Sparkling Wines Flashcards
What were the beginning steps of alcoholic beverages?
- Experimentation
- Observation - Monkey see monkey do (saw that when monkeys ate rotten fruit their behaviour changed)
- Discovery of fermentation
- Competitiveness/Survival strategy
- Part of the diet
- Wines, Beers, Spirits - covered underneath the food bracket from government perspective, high in carbohydrates & preservative nature (palatable for longer as it is stored)
Was fermentation an accident or design? and how long ago?
More a process of experimentation than design
It was prehistoric, being 8,000-10,000 years ago
What is required to make alcohol?
You need:
- Complex carbohydrates = Sugars
- Source = Grapes (fractose & glucose), Grain (malted & grounded), Honey & fruit
- Vessel
- H2O
Who were the first recorded brewers?
- The Sumerians
- Around 3,000 BC
- Kilns to make different malted beers, brown, red, black
- different strength beers i.e. old and young
What is viticulture? Describe the viticulture basics
Viticulture - growing grapes for winemaking
- successful in cultivated temperate non humid climates
- Vitis vinifera - is the ‘European’ grape vine species
- a climber, will run along the ground until it finds somewhere to climb
- humans made the vine able to be grown and harvested every year - vineyards are trained to grow chest height, pruned, all to make easier to harvest/farm them.
- North grapevines, they came across a point where the vines would not grow - due to groundwater, water table (soil drainage), temperature, ripening
- South - subtropical areas are not liked, humid then canopy is a vector for fungi and rot to occur
What is Old World & New World?
Old world - Europe, UK in West to far East
New World - Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Chile, Argentina
Who transported the wine westward?
Romans
as they conquered they brought the wine with them
What was used in ancient winemaking?
Kvervi
What is Fermentation? What is needed?
Fermentation - the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat
- complex carbohydrate
- Yeast ; wild or cultured
- Water - added or part of fruit
Sugar + Yeast = CO2 + Alcohol + Heat
What is wild yeast vs culture yeast?
Wild yeast
- grape + bloom (adhesive coating powder on the outside of the fruit)
- flavours, complexity, natural
Cultured yeast
- taking samples of wild yeast, selecting and culturing that yeast, commercialise it and sell it.
- different yeasts have different properties that help during fermentation, so adding different cultured yeasts to base wine to get desired flavours
- it is predictable and fast
What are White Spirits?
Potable spirits which have not been matured in casks, therefore maintain their water clear appearance.
E.g. Vodka, White Rum, Gin (botanical juniper), raki, saki…
What are dark spirits?
- Matured in oaks/casks, giving dark colour or added e.g. caramel
Cask maturation - will soften and change the compounds, that may have been too harsh. Giving smooth, round, rich, soft. - Perception that older means better
- Therefore adding caramel makes it darker, making it look older, inferring higher quality
What are major dark spirits?
Rum - derived from sugar cane molasses
What are the main dark spirits?
Grain derived
- Whiskey - barley, corn, rye, wheat
- Scotch Whiskey - Barley, can be single malt or blended
- Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey
Grape derived:
- Brandy (cognac & armagnac)
- Grappa (white)
Fruit Brandies:
- Calvados
- Schnapps
When did sparkling wine appear? What region? How/ what method?
Back in 1531
Languedoc region of southern France
Accident - Traditional Method
- Thought yeast finished consumption
- As months warm, get refermentation of yeast in the bottle
- Sugar leftover
- CO2 produced trapped by cork in bottle moved back into the alcohol
When was Prosecco created? and where?
Prosecco production in Italy back in 1754
- Australia & New Zealand currently only other place to use the name - hard to export but still sold domestically
- Italians own the name
- Prosecco is the name of an old grape variety and not just a place
What is Cava and how is it made?
Spanish sparkling wine
Traditional Method
What are the five methods used to make sparkling wine?
Traditional Method Tank Method Transfer Method Ancestral Method Carbonation
What are the first three steps in any method? Describe them
- Harvest
- early (not overly ripe)- Grapes with high acid, low sugar
- Another way, grow grapes in cooler climate to reduce rate of ripening
- Light Press
- Press lightly, as we don’t want to extract the phenolics- Want just the juice
Free run juice
= juice that comes out of the pressure without any pressure behind it = best = low phenolic concentration
- Want just the juice
- Primary fermentation
- Add yeast to tank, which consumes sugars
- Produces alcohol, CO2, heat
- Left with a BASE WINE - as still white wine
- This is used to make a sparkling wine
Cause they start with low sugar = low alcohol, high acidity
What is the tank method? List some examples of wines made from this method.
- Base wine transferred to tank that can take pressure
- Add yeast + sugar (sugar acts as food source for yeast)
- Sealed top of pressurised tank
- 2nd Fermentation occurs (10 days)
Produces CO2, alcohol, heat —– Alcohol goes up, CO2 dissolves into solution- Filter out the sediments
- Dosage - receive a mixture of sugar and must
- Sparkling wine created (some sugar)
Examples: Prosecco and Lambrusco wines
- Fun Facts:
- It was the only way to make Prosecco until a couple of years ago
- Dry wines have no sugar - Sav Blanc can’t be sweet cause no sugar
What is the Ancestral Method “Pet Nat”?
