WINE: NO CELEBRATION REQUIRED

 WINE ›

THE TRANQUILITY OF SPARKLING WINE
Nothing legally sold over the counter can relieve the stress of the day faster than an ice-cold glass of bubbly! It is the perfect, quick-acting and all-natural tranquilizer, as the synergistic effect of moderate alcohol and carbonation quickly ease the mind. Carbonation interacts with the soft tissues in the mouth, allowing minute traces of alcohol to enter the blood stream immediately – therefore we can literally state, “sparkling wine goes straight to the head!” If you enjoy a few snacks with your after-work stress reliever, its effects will slow and will eliminate the accompanying early morning headache. Warning: moderate consumption of sparkling wine will ease the tensions of the day, add enjoyment to your meal, improve the disposition of the drinker and may cause spontaneous rapture!

VINTAGE VS. NON-VINTAGE
Many people think vintage Champagne/sparkling wine is superior to a non-vintage (NV), or, as some are now calling it, multi-vintage. This is false. The price difference between NV and vintage sparkling wine has more to do with supply and demand than outright quality issues. The fact is for most sparkling wine producers, the non-vintage wine is their flagship wine. It must taste the same year after year, bottle after bottle. Achieving this consistency requires rigid standards and sufficient quantities of reserve wines that are kept for 5-10 years in the cellars for blending. These are all added costs that vintage sparkling wines do not have, but there is more NV wine made so the cost can be divided across many more bottles.

Vintage sparkling wine is subject to the quality of the vintage, which is why they are only made in the supposedly “best” years. As well, vintage variation creates dramatic style (taste) differences between each vintage. In order for a sparkling wine house to maintain a consistent NV blend, only a small percentage of the juice will be set aside and bottled separately as “vintage.” The rest of the wine will be set aside as the base wine for the NV many years to come. For the NV wine, the sum of the parts creates a much greater whole.

DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS OF CHAMPAGNE
The region of Champagne is comprised of roughly 17,000 growers, but only 250 are négociants-manipulants, or Champagne houses. Of these 250 houses, 95 produce 95 percent of all champagne – and 10 of those houses produce a whopping 55 percent of the total product. On average, these négociants only own 10 percent of their vineyards and must supplement 90 percent of their supplies with either purchased fruit or finished wine. In moderation, supplementing production with purchased or finished wine is not a bad thing. Unfortunately, the big houses aren’t doing it in moderation and they’re not required to disclose how much finished sparkling wine they are purchasing. This practice is called purchasing “sur-lattes” and dramatically short cuts the Champagne process. With these short cuts, they don’t need to purchase land, manage a vineyard, harvest grapes, make wine, or put the wine through secondary fermentation and aging the cuvee for a minimum of 18 months. A large négociant can purchase 50,000 cases of sur-lattes from various cellars in Champagne, transport it to their winery, age it for six months, riddle, disgorge and dosage it. After that, they can call it their own, slap a yellow label on it, and send it to the U.S. market. They have no overhead invested except six months of cellaring – yet can charge a premium for the image of that yellow label. When purchasing Champagne, avoid the large négociants and seek the unknown small grower (récoltant) or small négociants that own a larger percentage of their vineyards.

FRANCIACORTA – ITALY’S HIDDEN GEM
Not only is Franciacorta Italy’s most prestigious sparkling wine region, it rivals Champagne in quality and complexity. Glacial retreats left the soils here laced with marine and limestone deposits while the altitude contributes to the cool, slow growing season – creating the perfect environment to grow grapes for sparkling wine. To protect regional identity and wine quality, DOCG regulations dictate that houses in Franciacorta produce wine in the “Traditional Method” – from Chardonnay, Pinot Nero and Pinot Bianco grapes. The value that Franciacorta offers becomes apparent when you take into consideration Champagne’s dirty little secrets. First the best estates of Franciacorta grow nearly all of their fruit and the DOCG regulations do not allow wineries to shortcut with sur-lattes.

Mandatory minimum aging requirements for NV Brut is 24 months, compared to Champagne’s 18 months. Furthermore, the best estates, Bellavista and Ca’ del Bosco age their NV wine on the lees for 36 months before disgorging and releasing for sale. Interestingly, the hard cost of making wine in Franciacorta is much higher – twice the aging means double the delay on profits – yet the price is the same as or less than many of the well known Grand Marques of Champagne. Not only does the Franciacorta offer more for less financially, it also offers more where it counts the most: aroma, flavor and complexity.

PROSECCO’S EVERYDAY CHARM
As much as I love Champagne and Franciacorta, I can’t afford to drink them on a daily basis or in mass quantity (although I do my best). The best bubbly for the money under $20 is by far Prosecco. The Prosecco grape produces a very refreshing, floral sparkling wine made for immediate consumption. It is made in the Charmat process, which many ignorant connoisseurs consider to be an inferior method. Charmat has two advantages over the “Traditional Method” perfected in Champagne. First, it is a more cost efficient way of getting bubbles into wine and, with today’s technology, more effective, as the bubbles are much smaller and last longer. Secondly, autolysis robs the fragrance from aromatic grapes, such as Prosecco or Riesling. Autolysis is the interaction between the dead yeast cells in the bottle and the wine after the secondary fermentation is completed. It is what gives Champagne and Franciacorta complexity, depth of flavor and richness, but robs Prosecco of its lively fruit and fragrance. Prosecco made in the “Traditional Method” is flat, boring and muddy tasting – kind of like Cava. Because the Charmat process removes the dead yeast almost immediately, the fragrant aromatic flavors of Prosecco burst out of the glass and are best enjoyed from a pilsner rather than a flute.

A word of caution: Prosecco has become the beer of the wine world, and its worldwide popularity has caused huge production increases to meet demand. This has created a proliferation of poor quality, innocuous Proseccos that are giving the wine a bad image. When searching for juicy flavorful Proseccos, keep the following in mind. First – avoid pink Prosecco! I love rosé sparkling wine more than anyone, but this stuff is simple and lacking in character. Second, the best Prosecco comes from three villages in Italy: Conegliano, Valdobbiadene and Colli Asolani. Look for these villages to be listed on the front label of the wine. Prosecco from these villages may cost $4 to $6 more a bottle but you are getting 3-4 times the quality – well worth the extra investment.

WORDS TO LIVE BY
For those who need a little guidance on the appropriate time to open a bottle of bubbly, I leave you with a famous quote from Madame Lily Bollinger on Champagne:

“I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it – unless I’m thirsty.”

One Response to “WINE: NO CELEBRATION REQUIRED”

1. John Constantine, Jr. says:

   December 4, 2009 at 3:49 pm

   - I found this article very Informative and in lighting. And as a Champagne & Sparkling lover myself, I agree people do not open bubbly often enough! Even quiet simply to celebrate life!