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FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 170

Wine and Beer in Western Culture

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Lecture 11

Sparkling and Dessert Wines

Objectives

•      Explain production techniques for sparkling wines

•      Define the characteristics of champagne

•      List the major types of dessert wine and their characteristics

•      List the regions for Port, Sherry, and Madeira

Definitions

•      Cuveé - blend of wines used to make a particular house style of sparkling wine

•      Dégorgement (disgorgement) - removal of dead yeast from 2nd fermentation in bottle

•      Rémuage (riddling) - rotation of inverted bottles to get dead yeast into the bottle neck

•      Méthode champenoise - expensive method of making sparkling wine

•      Charmat process – less expensive method for making sparkling wine

•      Proof – way of measuring alcohol content. 100 proof = 50% alcohol

•      Dessert wine – wine fortified with alcohol distilled from other wine to 15-22% alcohol

•      House – establishment where champagne is made

•      Quinta – farm/vineyard where port is made

•      Bodega – farm/vineyard where sherry is made

•      Solera – method used to blend sherries from various years

Region for champagne making

•      Coldest, most northern region for grape growing in France; has chalky soil

–   Chardonnay (20%), Pinot Noir (35%), Pinot Meunier (40%)

•      Definition of champagne - a place and a process

–   Coteaux Champenois: Still wines made in region

•      Made any place else, it is simply sparkling wine

–   French, outside Champagne: Vins Mousseux ("Foamy wine")

•   'Méthode Traditionnelle' or 'Méthode Classique'

–   Italian: Spumante (typically from Muscat); German: Sekt; Spanish: Cava

Early champagne making

•      Resulted from shipment of still wine in barrels from the Champagne region to England where it was bottled and a 2^nd fermentation occurred

–   British liked the fizzy wine, starting adding sugar to get sparkling wines, but amount of fizz was unpredictable - Winemakers considered it a nuisance

Making True Champagne – the Méthode Champenoise

•      Process leads to wine with very fine, small bubbles

•      Only 1st press juice from prescribed amount of grapes - No crushing; Use unique presses, so gentle grapes burst but skins aren’t pressed (so no color or tannins)

–   Grapes harvested while still low in sugar; 1^st fermentation is same as any still wine

•      Blending to get the cuveé – maintains house style

•      2nd fermentation in bottle with measured amount of sugar and yeast (dosage)

•      Riddling - "Riddlers" worked their way through rows of A-framed racks, grabbing each bottle, lifting, slightly shaking and slightly twisting it before dropping it back into the rack with a slight plunk. Each motion is intended to coax sediments to the bottle neck

•      Followed by disgorgement, adjustment of sweetness, corking and bottle aging

Changes in technology permitting sparkling wine production

•             Dom Perignon (B1638, d. 1715) - his blending experiments led to cuvee

•             Madame Clicquots - Invented Rémuage (riddling)

•             Jean-Antoine Chaptal (in 1801) - 2nd fermentation due to residual sugar

•             Pharmacist André Francois (in 1836) - Created formula to measure the exact amount of sugar required to yield sparkling wines of specific pressures

Making sparkling wine - Less expensive processes

•      Transfer method (fermented in ‘a’ bottle, not ‘the’ bottle)

–   2nd fermentation in bottle other than the final bottle, followed by filtration and bottling under pressure - Good quality, but large bubbles lost quickly

•      Charmant (Bulk, Tank) method (1907 by Eugène Charmat)

–   2^nd fermentation occurs in large glass-lined tanks - Interconnecting tanks retain constant pressure (CO₂ production during fermentation) throughout entire process

–   Good quality, but large bubbles lost quickly

•      Injection method - Addition of CO₂ to still wine like to soda

–   No characteristic champagne nose; Bubbles are large and coarse

Characteristics

•      High acid, which may not go well with many foods, but good aperitif

•      Bubble size dependent on the processing method

•      Sweetness levels – Natural or extra brut: extremely dry, < .6°Brix

–   Brut: fairly dry, most common style, <1.5°Brix

–   Extra dry: medium dry, popular also, 1.5-2°Brix

–   Sec: semi sweet, noticeably sweet, 2-3°Brix

–   Demi-sec: very sweet, 3-5°Brix

–   Doux: extra sweet, almost like syrup, >5°Brix

•      Usually 5-6 atmospheres of pressure

•      Nonvintage (most sparkling wines), Vintage (only exceptional years, more expensive than N.V.), Late Disgorged (less citrus and acidity; more richness), Cuvée Prestige (special blends in vintage years – 3 times the cost of N.V.)

