Hello my dear friends, it’s been a while. 2020 was a tough year for us all, and definitely testing for me. But have I given up on wine? Definitely not – far from it!
One silver lining of 2020 was that it turned out to be a great vintage, with a relatively mild spring and a moderate summer which allowed the grapes to ripen slowly and fully, developing beautiful floral and fruit aromas while keeping enough acidity to create a crisp sparkling.
We all know how a cork comes out of your favourite bottle of bubbles, but did you know how it got in there? Me neither until recently. There are several ways that sparkling wine is bottled (another article soon!), but one of the most interesting is the Traditional Method, used to make Champagne and of course English Sparkling.
Here, the wine goes through a second fermentation after the initial wine is made to produce the creamy bubbles that we enjoy. Once this is done (which could take months or several years!), the dead yeast is expelled and the bottle topped with a corked, thorugh a process known as “Disgorging” or dégorgement. Let’s look at how this is done.
Corks look completely different before they are bottled. They take take their recognisable shape by being tightly squeezed and pressed into the bottle, to hold the immense pressure behind it in the bottle.
Traditional method (Champagne) bottles arrive in large palettes upside down after their second fermentation.
Being upside down allows the yeast lees to settle at the neck of the bottle, allowing it to be removed. Note the crown cap!
The cap is popped out, and a little wine along with the yeast is expelled (explosively!). Many choose to freeze the neck of the bottle to slow this process down, but we like to do things the hard way!
The “dosage” (or liqueur d’expédition) containing sugar, wine and sulphites (preservative) is added. This also gives the final sweetness of the wine.
Bottles are then topped up with the same wine to make it back to 750ml. Note that on standard Champagne bottles this is 72mm from the top of the bottle.
A cork is placed in a press which squeezes it to the width of the neck of the bottle, so it can be inserted.
This is the bottle after the press has squeezed the cork into it. As tight as it looks, it won’t stay for very long due to to the immense pressure in the bottle. It needs to be held in place!
The wire cage (or muselet) is pressed on and twisted tight around the neck…
…like so. And we’re done!
The bottle is then foiled and labelled at a later stage before going out the door.
Of course this rather laborious process is largely automated nowadays with high tech doodads and whizbangs but the principles and actions are still the same. However, this is still done by hand by a number of smaller producers!
One of France’s newest wine regions, the Alsace was granted AOC status only in 1962, due to its rich in geopolitical history. The region borders on Germany along the Rhine River, and changed hands between Germany and France several times over the past few centuries.
Why are roses planted at the end of rows of grape vines? A few theories exist.
Tonnellerie de Champagne, where the oak barrels are still made by hand. Here, only a tiny number of barrels are crafted compared to the larger automated coopers in Burgundy and Bordeaux. Demand for oak barrels for both fermentation and maturation is increasing as Champagne houses experiment and move towards more oaked styles.
Do you have a minute? In today’s One Minute Wine Tour, I’m here in Henschke’s iconic Hill Of Grace vineyard in the Eden Valley, and thanks to South Australia being phylloxera-free, home to some of the oldest productive Shiraz vines in the world, dating back to 1860.
Those who know me will know I always bang on about the Granite Belt, Australia’s smallest wine region and two hours’ drive from Brisbane, Queensland – the town where I grew up.