Sparkling wine
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Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it making it fizzy. The carbon dioxide results from natural fermentation, either in a bottle as with the méthode champenoise, or in a large tank designed to withstand the pressures involved, as in the charmat process. In some parts of the world, the word champagne is used as a synonym for sparkling wine, although laws in most countries reserve the word champagne for a specific type from the Champagne region of France. In that country, sparkling wine not made in the Champagne region is called Crémant.
The classic example of a sparkling wine is Champagne, but many other examples are produced in other countries and regions, such as sekt in Germany, cava in Spain, spumante in Italy, Cap Classique in South Africa and sparkling wine in the United States. Recently the United Kingdom has begun producing a wide variety of wines, including sparkling wines, many of which are considered comparable or occasionally even superior to Champagnes in quality; global warming is cited as the main reason why southern England is becoming suitable for wine production, although prior to the reign of Henry VIII and his seizure of church property, England's monasteries included several vineyards. Sparkling wine is usually white or rosé but there are several examples of red Australian sparkling shiraz. Some wines are made only lightly sparkling, such as vinho verde in Portugal - such wines are often called frizzante or pétillant, or simply semi-sparkling.
For a description of the production method for Champagne and other wines made by the méthode champenoise see under Champagne. Because this process is expensive, using individual bottles for final fermentation, many other processes may be used. The tank method or charmat process is commonly used for lower priced sparklers.
Sparkling wine trivia
- Over 2 billion bottles of sparkling wine are sold annually worldwide. Champagne only ships 300 million of these bottles each year.
- The pressure in a bottle of Champagne before disgorging averages about 110 pound-force per square inch, or about three times that in an automobile tire, and about 75 psi, almost double the pressure of a bottle of beer, after disgorging.
- The longest recorded Champagne cork flight was 177 feet and nine inches.
- Bubbles in Champagne were originally seen by early vintners as an undesirable defect.
- A raisin dropped into a glass of sparkling wine will repeatedly bounce up and down between the top and bottom of the glass.
- Documentary evidence now seems to suggest that a fizzy wine or sparking wine was first made in England at least several decades before it was produced in France.
- France confiscated the Champagne winery of the Mumm family, who had lived in Champagne for almost 100 years before World War I, because they had never bothered to become French citizens.
Sources
- Prial, F. J. Decantations. NY: St. Martin's, 2001.
- [Alcohol Trivia]
External links
- [Effervescents du Monde] - website of an international Sparkling wines competition.
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