Wine lover: The season for bubbles

We’re in the holiday season, and what better time to talk about the drink of celebration: Champagne!
One of the most famous wine-making regions in France, Champagne, produces a great variety of sparklers. All Champagnes are made from pinot noir, chardonnay or the lesser-known pinot meunier, or a combination of the three.
One of the unique things about sparkling wine made in Champagne is that it is a blend of different wines and of different vintages. France’s Champagne is so far north that growers oftentimes have trouble ripening their grapes. For that reason, winemakers will hold some of their vintage back every year to blend with future vintages. This is a practice to safeguard against poor years, when they might not be able to produce any worthwhile wine at all. These Champagnes are called NV (nonvintage), though in reality they are multi-vintage. In good years, Champagne vintners do make wines from a single vintage. These wines will always have the vintage marked on the label and will be considerably more expensive.
The process the French use to make their famed sparkling wine is quite painstaking. Aside from it being a blend of grapes, vineyards and vintages, Champagne must go through the process of “riddling” to get the spent yeasts in the bottle to the cork end.
The riddling process involves turning each bottle a quarter turn every day until the bottles are upside down and the yeasts have been coaxed toward the cork. The best riddlers in France can riddle 10,000 wines in a single day. Talk about arthritis!
The spent yeasts are then disgorged by freezing the top of the bottle and uncorking it to shoot the yeasts out. Then, a second cork will be inserted, along with the liqueur tirage. All fine sparkling wines are made with the méthode Champenoise.
We also make effervescent wines here in California, most commonly from pinot noir and chardonnay. Not all of our wines are made using the Champagne method, though; some are made cheaply by injecting the bubbles, as in soda pop.
One of my favorite California sparklers is Roederer Estate. Their prices won’t break the bank, and they are well made. We also have a local sparkling wine maker called Equinox. Equinox is an excellent bubbly, yeasty white wine made by Barry Jackson,who also owns Bartolo Wines.
If you want true champagne, two of my favorite producers are Jean Vesselle and Pol Roger.
Cheers!
Austin Twohig is a certified sommelier and partner in The Santa Cruz Experience, which conducts winery tours in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Contact him at au****@th********************.com.