Sparkling Wine Basics
With the holidays approaching, I thought sparkling wine would be the perfect topic for my first ‘Wine 101’ post. Even though sparkling wine producers have been trying to convince the world that sparkling wine is great for everyday consumption (which is it!), it is still largely consumed for celebratory moments, like the holidays.
This post will tell you the basics you need to know about sparkling wine so you can impress everyone at your holiday party. And I’ll follow it up with a post on sparkling wine recommendations, so you have some bubbles to look for at the store. I’ll run you through reading the label, proper temperature, glassware, how to open the bottle and how to pour the bottle. For the curious at heart, I’m working on another post that will cover what grapes to expect, vintage vs. non-vintage, and how sparkling wine is made.
Oh, also, you will notice I say ‘sparkling wine’ and not ‘champagne’. That’s because sparkling wine is the general term for the category while champagne is a specific term. Despite some misguided labels from California wineries, you can only call sparkling wine champagne if it comes from the Champagne region in France.
READING THE LABEL
There are a few things you’ll want to look for on the label to make sure you know what you’re about to buy.
Level of sweetness
Most sparkling wine is Brut, which means it has 2g or less of sugar per glass. This is probably what you’ve always had, and, as you know, you wouldn’t describe it as particularly sweet, but you wouldn’t describe it as particularly dry either. It’s a nice happy medium that we’re going to use as a mental anchor for the other types of sparkling wine available.
If you want to go drier, you can look for labels marked as Extra Brut (1g or less) or Brut Nature (0.5g or less). You’ll register these wines as having higher acidity because there is less sugar. They’re delicious, especially Brut Nature, and are great as an aperitif.
If you want to go sweeter, you can look for labels marked as Extra Dry (2.8 or less), Dry (5.3g or less) or Demi-Sec (8.3g or less). Why is Extra Dry sweeter than Brut? I have no good answer for this one. What I can tell you, is you won’t find many sparkling wines in the Extra Dry or Dry category, so it may be easier to forget they exist. You will find Demi-Sec options. These are noticeably sweet and are good after dinner.
Year
In most instances, you won’t see a year on sparkling wine. This is because the majority of sparkling wine is non-vintage. The reason for this is simple. Unlike still wine, we’ve come to expect sparkling wine to taste the same year after year. The easiest way to achieve this is for producers to use grapes from multiple years to create a wine that tastes the same as the last time you had it. (They also achieve this through dosage, which I’ll explain in my next sparkling wine post.)
If you do see a year, you’re looking at a vintage sparkling wine. In this instance, you can be sure all the grapes come from the year noted. Many producers will only make vintage sparkling wine in a good year, so you can expect this wine to be good – just don’t expect it to taste exactly the same from year to year.
Method
There are three methods you’re likely to come across.
- Traditional Method/Methode Champenoise – This is where the secondary fermentation that creates the bubbles happens in the bottle.
- Tank Method/Charmat Method – You guessed it, this is where the secondary fermentation that creates the bubbles happens in a tank, and is then bottled.
- Carbonation – This is where carbon dioxide is added to still wine to create sparkling wine. (This is the wine version of how soda is made.)
You can feel confident purchasing sparkling wines made with the first two methods. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend sparkling wine made with the third method because these tend to be mass produced lower quality wines.
Temperature
As with all wine, you should store sparkling wine in a cool (so the wine doesn’t overheat), dark (so the wine isn’t damaged by the light), decently humid (so the cork doesn’t dry out) place. When you are getting ready to drink a bottle, however, you’ll want to make sure you store it in your fridge, so it gets nice and chilled. If you need to cool it down in a pinch, you can fill your sink with cold water, add ice and quickly spin the bottle around (think the motion you use to move a foosball handle, but keep going) for a few minutes. This method is incredibly effective, and it doesn’t shake up the bottle. Try to avoid chilling the bottle in your freezer. It will take longer to cool with this method than with the swirling method and if you leave the bottle in there too long you’ll end up with champagne slushy, which isn’t very good. (It is highly unlikely the bottle will explode, like a soda can would, since it is so much thicker, but set a timer to remind yourself to check on it just in case.)
