Why is Sparkling Wine harder to make?

[GratefulBear]

I saw an old post saying that good sparkling wine is more difficult to make. Why is this? I only have experience making cider but I have a lot of interest in winemaking. I've noticed that carbonation with my ciders tends to improve the flavor, bringing out the apple flavors while subduing the ester/acetone type flavors. I understand that carbonation is conventionally known to enhance flavors and raise acidity, but I've also experienced it to subdue some flavors. What's different about grapes? I realize that traditional wine grapes are high in tannins... maybe the carbonation puts the bitterness/acidity over the top? Would using a blend of wine grapes and table grapes balance out carbonation?

 

[Erik the Awful]

I think GOOD sparkling wine is hard to make. I just made my first sparking wine, and it was incredibly easy. While interesting, the flavor is not something I'll brag about. It was basically WinCo frozen white grape juice, sugar, and water. I haven't got sophisticated enough to play with acidity yet, so that's probably a cause. It's very white-grapey. If I ever try it again, I'll probably go for a rosee and play with acidity.

 

[bernardsmith]

it is not really any harder to make a sparkling wine than a wine that is still. It's just a bit harder to make that wine sediment free.
Good ingredients are always the bottom line. With the best ingredients you can find and with a recipe that you KNOW is good you make the wine. I would not make a wine that is above about 12% ABV and you let that wine ferment BRUT dry. Let it age as normal and just as you are ready to bottle you add perhaps a teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of yeast to each bottle. Even if you are not making a champagne style you nevertheless use champagne bottles and you cap them with champagne stoppers and the wire ties. I would allow the wine to sit undisturbed for a couple of months and when you open a bottle the wine will be sparkling BUT here's the kicker. That sugar as it ferments will have dropped some lees and those lees are a fault.
What you might do is "riddle" the bottles which means that you store them upside down at an angle that gets more and more closer to being perpendicular to the floor as you allow the bottles to age those two months. If every week or so you turn the bottle a quarter turn the lees will follow the increasing angle you are placing the bottles at. Now comes the tricky part. You freeze the top in ice and salt (so that the temperature is below freezing) and you VERY carefully open the bottle away from yourself. The pressure inside should force the plug of sediment outside and you VERY quickly reseal the bottle and top it up (if you use a syringe and the cap is replaced with a cork you can top the bottle through the cork. And this is why it is harder to make a clean, sediment free sparkling wine than a wine that is still.

 

[passedpawn]

Sparking wine is easy in my experience. Getting it into a bottle without losing all the carbonation, now there's the rub. After filtering and carb, I just leave it in the keg now.

 

[bernardsmith]

Sparking wine is easy in my experience. Getting it into a bottle without losing all the carbonation, now there's the rub. After filtering and carb, I just leave it in the keg now.

Not sure why bottling is so hard. I simply add the sugar and a small amount of yeast to each bottle. What I don't do is assume that just because the gravity is till dropping that I will have a sparkling wine if I bottle straightaway.

 

[GratefulBear]

Thanks, everybody. I was under the impression the issues were flavor-related but it sounds like it has more to do with the process of carbonating in bottle (and reducing sediment). Seems like force carbonation is the way to go. Ferment in your vessel of choice and then pressurize for a few weeks in a pressure vessel. Cool to learn about the traditional methods, though. Thanks guys

 

[bernardsmith]

I would also suggest that "flavor-related" issues are something to think about. Not that when you carbonate a wine (make it sparkling) that in and of itself damages the flavor but a) you don't necessarily want a red wine to be sparkling (and so all the flavors that we associate with red wines) and you don't necessarily want a high ABV wine to be sparkling. Think about what grape wines are traditionally sparkling and what grape wines are traditionally still. In my opinion (and this is simply my opinion) you would want to approach country wines and meads in a very similar manner.

 

[passedpawn]

Not sure why bottling is so hard. I simply add the sugar and a small amount of yeast to each bottle. What I don't do is assume that just because the gravity is till dropping that I will have a sparkling wine if I bottle straightaway.

Bottling is a lot harder if you sterile filter your wine and don't want any yeast in there. Maybe next time I'll try that "methode champenoise". Or I'll get a proper bottler (Williams Warn has a sweet one, but it's $$$).

https://www.morebeer.com/products/w...9t0ezCuS1mLekNF-yvGMiBXidjhIUXusaAsJUEALw_wcB

 

[Ty520]

Bottling is a lot harder if you sterile filter your wine and don't want any yeast in there. Maybe next time I'll try that "methode champenoise". Or I'll get a proper bottler (Williams Warn has a sweet one, but it's $$$).

https://www.morebeer.com/products/w...9t0ezCuS1mLekNF-yvGMiBXidjhIUXusaAsJUEALw_wcB

Traditional champagne method is actually considered the hardest (and relatively dangerous) method of carbonating

 

[Groover McTuber]

I would encourage people not to overthink sparkling country wines. I made a very well regarded sparkling wild plum wine last year. About 11%. ABV using safcider. It spent about 2 months in secondary. Added an ounce and a half of corn sugar per gallon at bottling with no added yeast. Bottled into champagne bottles and used crown bottle caps. A very homebrew style of carbonation and didn't worry much about the lees. Like a homebrewer I just left them in the bottom of the bottle when I poured. I made 5 gallons and I'm saving the last bottle for this year's post-plum harvest refreshment.

 

[iceman_ii]

Thanks, everybody. I was under the impression the issues were flavor-related but it sounds like it has more to do with the process of carbonating in bottle (and reducing sediment). Seems like force carbonation is the way to go. Ferment in your vessel of choice and then pressurize for a few weeks in a pressure vessel. Cool to learn about the traditional methods, though. Thanks guys

Heres a thought, what if you invert the bottles like the Champaign method, then instead of freezing the "plug" you insert a corivin needle into the inverted bottle, only to the level of the sedement, then when you inject the argon, the sediment draws off as the bottle becomes pressurized?

Could it work?