All Sparkling Wines Are Not Champagne?

Champagne is a wine region in France that is about 1 ½ hours drive east of Paris.  It’s a lovely but cool region, and thus makes wines with lots of acidity – perfect to create bubbles.  Champagne is made in the traditional method of a second fermentation in the bottle called the méthode champenoise. 

Three grapes are used primarily – one white (Chardonnay) and two black (Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier).  Many wines are blends, but some are made only with red grapes and some just with white.  Most wines undergo malolactic fermentation, time on the lees and sometimes oak maturation.  This gives it three distinctive levels of flavors – primary from the fruit, secondary from the winemaking and tertiary from ageing. Many champagnes can be quite complex.

Before the winemakers learned how to capture the bubbles in an intentional second fermentation in the bottle, Mother Nature made it happen on her own.  In cooler climates, yeast would go dormant in the winter as temperatures dropped, only to wake up again in the late spring when the temperatures rose and start their work fermenting again.  Wines of this type will often have methode ancestrale or rurale marked on their labels. The original ancestral method wine, Blanquette de Limoux, is said to have been discovered in 1531, a good 150 years before champagne wines became bubbly.  This is a very interesting, artisanal way to make bubbly.

There is a big trend worldwide for ancestral method “Pet Nat” (Pétillant Naturel or naturally bubbly) sparkling wines  These wines are often unfiltered and do not undergo an initiated second fermentation; the wine is bottled while it is still fermenting to trap carbon dioxide gas in the bottle, creating a gentle carbonation. They are quite unusual and it can be strange to drink a cloudy beverage, but worth trying at least once.

Spain’s delicious version of traditional method sparkling wine is made most often in Catalunya, in the Penedès region  near Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast.  Unlike champagne, three white grapes usually go into the blend, all traditional Spanish varieties:  Xarel-lo, Parrellada and Macabeu (called Viura in Rioja).  Subirat, the local name for Malvasia, is sometimes used to give extra perfume to the wine. The French grape varieties Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are not traditional, but they are allowed in Cava DO wines.

If you like the brioche, toasty flavor of champagne, then the quality cava of Spain would be a good choice. The ageing requirements and production techniques make them a very close cousin of the French sparklers.

In Lombardy, Italy, where Milan is located, this region is an up and coming producer of quality traditional method sparkling wines.  They may be hard to find in the United States, but that probably will not be for long.  The region has been ding a lot of promotion recently and makes a wonderful product, which hopefully will become more available soon.

These wines can give champagne lovers the same dry style and use similar blends (Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are dominant), and they are also similarly aged. Price piints are similar to a good quality champagne as well.

For a long time this has had a less than optimal reputation, but It is now trending toward quality. The better wines will be labeled Deutscher (German) Sekt so that you know it contains only grapes of German origin. 

These wines are made using the tank method, which means it undergoes the second fermentation not in battle but in a temperature controlled stainless steel tank.  This is faster and less expensive and creates a lighter, more delicate wine. 

Deutscher Sekt is usually made with Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Noir.  Sekt can be an affordable way to enjoy some bubbles. If you like your sparkling wine to be fresh and fruity, this can be a good choice.

Another sparkler made with the tank method, this Italian gem has become one of the most popular ways to enjoy bubbles in the last decade.  Made from the white grape Glera, which is indigenous to northern Italy, prosecco is light and crisp with no malolactic fermentation or oak..  It is produced in an area in the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions, and named after the village of Prosecco which is in the province of Trieste, Italy. 

Choose to drink prosecco when you are looking for a lighter sparkling beverage or the perfect ingredient in cocktails or in a Bellini or Mimosa for brunch.  You will not get any notes of brioche from time on the lees or anything from oak…remember, this wine is generally made in stainless steel so the flavors are from the grapes. These wines are reasonably priced and widely available, appealing to those who want to venture into the world of sparkling wines.