Once you open the wine (more on that below) keep any extra in a cool place. If your fridge is full, a chilled wine bucket or a shady spot your back porch (assuming it’s cool out) will work just fine. You’ll find that sparkling wine opens up as it warms up a bit. You will want to avoid going too warm (like keeping the bottle by a warm oven) because the carbonation overwhelms everything else when it gets warm, an experience you’ve probably had with soda.
Glassware
Vertical tasting of Dom Perignon at the Moet Hennessy offices. Notice the white wine glasses.
Sparkling wine was historically served in coupes, but flutes came onto the scene in the 1950s and largely displaced coupes by the 1980s. If you order sparkling wine in a restaurant today it is almost certain they’ll serve it to you in a flute, though coupes are making a comeback. The rationale behind flutes is that they best display the beautiful bubbles, and sometimes restaurants even cheat and etch the bottom of the flute, which increases the bubbly display.
However, I’m going to fill you in on a little secret. Most champagne aficionados don’t use coupes or flutes, they use regular white wine glasses. The rationale here is all about function vs. looks. Sparkling wine, like all wine, does best when it has a bit of room to breathe and develop in the glass. The tight nature of the flute, plus the fact flutes are filled closer to the top than regular wine glasses (due to their small size, not the fact you’re getting a bigger pour), leaves little room for the wine to breathe. It is also leaves little room for you to insert your nose and smell the wine. A coupe, on the other hand, gives you plenty of room to insert your nose for a sniff, in fact, maybe too much room. It’s so open, and probably poured so close to the top, that the beautiful aroma of the wine has nothing to do but dissipate into the air, instead of hanging around the top of the glass so you can enjoy it. Then there’s the white wine glass, the goldilocks glass if you will. It gives the wine enough room to develop and captures the aromas so you can enjoy the full experience. It also does a decent job of showing off the beautiful bubbles.
Bottom line is you can use whatever glassware suits your fancy. Flutes look wonderfully celebratory and coupes always make me feel like I’m drinking champagne in the roaring 20s. In my house, however, we usually use white wine glasses because they let the sparkling wine shine. And this method has the added benefit that you don’t have to find space to store flutes you only pull out a few times a year.
Opening the bottle
You’re probably used to hearing sparkling wine opened with a pop. Restaurants have popularized this method because you’re more likely to order bubbles if you see (hear) another table enjoying it. I hate to deprive you of the celebratory pop if you love it, but I must tell you that it isn’t the best method for the wine itself because it lets more of the bubbles escape.
Here’s how you’ll want to open sparkling wine. (Note that it will probably take you a bit of practice to get this right, a great excuse to enjoy more sparkling wine!)
Six steps to opening sparkling wine like a pro
- Remove the foil wrapper.
- Untwist the cage. It’s very important that once you start untwisting the cage you NEVER take your hand off the cork. The cage is holding the cork in. Most corks will have to be coaxed out, but some will shoot out as soon as the cage is loose. This has happened to me and I almost hit someone with the cork.
- At this point some people will remove the cage. I don’t like doing that because you do have to momentarily take your hand off the cork. Your call since some people find the next part strange with the cage on.
- Start to gently twist the cork while softly pulling up. (I’ve been told I apparently twist both the cork and the bottle in this phase.)
- When the cork approaches the top of the bottle, start to gently pull it at a 45-degree angle.
- As the cork gets closer to the top the angle will get closer and closer to 90 degrees until you hear the soft sigh of a few bubbles escaping and have a cork resting in your palm.
If you’re more of a visual person, check out this video for a quick look at how to open a bottle of bubbles:
Pouring the bottle
The traditional way to pour sparkling wine is to hold it from the bottom with your thumb resting in the divot and your hand cradling the bottle. This isn’t strictly necessary, but it adds to the presentation. I do recommend that you tilt the glass you’re pouring into to roughly a 30 to 45-degree angle and get the nose of the bottle close to the glass. Then you’ll turn the glass more and more upright as you pour. This method keeps the foaming to a minimum so you protect the bubbles and can see just how much you’ve poured.
Now all that’s left is to enjoy!
Still have sparkling wine questions after reading this? Ask me in the comments section below.
Sparkling wine icon made by Nikita Golubev from www.flaticon.com.