among which there are many respectable examples.

Expensive in Italy too

Wine: Franciacorta (classic method)

Main varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Nero and others

Important places: Lombardy, Veneto

Franciacorta – the small Italian Champagne, the only wine region in Italy where it is allowed to indicate simply Franciacorta on the bottle, without any references to the classification DOCG (the highest step in the hierarchy of Italian wines) – in a word, just like champagne. In Italy, Franciacorta became incredibly popular in the middle of the 20th century, although such wines were produced here long before that.

 

The iron quality standards in the production of Franciacorta contributed to an impressive surge in the quality of the wines, and it is no secret that in blind tastings such Italian sparklings can sometimes compete on an equal footing with Champagne, but the diversity of the soils guarantees a wide choice, although sometimes it makes you break your head to ensure the same quality.

1701 Otreizājā fermentācija

Sekt: German pirouettes

Wine: Sekt (Charmat method, classic method)
Main varieties: Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Grüner Veltliner, Spätburgunder
The most important places: Austria, Germany

 

With the German and Austrian Sekt, everything is much more complicated, although it is a pity that it is so. This can be used for wines made using the cheap Charmat method, as well as wines made using traditional technology, and even wines made from, for example, Italian raw materials. Some indication of quality and truly German sparkling wine will be the words Deutscher (or German) Sekt on the label. Finding Austrian Sekt is not easy, but the percentage of quality wines will also be higher. Taste a good Sekt from Riesling grapes – an unforgettable impression.

Cava: ¡No pasarán!

Wine: Cava (classic method)
Main varieties: Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel.lo
The most important places: Catalonia, Penedes

Cava means “cellar” in Catalan, and the best samples of cava come to us from the largest farms, which is not bad – they ensure consistency of quality and most often make do with their own vineyards. Usually half of the assemblage in the cava is made up of the relatively neutral variety Macabeo, while Parellada and Xarel.lo provide complexity and acidity. There are also different kava producers – biodynamists and naturalists, who rather produce wines contrary to general ideas about kava, which only incites excitement in the search for a special kava.

From what do you drink them from?

 

Sparkling wines are traditionally associated with flute-shaped tall glasses, but sorry, that’s a thing of the past. For good wines, wide glasses are more relevant today, which allow you to pay more attention to the aromas of the wine. The only reason justifying the choice of tall and narrow glasses is not the desire to drink wine, but to watch the bubbles dance.

  1. Cup de Champagne: Medieval Rhymes

According to legend, the shape of this glass fully corresponds to the shape of the French Queen Marie Antoinette’s breast. Suitable for playing (building pyramids), not for drinking quality champagne – the bubbles disperse, the aroma is not concentrated.

Vecās šampanieša glāzes

2. Glass-flute: annoying pop

A “steroid flute” or simply a “tulip”, these glasses boast a widened cup that allows the wine to bless us with aromas much more than narrow glasses. The de facto standard.

Šampaniešu flauta

3. gWhite wine Glass
More and more voices call for drinking good sparkling (especially vintage) from wider glasses for white wine. Donate the bubbles, but you will discover and enjoy in the wine what the winemaker wanted to express to you!

Baltvīna glāze

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