Why is a good sparkling wine more difficult?

[H.S. Wine]

Greetings, Wine Making Talk community. I'm a long-time lurker but first-time poster and I've been making only cider up to this point (past two years) but interested in branching out.

I read an old post saying that good sparkling wine is more difficult to make than still wine. Why is this? With my cider, I've noticed that carbonation tends to improve the flavor, bringing out the apple flavors while subduing the ester/acetone type flavors. I understand that carbonation is conventionally known to enhance flavors and raise acidity, but I've also experienced it to subdue some flavors. What's different about grapes? I realize that traditional wine grapes are high in tannins. Does the carbonation put the bitterness/acidity over the top? Would using a blend of wine grapes and table grapes balance out the effects of carbonation?

 

[Khristyjeff]

Hi H.S. Wine. Welcome to WMT!
Your question is an interesting one that I don't recall being addressed on the forum. I don't make sparkling wines but I'm sure some members who do will chime in for you.

 

[Sailor323]

I've made a number of sparkling wines and ciders. The process I use involves first making a still wine and then priming it with sugar for a final fermentation in the bottle. The only difficulty comes if you want to rid the resulting sparkling wine of sediments, a process called disgorging. It requires the bottle to be stored upside down and gently shaken on a daily basis so the sediment falls into the neck which is then frozen and the ejected from the bottle, the resulting space filed with a similar wine. Actually, I don't bother with disgorging, I just pour the sparkling wine carefully to avoid disturbing the sediment. The last couple of glasses are a bit cloudy but so what?

 

[toadie]

I make everything sparkle if I can. I too add dextrose to bottle carb. This should be done before 6 months are up so the yeast remains viable though I haven't experimented with the time frame.

Champagne is made primarily with Chard, Pinot Noir and Petit Meunier. A combo I'm not likely ever to have. It is also disgorged (to get rid of lees) after the tirage has been added and it has bottle carbed and aged. Anyway a lot of work.

I might experiment with adding yeast to a finished and well aged and possibly blended wine in the future but my rhubarb sparkling with sediment is acceptable at the moment though I hope to do better eventually. Age should help things too.

Cheers.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Wine is generally higher in alcohol than beer/cider, and yeast don't like growing (and therefore producing CO2) in high alcohol conditions. So when you make sparkling wine (at least if you're doing methode champenoise - secondary fermentation in the bottle), you need to carefully prepare the yeast culture - the tirage. You get a yeast culture growing, then gradually increase the alcohol (by adding wine) and SO2, while also providing more sugar to keep the yeast growing. As you expand this culture you need to keep it in a fairly narrow range of specific gravity, lest you end up with flat wine or bottle bombs. Then you need to slowly add your base wine to the tirage bit by bit, so that you very gradually increase the exposure of the yeast to alcohol and SO2. Then bottle (in sparkling wine bottles which can withstand the high pressure), with a crown cap and a bidoule - the little plastic cap that collects the yeast in the top of the bottle. After secondary fermentation, as others have said you need to riddle (to get the yeast down into the bidoule) and disgorge, usually adding back a little sugar (the dosage) before sealing with a cork. This is done commercially by using a machine that freezes the neck of the bottle, pops out the plug of frozen yeast and quickly adds the dosage before corking. There are home winemaking ways to achieve this too but I've never done it.

Of course there are simpler ways to generate bubbles; Pet-nat has become something of a buzzword in recent years, being a more rustic style where the wine is bottled before it's finished fermenting and the final product remains cloudy with yeast. You still need to pay attention to some of the above issues - making sure your yeast is happy and that yeast/sugar are in the right range to produce bubbles and not explosions - but at least you don't need to go through the elaborate bottling procedure.

 

[Sailor323]

I find that the complicated method of producing and using a tirage is unnecessary. I use EC1118 for the base wine and simply use a priming sugar for the fermentation in the bottle, much as you would do when making beer. EC1118 is the yeast of choice for sparkling wine production as it has good alcohol tolerance and is often used to restart stuck fermentations

 

[Rice_Guy]

Welcome to WMT
Your reference can be translated as bad wind has cloudy gunk (AKA dead yeast) and good wine is crystal clear.
From a test lab point of view it is easy to carbonate wine with a CO2 cylinder like a soda line. The bubble structure is not strong (shorted lived) on artifically carbonated beverages, ,,, and I am guessing most folks would not like see added soy lecethin on the label to make up for the chemical structure yeast produce.

