A party is not a party without the presence of sparkling wines or champagne. Sparkling wine is basically the party drink of the alcohol world. Exciting occasions, like weddings, will have sparkling wine present. Champagne has a colorful history and how it is made is quite unique. This truly makes it worthy of the title “party wine.”
Sparkling wines were actually created by accident. There is a folk legend that monks of Champagne, France were the first people to create this kind of wine. It is said that they accidentally created it in their wine cellar by not drinking it for some time. When they opened the bottles, it was bubbly! They thought the wine was spoiled until they drank it and decided that it was actually quite tasty. The way that sparkling wine is created is by cooling the wine temperature low enough to stop the fermentation process before all of the sugar is used up. When the temperature is raised, a carbon dioxide reaction is formed, causing a reaction of bubbles. This is because the sugar begins to ferment again. Champagne has become a common name for bubbly wines, but true champagne is only made in France. Champagne is actually the name of a district of vineyards that true champagne grapes come from. Other wineries that use the name champagne are stealing the name without having the real ingredients. These other wineries are actually creating plain sparkling wine.
The process of making sparkling wine has stayed pretty much the same throughout the years. The process has become modernized, but for the most part retains the spirit of the old ways. The first step in making champagne and sparkling wines is to pick the grapes over a period of time so that every grape is at its ripest. Sometimes, different grapes from different vineyards are used to retain the best qualities of each variety. The grapes are then pressed and stored, usually in stainless steel barrels to ferment. This is done over a period of at least three weeks, until all the sugar is turned into alcohol. The wine is then separated from the bits that sunk to the bottom of the barrels and is transferred to other barrels, sometimes wood, to ferment longer or is mixed in with older wines to retain a particular flavor. For the second fermentation, extra sugar and yeast is put in with the wine to make the bubbly texture. And that is how sparkling wine is made! There are many different kinds of sparking wines and they are all made a little differently, but the basic process is the same.
So that is a brief overview of how sparkling wines were created and how they are made. There are so many different kinds of sparkling wine, that it would be impossible to name them all in one article. Visit a wine club or indulge in some books for more information. Just remember, a sparkling wine is not true champagne unless it comes from Champagne, France.
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