Instructor Molly opened my second wine tasting class by setting forth a simple formula: Grapes (i.e. sugar) + Yeast = Alcohol + CO2 + Heat. This made sense to me after my day of winemaking at Boxwood, as I recalled how warm I was climbing atop the massive open fermenting tanks.
All sparkling wines begin as some kind of base wine that undergoes a second round of fermentation. Sugar and yeast are added to the base wine, which is then sealed in a container, creating bubbles. Instructor Molly discussed how this carbonating fermentation can take place either in a big tank (the modern way) or in a bottle (the classic way). The tank process is pretty straightforward (wine + sugar + yeast are added to a big tank, which is then sealed). But the in-bottle process was a little wacky: after adding sugar and yeast to thousands of individual bottles of wine, the winemaker seals them, places them all in racks and repeatedly rotate each one clockwise in small increments. This rotation process is called “riddling”—making me wonder if the some lucky individuals in the world of wine have “Riddler” listed as a profession on their business cards.
For the sparkling section of the class, we tasted 6 different wines. Champagne, of course, was first. As it happens, in order to be labeled as “Champagne,” French wine laws require that a sparkling wine meet 2 criteria: 1) the wine must be produced in the Champagne region of France, and 2) the base wine (usually a Chardonnay or Pinot Noir) has to be carbonated in the bottle-fermented way, or “Method Tradicionale.” We next tasted Cremant—this is French sparkling wine, made in the traditional way (but using Chenin Blanc grapes), which is produced anywhere else besides the Champagne region. Everyone has heard of Champagne—who’s heard of “Cremant?” Life must be tough for winemakers living just outside the Champagne border. We also tried non-French sparkling wines: Cava from Spain, Prosecco from Italy, Sekt from Germany, and NV Gruet (a sparkling wine, made in the exact Champagne style that is from New Mexico!).
I learned two main lessons during this sparkling module: First, I’m more of a fan of tank-fermented rather than bottle-fermented wines. The champagne we tasted seemed like a liquid version of the smell I encounter every time I run past the Boudin Sourdough Bread factory in Fisherman’s wharf. I wanted to describe the palate as “sourdoughy, with notes of marmalade and dungenous crab.” The second thing I learned was that wine industry insiders pull out all the stops when it comes to bubbles. Looking around the room, I noticed that my classmates, for once, were NOT spitting out their sips of wine. Interesting. I got excited for how this might play out.
“Now, it’s time for the sweet wines—or actually, the SUPER sweet wines. These wines are made with extra sugar and the fermentation process is cut short to leave a good amount of sugar in the wine.” My sweet tooth was getting jittery at Instructor Molly’s words. We tasted sweet wines that were made in different ways. First, there was Muscat, which was pressed from dried grapes (e.g. raisins) and then fortified with outside alcohol. We also tasted Icewine, in which grapes had been frozen before they were crushed, so that the juice was super concentrated. Finally, we tasted Sauternes, a type of wine made with grapes that have actually been infected with Botrytis—the same allergy-inducing fungal rot that stunned my sinuses during my day of Virginia winemaking (!).
As expected, tasting these super sweet wines was my favorite part of wine class. The reason for this fact was not, however, because I love wine that pairs best with ice cream. Rather, I think my classmates were borderline tipsy from the sparkling wine module, which led to some also-sparkling commentary.
- Jules the chef, on Muscat: “It smells like mulberry jam, with notes of petrol—scratch that, I can’t smell anything!”
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Lauren, the future winery executive, on Sauternes: “Is this wine good? It tastes really…funky.”
More importantly, however, this module had a profound developmental effect on my wine skills. It finally taught me the difference between a sweet and dry wine. During my last class, I’d had such problems distinguishing levels of dryness and sweetness in wines. But now my tongue had been overloaded with residual sugar, and I could feel its sticky effects. It became obvious to me how all of the wines that I had tasted in my last class were “dry,” without a hint of sweetness.
So, friends, the real lessons here are as follows: 1) sugar can be educational (so, parents should let their kids have it at any time and make them present on what they learned), and 2) if you ever want to get a chef drunk, wine with bubbles is the best way to go.
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