French Sparkling Wine manufacturing

Manufacturing methods

There are several methods for making sparkling wine. They all lead to what is traditionally called the “making of foam”, that is to say, the final phase of winemaking, which gives the wine its effervescence. The most used is the traditional method, formerly known as “Champagne.”

The use of the Champagne appellation prohibits other productions to refer to the vineyard; these use the word traditional. As for the wines of Champagne, they are called “Champagne” and are only allowed to use the word champagne for the method. In fact the winemakers of Champagne wisely abandoned the other term for sparkling wines, the “Cremant” which corresponded to previously half-pressure champagnes, in exchange for the abandonment by the other wines of the term “champagne method.”  The term is used exclusively to refer to champagnes.

Champagne or traditional methods

The traditional champagne method is to first make a still wine in vats or casks.  The alcoholic fermentation generates CO2. This is not the gas emitted during the first fermentation, which will create the excitement. After a time of farming by the winemaker, a few months to several years, the wine is still bottled, but some of that wine should not be taken into bottle as it will create the liqueurs and then draw dosing.

Then added in each bottle, a quantity of this same wine, is a dose of sugar and a dose of yeast (tirage liqueur). These new yeasts will then convert the added sugar into alcohol during fermentation in the bottle. The CO2 produced during this second fermentation is trapped in the container, held firmly by a metal cap, like those used for beer bottles. This production of this gas is trapped and dissolved pressure, even as it spreads into the wine, which is responsible for the effervescence of the wine upon opening the bottle.

Lees are produced by yeasts and production of alcohol and carbon dioxide is the deposit. Until the First Empire, the deposit was left in the bottle and the champagne was served decanted, but around 1813 a method was developed to sell the bottles directly without deposit: once the “making of foam ” was made – that i.e. after stopping fermentation in the bottle when all the added sugar has been used by the yeast – the wine is left as is for a variable time, depending on the denomination and the desire of the winemaker.

Next comes battening on livestock. The bottles are placed neck downwards and inclined between 30° and 40°. Every day for three or four months preceding the sale of bottles, a stirrer performs stirring: it turns each bottle, using the method of each cave, 1/8, 1/6 or 1/4 turn. There are nowadays machines called “gyros” that regularly and automatically make this stirring movement, but some producers still rely on traditional mixers. Whether done by a man or a machine, riddling is done to gradually move deposit and lees that form the yeast added to the bottling to the neck of the bottle.

Before marketing, the deposit is removed during the phase of staining. It is therefore necessary to freeze the deposit at the neck and open the bottle to expel the ice trapping the yeast. A few producers do not freeze the deposit and disgorge their bottle “on the fly.” Either way, the volume corresponding to the deposit removed from the bottle must be compensated.

A dose of wine and sugar is added to each bottle: the liquid metering (also known as shipping). The quantity of sugar added at this stage that determines the type of sparkling wine produced by traditional method: brut nature, extra brut, brut, dry, medium dry and sweet. ”Brut Nature” is what some producers call as “not determined” to signify that the wine did not suffer from adding sugar after disgorging.

Once the determination has been made, the bottle can receive its final cork stopper (to replace the metal cap that closed off the secondary fermentation and maturation). A wire plug cage attaches strongly to the edge of the neck to prevent the cork from jumping out of the bottle.

Ancestral method (or method by spontaneous fermentation)

This is the oldest method, called rural artisan method or ancestral; it is also called Gaillac depending on the region. With this method, the wine is bottled early, while the fermentation of the wort is not completed. The natural grape sugars and yeast are thus trapped in the bottle, where the fermentation will be completed.

This is when the CO2 is produced, during this natural fermentation, which will provide effervescence to the wine. From the beginning to the end of the second fermentation the bottles are closed; at no time are they opened to intervene in the process. Thanks to its simplicity, this method requires no draw on livestock slats, staining or bottle stoppers. Some Gaillac and some sparkling Blanquette de Limoux are vinified in this way.
Transfer method

This is similar to traditional methods or champagne making foam in the bottle, but there is no staining. The sparkling wine is already removed from the bottle (the bottles are washed to be reused) and its deposit filtered in a pressure vessel, where it receives a liquid dosage. Always under pressure (with an isobarometric shooter), the wine is bottled immediately and returned with its natural carbon dioxide.

Dioise method

This method is from Clairette de Die from Diois and the valley of the Drome. It is similar to the ancestral method; natural sugars and yeast are involved in grape fermentation. The difference is that after the secondary fermentation (bottle and cellar) upon emptying the cold bottles for complete filtration of yeast, as with the transfer method, there is no addition of a dosing liquid. Meanwhile the bottles were rinsed and are ready to receive new content, which was isobarometric filtered between two tanks that hold the wine at the initial pressure.

Close tank method

Here, the foam-making does not occur in the bottle but in a pressurized vessel. To compensate for the loss of carbon dioxide during bottling a carbon food is added. Augustus Charmat invented this method in 1907 at the wine university of Montpellier. It is used to make, German Sekt, Sardinian wines, and ciders, among others.
Continuous method (or Russian method)

Here, the wine circulates twenty-four hours within a series of tanks containing oak chips or other materials which bind the yeast ferment, the sugar, and wine. After the process, with the last vessel, the sparkling wine is bottled immediately through an isobarometric shooter.

Method for gasification
Carbon dioxide does not come from fermentation. A device called a saturator introduces food grade carbon dioxide into the wine when it is under pressure. An isobarometric shooter then puts the wine in the bottle.