- Base wine isn’t allowed to finish primary fermentation - sugar and yeast movement
- Halfway its paused, filtered and chilled to 0C then stored for several months
- 3/4 fermented its then bottled
- bottles riddled & disgorged without sugar sometimes
- Likely the way people accidentally stumbled upon sparkling wine
- Cloudiness = dead yeast cells
What is the Traditional Method?
- wines complete the primary fermentation
- a blend or ‘cuvee’ is created with selection of base wines
- bottles are blended with yeast & sugar initiating 2nd fermentation - called Tirage
- wines age on the lees (dead yeast particles)
- aging lasts 9 months to 5 years
- riddling & disgorging occurs
- dosage
*bubbles form at 6-8 weeks - alcohol increases by 1.5%
Why do we riddle and disgorge?
Need to get rid of the dead yeast cells at bottom of bottle
Riddling - twist and invert wine over period of time, need to move all sediment to bottom of bottle, one 1/4 to right then 1/2 to left
(not as effective if you just turn bottle upside down)
What is the benefit of yeast?
Yeast cells provide good flavours:
- Yeastiness to the wine (breadiness) - Not just the fruit flavour anymore, giving greater depth - So lie bottle on its side, get greater distribution of yeast, wine in contact with yeast - Then leave it there - How long depends on rules - Sulphur containing, bind into the wine
What is disgorgement?
Disgorgement:
- Bottles inverted into freezing bath halfway up the neck - Freezes sediment in the neck and little bit of wine - Turn bottle over and remove cap - There is now 7bah of pressure at the top, bursts off plug
What is dosage?
- Adjust sweetness of wine by adding liquor
- can use base wine
*for vintage wine this must be from the same year
What percent of alcohol is base wine?
9-11%
What is the carbonation method?
- Add CO2 under pressure to your vessel
- Generally cheapest of cheap wines e.g. passion pop
- Get the biggest bubbles in this method
What is the Transfer Method?
- Same as Traditional Method except one extra step
- Before disgorgement add all the bottles together
- after aging, bottles transferred into high pressure tanks
- Filter - clarify the wine by passing it through high pressure filters
- Dosage - some wine, sugar/must is added back
What is a nucleation site?
- Bubbles caused by imperfections
- Need attachment site (nucleation site) for growth
- 30 bubbles per second for each site
- Its good, high concentration, makes aromatic wine
*Can create artificial sites, by scoring the glass
What method produces the most & biggest bubbles?
Carbonation method
What method produces the smoother finer bubble?
Tank method
What produces the best and smoothest bubbles?
Traditional Method
What are 3 types of glassware and their features?
Flutes - tall narrow glass, with long stem, retain bubbles by reducing surface area
Coupes (saucers) - wide rim & short stem, shallow
Tulips - like flutes but with inward curved rim and wider bowl
*preferred = allows aroma but stops carbonation loss
Describe champagne and how its made
• High acid, low sugar
• Only method traditional
• Not pressed at the wineries themselves but press houses, this is because the wineries are in the cities, make sure fruit doesn’t have to travel that far (retain freshness)
• House style (brand) is more important than anything else
• Everything is regulated:
- Yeasts
- Time to hold before blending bottling
- Time of aging
- Labelling and packaging
- Etc.
· This is to uphold the status
What wines can be used to make champagne?
Chardonnay , Pinot Noir , Pinot Meunier
Blanc de Blanc - white grapes only
Blanc de Noris - red grapes only (can be 100% pinot noir or meunier or both)
Combination of any of the three
Rose - white and red mixed
What is vintage and non vintage champagne? What is a prestige cuvee?
Vintage Champagne
- Minimum 3 years aging
- Using one years harvest
- They normally double the minimum requirements
- For good years of harvest
Non-Vintage Champagne
- Minimum 15 months
- Blend of base wines, retain multiple years to create a consistent product
Prestige Cuvee
- most meticulous & expensive, presumably highest quality * can be vintage and nonvintage
What is Brut Nature?
Champagne bottled without any dosage.
Other names Non-Dose or Brut Zero
What is Extra Brut?
0-6g/l of sugar
What is Brut?
0-12 g/l of sugar
Most common
What is Extra Dry?
12-17 g/l of sugar
What is Sec?
Means dry but in champagne refers to 17-35 g/l of sugar
What is Demi-sec?
Sweet style, 35-50 g/l of sugar
What is Doux?
Sweetest, > 50 g/l of sugar
What is lees?
The yeast particles in the wine
After second fermentation bottle put on its side to get access to all yeast for better flavour
What is Autolysis?
The yeast responsible for second fermentation die and dissolve (autolysis) and sit in the bottle
