Champagne, Prosecco, Cava: This is how sparkling wines differ

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Sparkling wines are created if still wines are fermented again after actual fermentation. The resulting carbon dioxide cannot escape from the closed container and combines with the wine. This gives it its sparkling character. There are various methods for this secondary fermentation, which vary in effort and price, as well as in the quality of the resulting product.

Classical bottle fermentation, previously often called the champenoise method, guarantees the highest quality of the resulting product when a suitable wine is used and is legally required for the production of high-quality sparkling wines. The wine is then fermented in the bottle where it is sold. They stand with their necks bowed on what are called swinging tables. After the storage period is over, the yeast required for fermentation is accumulated by shaking the mushroom and is removed with the mushroom during draining.

Cuvée, also called shipping dosage, a mixture of sugar and aged sparkling wine compensates for the loss of fluid during decantation.

The transvasion process is a simplified bottle fermentation. Here, too, the wine ferments in bottles, but there is no time-consuming and expensive shaking and crushing process. To still remove the yeast, at the end of the fermentation period the sparkling wine is decanted into tanks, filtered and bottled again.

In the third and cheapest method, called tank fermentation (also called the Charmat process), large quantities of wine are fermented in large tanks. They are then filtered and only then bottled. This means that most of the work steps are eliminated and large production runs can be carried out with relatively little effort.

• Champagne It is the finest sparkling wine that can only come from the French wine-growing region of the same name. The wine is grown and pressed according to the strictest rules and produced exclusively through classical bottle fermentation.
• Under cremante It refers to French sparkling wines that are produced in the same way but do not come from Champagne.
• The same high demands on the fermentation process apply spanish champagneThe Spanish equivalent of French fine sparkling wine, mostly from Catalonia. In fact, Spain is the world’s second most important source of quality sparkling wine, after France. More than 200 million bottles are produced annually, the majority of which are exported.
• Quality sparkling wine or sparkling wine Refers to premium quality German sparkling wines. Minimum requirements regarding alcohol content, pressure and storage time must be met during production. Although such sparkling wines are not necessarily made using the classic bottle fermentation method, this method of production is becoming increasingly popular in terms of quality. There are also excellent sparkling wines in Switzerland. There is no fixed name and legal requirement for these; However, in keeping with Swiss quality awareness, these are usually obtained using the classic bottle fermentation process.

Under Prosecco spumante It refers to Italian sparkling wines from the region around the town of Asolo and the wine-growing regions of Valdobbiadene and Conegliano.

While the term Prosecco referred to the underlying grape variety until 2009, it is now called Glera and has been used as the Prosecco name of origin ever since.

Prosecco spumante is usually produced using tank fermentation. However, high quality sparkling wines are also produced – not to be confused with Prosecco frizzante. This means a simple sparkling wine with a significantly lower carbon dioxide content. When producing semi-sparkling wines, time-consuming secondary fermentation is often dispensed with altogether and carbon dioxide is added to still wines; the resulting product does not have a quality comparable to sparkling wines.

The situation is different with Crimean sparkling wine: it is produced exclusively using the classical method of bottle fermentation and represents high quality sparkling wine. Sparkling Crimean wine grapes were originally only allowed to come from the Crimean peninsula and hence the name conveys a definitive indication of origin, similar to champagne, but today they come from all over Ukraine.

Source : Blick