Champagne & Fortified Wine I Flashcards
Where is the Champagne region located in France?
France’s northernmost wine region found in the northeast corner of France. About an hour and a half northeast of Paris.
What do Champagne, Sherry and Port have in common?
They are all blended wines and the consumer will always purchase them based on the reputation and reliablilty of the shipper. The shipper is responsible for all phases of production.
What are the four major areas of Champagne?
Valley of the Marne
Mountain of Reims
Côte des Blancs
Côte des Bar
Which 3 grapes are used in Champagne?
Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay
What are the 3 major types of Champagne? What are the aging requirements?
NON-VINTAGE/MULTIPLE VINTAGE – blend of two or more harvests; 60-80% base wine from current harvest and 20-40% from previous vintages. Must be aged a minimum of 15 months, but most are aged 18-30 months.
VINTAGE – from a single vintage. Minimum aging 3 years, but most are aged much longer (8-10 years)
“PRESTIGE” CUVÉE – from a single vintage with longer aging requirements
What are the requirements for a prestige cuvée?
Made from the best grapes of the highest-rated villates
Made from the first pressing of the grapes
Spent more time aging in the bottle than non-vintage Champagnes
Made only in vintage years
Made in small quantity, and the demand is high. Price is dictated largely by supply and demand.
List the steps of the Champagne method:
Harvest, Pressing, First Fermentation, Assemblage (blending), Liqueur de Tirage, Second Fermentation, Aging, Riddling, Dégorgement, Dosage (adding liqueur d’expédition), Recorking, Post Disgorgement Aging
What are the dryness/sweetness levels of Champagne?
Brut: Dry
Extra Dry: Semi-dry
Sec: Semi-sweet
Demi-Sec: Sweet
What does blanc de blanc mean? What does blanc de noir mean?
Champagne made from 100% Chardonnay
Champagne made from 100% Pinot Noir
How much pressure is in a bottle of Champagne?
About 90 lbs. per square inch, or ‘six atmospheres’
What are the different bottle sizes for Champagne?
Magnum - 2 bottles Jeroboam - 4 bottles Rehoboam - 6 bottles Methuselah - 8 bottles Salmanazar - 12 bottles Balthazar - 16 bottles Nebuchadnezzar - 20 bottles
What is a fortified wine? Where is Sherry produced? Where is Port produced?
A wine made when a neutral grape brandy is added to wine to raise the wine’s alcohol content. Port is fortified during fermentation killing the yeast and leaving residual sugar. Sherry is fortified after fermentation leaving the beverage dry.
Sherry is produced in southwestern Spain, in Andalusia.
(Jerez de la Frontera, Puerto de Santa María, Sanlúcar de Barrameda)
Port comes from the Douro region in northern Portugal.
Which grapes are used to make Sherry? Which is used the most?
Palomino, Pedro Ximénez & Moscatel
Palomino
List the types of Sherry:
Manzanilla: dry Fino: dry Amontillado: dry to medium-dry Oloroso: dry to medium-dry Cream: sweet
What is a bodega?
An aboveground structure used to store wine (Sherry). Since Sherry is an oxidized wine, they only fill the barrels 2/3 full and leave the corks slightly loose to allow air to flow through the barrels.
What is the Angel’s Share?
The product lost through evaporation during the aging process.
What is the Solera System?
An aging and maturing process that takes place through continuous blending of several vintages of wine stored in rows of barrels. No more than 1/3 of a barrel is ever removed at one time (which makes room for a new vintage to be blended in). This blending allows the winemaker to have a ‘house style’ by using the ‘mother’ wine as a base and refreshing it with a portion of the younger wines.
Why are Ports often sweeter than Sherry?
Because Ports are fortified during fermentation killing off the yeast thus leaving residual sugar behind, whereas Sherry is fortified after fermentation when the yeast has already converted all residual sugar into alcohol producing a drier product.
What are the two major types of Ports and what are their major differences?
Cask-aged Port & Bottle-aged Port
Cask-aged refers to Ruby Ports and Tawny Ports. These wines do not improve with age after being bottled.
Bottle-aged, or Vintage Port will mature and get better as it ages in the bottle. A great Vintage Port will be ready to drink 15-30 years after the vintage date (depending on quality of vintage).
What is a ‘Quinta’?
Literally ‘a vineyard’. With Ports, it means it came from a single vineyard.