Champagne Corks - consists of three layers of the highest quality cork glued horizontally to a chunk of composition cork

Opening a Champagne bottle - Remove foil. Keep cork pointed in safe direction, one thumb on it, at 45° angle to maximize wine's surface area. Undo wire cage. Loosen it gently, keeping thumb on cork. Put towel over cork, hold towel-covered cork with one hand and base of bottle in other. Turn Bottle, not cork, slowly and gently. Ease cork off with soft "whoof", not pop - saves bubbles (and Champagne!). Slide towel around bottle neck and pour slowly down side of glass

Champagne Glasses

•     Want long stem so champagne doesn’t get warmed by hand; Want flute shape, not saucer, to retain bubbles; Hollow stems warm too quickly, hard to clean, fragile

Characteristics of Dessert (Fortified) Wine

•      Even though they are often sweet, dessert wine is defined by alcohol content

•      Only legal source of the alcohol is distillation from other wine (brandy)

•      Quality of the starting wine used for distillation is relatively unimportant

•      Dessert wines are microbiologically stable and keep quite long after opening

Types of dessert wine - colors are often oxidized due to processing

•      White types

–   Muscatel from raisined Muscat grapes - Many are of poor quality

–   White port - Sweet, cheaper ones from Thompson seedless

–   Angelica - golden, fruity, minimally fermented (.5% alcohol before fortification),

    10-15% residual sugar; Typically mission or Muscat grapes, enhanced with brandy

–   Dry vermouth (Noilly-Prat, Martini & Rossi)

•      Rosé types

–   “California” Tokay: blend of port, sherry & angelica

–   Tokay is valuable sweet white (not dessert) wine from Hungary made from various amounts of Botrytis infected grapes.: So sweet, fermentation occurs over years - Even with special yeast, treasured Tokay is rarely over 2% alcohol

•      Red - everything that is not white or rosé – often more brown in color

–   Port from Portugal; Sherry from Spain; Madeira from Madeira

–   Sweet vermouth (Dubonnet or Cinzano)

Traditional Port Making

•      Originally, from the Duoro River region of Portugal, originally shipped out of the Portuguese city of Oporto (Today called “porto”)

•      Crushing by foot to release color without breaking bitter seeds (4 hour shifts)

­       Difficult to get good color extraction because of brief fermentation

•      Ferment to 5% alcohol before fortification; then add neutral grape alcohol to 18-20% alcohol, which halts fermentation, leaving 9-10% residual sugar

•      Grapes blended for color and flavor

Port Types

•      Vintage port (declared only once or twice in a decade) - aged several years in a barrel, then up to 20 or more years in a bottle

•   Single vintage, bottled without additional processing 2-3 years after harvest

•   Made from grapes harvested from best sites after ideal weather conditions

•      Wood (-aged) port

–   Ruby: least expensive, lower-quality; Aged in wood for ~2 years, fruity, bright red

–   Tawny: blend from several different yrs; Aged in wood for up to 40 yrs

•   Inexpensive tawny ports are made by blending white port and ruby port

Vermouth - German for “wormwood” - wormwood now illegal, so other herbs are used

•      Styles – French: dry vermouth; White wine, fortified, flavored with herbs, spices

–   Italian: sweet vermouth; White wine, fortified, Caramel turns reddish brown

Regions for sherry and Madeira

•      Sherry comes originally from the south of Spain in the very hot Juarez region

–   Any place else that makes sherry should use a geographic descriptor.

•      Madeira comes originally from the very hilly island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean

Sherry and Madeira production

•      Both sherry and madeira are completely fermented before fortification (unlike port)

•      Both are already oxidized, so heating or cooking them does not alter their taste

•      Cooking sherry: low grade sherry with added salt - useful solely for cooking

•      Sherry comes mostly from Palomino with small amounts of Pedro Ximénez & Muscat

•      Maderia made traditionally from Sercial, Verdelho, Boal, and Malvasia grapes

Types of sherry

•      Fino - film of living yeast (flor) on wine in casks – imparts sharp, tangy character

–   Amontillado - starts with flor layer that dies; allows oxidation, leading to darker color & richer taste

–   Manzanilla - same process as fino; made by sea, salty taste from air after flor dies

•      Oloroso - made from palomino grapes which have raisined, has nutty-raisiny aroma

–   Cream sherry - sweetened oloroso, darkest & sweetest sherry, most popular in US

Solera process

•      Sherry is deliberately oxidized; barrels filled 2/3-5/6 full, loosely bunged & left in sun

•      Solera system ensures consistency

–   Tiers of sherry casks from oldest to newest; ¼-⅓ of oldest wine is drawn off for bottling, replaced by wine from the next oldest tier and so on, up through the solera system. Old give young character; young give old nutrients

•      Date on the sherry is the year the solera was started

•      Soleras often on rooftops to maximize heat exposure - Can use sherry baker instead

Madeira manufacture

•      Also oxidized, made faster than sherry (90 days) with "saunas"- bring wine to 120°F

–   Higher quality from warm rooms - unique tangy, burnt-caramel, slightly bitter flavor

•      Typically fortified to 18-20% alcohol with brandy

•      Madeira styles: First two are used as apéritifs; Last two as dessert wines.

–   Sercial is the lightest, driest style

–   Verdelho, sweeter and stronger

–    Boal (or Bual), fuller & sweeter than previous two

–   Malmsey is the richest, darkest, and sweetest