What is Champagne Exactly?

[ilikerolls]

1. Is Champagne merrily carbonated wine?

2. I know real champagne comes from Champagne France, so technically everything outside of that region is sparkling wine?

3. I haven't seen anything about making it on any of the homebrew stores. Can it be made by home brewers? Where would I find the process?

4. Are there any clone recipes for making the expensive commercial Champagnes out there? Or is it more than just the recipe that makes it high quality? Age? Expensive equipment required?

 

[aiptasia]

1. Is Champagne merrily carbonated wine?

It's a naturally carbonated type of wine named more of the region where it's produced than anything else. Only specific wineries in France are allowed to call their sparking wines "Champagne." Think of it like a regional trademark. Everywhere else is supposed to label their bottles "sparkling wine" if produced outside of that area of France.

2. I know real champagne comes from Champagne France, so technically everything outside of that region is sparkling wine?

Yup.

3. I haven't seen anything about making it on any of the homebrew stores. Can it be made by home brewers? Where would I find the process?

Follow the same methods for making a sparkling wine. The only difference is going to be a final degassing, followed by a back sweetening of the wine with a priming sugar of some sort. No preservatives are added to encourage the yeast to ferment and carbonate the wine. Methode Champinoise (sp?) I believe is the process of traditionally carbonating a bottle of champagne. A good champagne yeast for carbonation is Lalvin EC-1118.

4. Are there any clone recipes for making the expensive commercial Champagnes out there? Or is it more than just the recipe that makes it high quality? Age? Expensive equipment required?

Just read up on the process. There's no real recipe that you can follow as most wineries produce their champagnes with high quality chardonnay grapes as a base. The wineries tend to grow their own grapes, so the highest quality chardonnay style must is what the home wine maker would be looking for. Some do a little blending to bring about different flavor characteristics but this is kept to a minimum and more common in producing sparkling wines.

Champagne is best consumed young, under two years old. This goes for most white wines with a low sugar/alcohol concentration because they don't age well and turn into vinegar fast (sauternes being the exception). In fact, when you see expensive champagne go on sale, check the date on the bottle to avoid buying old stock that's peaked and started the slow downhill fall. I wouldn't drink any white wine or champagne older than two years old.

As far as expensive equipment is concerned, that's really relative to what you're trying to accomplish at home. You can produce a nice dry oaked champagne at home that mimics some of the best sparkling wines out there for little more than the cost of a moderate home brew setup, but if you want to produce champagne on a large scale, yes you're probably looking at a three to five million dollar investment. Land in an area good for chardonnay grapes is going to be expensive in both time and money.

 

[Kdog22]

There are also some good videos on youtube on the process of making real champagne the way they do it in France.

 

[Zinc_Saucier]

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Champagne is best consumed young, under two years old. This goes for most white wines with a low sugar/alcohol concentration because they don't age well and turn into vinegar fast (sauternes being the exception). In fact, when you see expensive champagne go on sale, check the date on the bottle to avoid buying old stock that's peaked and started the slow downhill fall. I wouldn't drink any white wine or champagne older than two years old.

I don't make wine at home, nor did I stay at a holiday inn express last night, but I have a good amount of knowledge about wine and the wine business. Champagne can age for quite some time (decades, easily). In fact vintage Champagne has to be kept in the bottle on its lees for 3 years before it can be disgorged and sold. It's only 15 months for non-vintage (blended) Champagnes. So don't be afraid to lay some bottles down to age. Some of the best Champagne I've had was 30 years old when we opened it. (Just realize that storage conditions get much more important as the time period increases)


Check out http://winevibe.com/tips-faqs/how-does-champagne-differ-from-sparkling-wines/ for some more info.

 

[Newsman]

Champagne can age for quite some time (decades, easily). In fact vintage Champagne has to be kept in the bottle on its lees for 3 years before it can be disgorged and sold. It's only 15 months for non-vintage (blended) Champagnes. So don't be afraid to lay some bottles down to age. Some of the best Champagne I've had was 30 years old when we opened it. (Just realize that storage conditions get much more important as the time period increases)
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I was gonna say, if Champagne/sparkling wine goes downhill after 2-3 years, then why are some vintages produced around the turn of the 19th century so prized?

