Wine: Production Methods & General Info Flashcards
Methode Champenoise
Methode Champenois is a multi-step process for producing sparkling wines of high quality. It involves two fermentations.
The first fermentation happens to produce a still wine (either white or rose). This wine is bottled along with yeast and a small amount of sugar (liqueur de tirage) and sealed with a bottle cap.
As the sugar ferments during this second fermentation it is trapped in the bottle by the cap, and dissolves into the wine itself.
From here the wine will be aged for a period of time (dictated by local custom and laws). This aging is done on the “lees” which are the spent yeast cells still present in the bottle after they’ve completed fermentation. Lees aging contributes both flavor and preservative properties to wine.
After aging, the wine is “riddled” - over the course of many days the bottles are turned very slightly each day until they stand straight up on their heads - the dead yeast cells (lees) coming to rest in the top of the bottle neck.
“Disgorging” follows. The neck of each bottle is frozen. A plug of frozen wine and lees is captured in the bottle neck, The bottle cap is taken off and the plug removed, resulting in a “filtered” wine.
The space left once the plug is gone is replaced with still wine and (usually, though not always) some sugar This is called the Liqueur d’Expedition.
The process is called “Dosage” - adding back wine and sugar post-Disgorgement. It determines the level of sweetness of a sparkling wine made in Methode Champenois, which can range from completely dry to extremely sweet..
Brut, Extra-Brut, Brut Nature, Demi-Sec and Doux are all different levels of sparkling wine sweetness.
Orange Wine
Orange wine is a style of wine made using Skin Contact in the production process.
After grapes are crushed, the skins are left to soak in the grape juice, similar to tea steeping in hot water. This is “maceration”.
The color, tannins and flavors present in grape skins are imparted to the juice during maceration. It can occur for a matter of hours or a matter of weeks depending on the winemaker’s intention.
Where a white wine is made of juice crushed from grapes and run off from the skins, orange wine is wine made from skins soaked in their juice after the crush.
