Sparkling wine - traditional method.

[Rocktop]

Hi all, getting my plans and equipment in place to try making a batch of sparking wine using the traditional method. Have found some good write up so feeling prepared about most things. After disgorging, you top back up with dosage and many sources say that top up dosage is sweetened to help with acidity of the finished product. question is, doesn’t that sugar also get consumed or does increased pressure impact the yeast ability to consume it?
thanks,
RT

 

[winemaker81]

It depends on how long it's been since the secondary ferment stated. According to @Rice_Guy, after 9 months the yeast is dead so it's safe to backsweeten without sorbate. Based upon that, I'd age the wine at least 10 months after the secondary ferment started, and try it.

Keep in mind the need to handle acid depends on how much acid is in the wine in the first place. Unless you added too much, I wouldn't expect backsweetening to be needed.

 

[Rice_Guy]

* the normal sparking wine starts as a higher acid wine > traditional method ferments dry in the bottle with crown caps > traditional takes a month or month riddling > disgorging with a salted ice bath > traditional adds a sugar syrup but you could do other as wine or artificial sweetener.
* one of the club members does this, I do not, … but could ask specific questions of him. A key point is that the heavy weight bottles are rated at least two atmospheres and up to five.
* my experience so far is at nine month old (ie contest time) most wine is OK but I have had two referment in twenty years. No explosions but a surprise for the contest stewards.
* you can reduce risk with 80 ppm meta, age, warmer storage after second racking, having CO2 which lowers the pH, etc. ie risk reduction is like one fence on top of another.

 

[Rocktop]

Ok, that helps.
funny enough my Amazon order of the book Stars in a Glass arrived today. Great explanation of the process but didn’t touch on the question I had.
@Rice_Guy thank you for the info, that makes sense about multiple defences. I just want to make sure the sweetness level introduced is maintained and that it does not go cloudy.

txs again.

RT