 

[oregonbrew541]

heres the link i used to make my champagne. And yes pretty much just sparkling wine.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/MakingSparklingWine.pdf

 

[BigAndo]

If you do make it, be sure to use proper champagne type bottles. Ordinary wine bottles just can't take the pressure!


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[solbes]

There used to be champagne style juice kits on the market. When I was looking for them a couple of months ago I didn't see any.

I have a batch of Elderflower sparkling wine clearing right now in a sealed keg. It basically a Jack Keller recipe with dried elderflowers, lemons, white grape concentrate, and some sugar. Primary for 8 days, secondary for a few weeks, and now it sits in a keg clearing for 3 months.

The tricky thing is carbonating them. The traditional method, which probably produces the best sparkling wines, is pretty involved. You carbonate in the bottle, do a labor intensive tipping process (called riddling), and freeze the sediment in the neck (upside down). Then you deftly remove the frozen sediment while preserving the rest in the bottle, refill with top up wine, and cork (called disgorging).

Sounded way too hard for me, so I am going to rack out of my brite tank keg, stabilize the yeast to prevent fermentation, add sugar to sweeten, and carbonate in a 2nd keg. I will then bottle from the tap and use plastic corks/hoods for those bottles to be drank early, and cap those to be aged with modified Red Baron capper and 29 mm caps (you need the 29 mm bell housing). This may not give me the same fine carbonation bubbles, but it is going to be way easier. I hope to get 12 bottles or so out of my 3+ gallon batch.

If I ever find a good champagne grape kit, I may try the traditional carb methods. This is more of a trial run to see how it goes.

 

[Zinc_Saucier]

Then you deftly remove the frozen sediment while preserving the rest in the bottle, refill with top up wine, and cork (called disgorging)

I recently opened a bottle of sparkling wine which had (intentionally) been left un-disgorged. It was quite the experience opening it. I did it in a water bath as to not spray everywhere. I somehow managed to get all of the sediment out without losing too much wine. Not that if want to do it over an over...

 

[SPR-GRN]

I've been toying with the idea of making sparkling wine and having it on tap in my keezer... might have to give it a go once I figure out what the proper serving pressure is.

EDIT: does anyone know what the average VOL CO2 value in champagne is? sorry to threadjack, I'm just really intrigued by my own idea.

 

[Yooper]

I've been toying with the idea of making sparkling wine and having it on tap in my keezer... might have to give it a go once I figure out what the proper serving pressure is.

I don't make it often (don't really like sparkling wine or hard cider) but it tends to be more highly carbed, like soda, so I served it at something like 25 psi through 25' feet of 3/16" line at 40 degrees. People who like that said it was great. I'm not one for soda or spritzy drinks, but they liked it alot.

One way to do it cheaply would be to do a sweet wine kit in a moscato or riesling and then carb it really highly to be spritzy. That would be champagne-like.

 

[SPR-GRN]

Yooper as usual you've come to my aid, and very quickly might I add. I thank you yet again for your knowledge.

 

[ilikerolls]

Thanks for the replies. A lot of interesting information.

I think what it comes down to is how to carbonate and back sweeten? I know a lot of champagnes I have had have been sweet. I know that you can carbonate like we do with beer and use priming sugar after fermentation or you can force carbonate with a co2 tank.

From reading the posts it is my understanding it sounded like there was a way to carbonate without a co2 tank and still have a sweet champagne with this "méthode champenoise" technique.

Are there unfermentable sugars used in champagne?

Do you add new yeast with low apparent attenuation?

 

[Twerp129]

Shouldn't be use of unfermentable sugars.

Shouldn't need to add new yeast.

And it should also be noted champagnes are picked at low sugars to retain a higher acidity to integrate better with the additional sugar added. Usually somewhere around 19 Brix.