I read an old post saying that good sparkling wine is more difficult to make than still wine. Why is this? With my cider,

 

[glennwing]

I have a CO2 cylinder and do a force carbonation in a keg. I also have a setup to bottle from the keg. It bottles best cold and with the bottles cold. Putting cold carbonated liquid in a warm bottle will cause a lot of the CO2 to release from
Suspension and you will get lots of foam and a half full bottle. I have used this method with beer and cider. The advantages are no sediment and also more control. If u test it and it is not carbonated enough just increase the pressure a little and let it sit a while longer

 

[H.S. Wine]

So it sounds like the issue isn't directly flavor-related, but more in terms of the process of carbonating. I was going to say, force carbonation seems like the way to go. You could let your wine ferment/age in whatever container you want and then transfer to a pressure vessel for a few weeks before bottling (similar to what I do with my cider). But, it was nice to learn about the traditional method as well. Thanks, everyone

 

[BarrelMonkey]

So it sounds like the issue isn't directly flavor-related, but more in terms of the process of carbonating. I was going to say, force carbonation seems like the way to go. You could let your wine ferment/age in whatever container you want and then transfer to a pressure vessel for a few weeks before bottling (similar to what I do with my cider).

Completing the second fermentation in a pressure vessel (and then filtering before bottling) is the Charmat method - named after the Frenchman who patented it, though actually first developed and patented by an Italian (hence in Italy it's the 'Italian method' ). It's used in some sparkling wines such as the proseccos and Asti Spumante of Italy. Forced carbonation, where you put your finished wine in a pressure vessel and pressurize with CO2, is sometimes called the 'soda method' for obvious reasons.

Wikipedia has an article on the various methods used to produce sparkling wine, I had no idea there were so many variations!

 

[H.S. Wine]

Welcome to WMT
Your reference can be translated as bad wind has cloudy gunk (AKA dead yeast) and good wine is crystal clear.
From a test lab point of view it is easy to carbonate wine with a CO2 cylinder like a soda line. The bubble structure is not strong (shorted lived) on artifically carbonated beverages, ,,, and I am guessing most folks would not like see added soy lecethin on the label to make up for the chemical structure yeast produce.

Thank you. This is the first I'm hearing of "bubble structure". However, I would think that if a bottle using the traditional methods and a bottle using forced carb sat for long enough (but the same volume of CO2), the bubbles would be the same... but, again, I've never heard of bubble structure before and don't know anything about but intrigued. As far as the chemical signature of yeast goes, I suppose you could add the equivalent amount of yeast/sugar to the final pressure vessel (with a spunding valve) and when you rack/bottle you would have a similar chemical composition as the traditional method.

 

[Rice_Guy]

For some reason natural carbonation is supposed to last longer.
Food systems have a number of foaming agents but it should be in the label if used.

 

[Bmd2k1]

I find that the complicated method of producing and using a tirage is unnecessary. I use EC1118 for the base wine and simply use a priming sugar for the fermentation in the bottle, much as you would do when making beer. EC1118 is the yeast of choice for sparkling wine production as it has good alcohol tolerance and is often used to restart stuck fermentations

So do you have to bottle immediately after fermentation is complete or can you bulk age & then bottle with the priming sugar (minus chems).

Cheers!

 

[Sailor323]

I rack from the primary fermentation vessel into a secondary vessel. then when all has settled down, usually after 2 weeks, I add priming sugar and bottle in champagne bottles. It's important to limit SO2 during the process but EC1118 is somewhat tolerant of SO2. If your base wine was made using a different yeast, it may be necessary to take a quantity of the base wine, sweeten it and add EC1118 to start a good ferment. Sweeten the rest of the base wine and add the fermenting wine to that and bottle immediately. You could also put the base wine into a jug, add an appropriate amount of sugar and then add an appropriate amount of properly rehydrated EC1118. IF you bulk age the base wine, I'd recommend either process. Whenever I make a sparkling wine (Chardonnay usually) I set aside one gallon at racking from secondary and add priming sugar to that and bottle immediately.

 

[JohnT]

As others have said,

I have used the "methode champenoise" (priming with yeast/sugar, riddling, and then disgorging) and i have to say that forced carbonation is WAY easier, faster, and cleaner.

By simply placing your clear wine into a clean cornelius keg, pumping it up to about 35 psi with CO2, cooling it down to 33 degrees or so, then waiting about 2 weeks, you end up with sparkling wine that is clean and clear from the first glass right down to the last.

It helps to check the keg every couple of days or so. You may need to add more CO2 to maintain 35 PSI.

You can then either bottle the sparkling wine or, better yet, tap it like a keg. It all depends on how hearty you party!