So you want to make Champagne? The French would say that you would have difficulty unless you lived there, which I assume you don’t, so let’s just say for the moment that you’d like to know how to do the `Methode Champenoise’. These words, which appear with increasing regularity on Australian bottles of fizz, indicate that the contents got their kick using the same technique as the French use to put the gas into Gosset. The procedure as we know it today is the result of two very different French personages, a Benedictine monk called Dom Perignon and a venerable old widow, Madame Veuve Cliquot, the uncrowned Queen of Champagne, who quite separately contributed the two most important aspects of making Champagne – how to get the bubbles in there and how to get the dead yeast out. Step One is to find a still dry white wine ( preferably without wood-age ), add yeast and sugar and re-seal. If you use a cork, it’s best to tie it down or use a cage, otherwise your prize wine will bubble all over your cellar floor. Why? Because you’ve set the wine up for a second fermentation, to take place inside the bottle. This has the beneficial consequences of producing the CO2 ( the fizzy gas ) and yet more alcohol. This addition is known as the `tirage’, and the wine in which the suagr and yeast are added is called the `liqueur de tirage’. After the second fermentation the liquid will have turned quite cloudy, thanks to all the yeast cells and debris floating about. If you opened the bottle then the wine would look like an up-market version of the excellent Coopers Sparkling Ale, but that still wouldn’t make you want to buy it. Between the time of Dom Perignon’s discovery of the second fermentation and the succesful work of Madame Veuve Cliquot, all the Champagne drunk had to be stood upright for several hours and decanted slowly from the bottle to minimize the haze poured into the glass. What is not written in the history books is that this probably meant that the entire bottle had to be drunk at once. What la Grande Dame discovered, was that by grasdually twisting and turning the bottles over a period of time, so that they finished by sitting virtually upside-down in special racks or `Champagne tables’, the sediment would gather together behind the cork of the bottle. This process is called the `remuage’, and is carried out by teams of highly-skilled craftsmen known as `remeurs’, who deftly go about the business of turning and tilting Champagne bottles at amazing speed.`Remuage’ also has a colloquial meaning amongst the gentlemen of Champagne, but I am at loss to explain exactly what it is. The next step is to remove the yeast plug, in the potentially-lethal process of disgorging. Both cork ( or more commonly today, the crown-seal ) and plug are carefully (?) blasted out of the bottle, made easier these days by first snap-freezing the neck of the bottle in liquid nitrogen to make the plug more solid and less likely to break up. In modern wineries, the remuage and the disgorgement are handled mechanically. Next, the `expedition’or `dosage’. All the bottles are by now standing upright, a little low in level and exceptionally dry – after all, they have been fermented twice. This final step before the second ( and last ) corking can determine the style of the Champagne in a single step. Even the very driest of Champagnes, which are labelled `brut’ receive a shot of sugar before they are released, except for a very rare few called `natur brut’. You can make a sweeter, or `demi-sec’ style by adding more sugar in the champagne used to top-up the bottles, which is called the `liqueur d’expedition’. Or convert it to a rose by the `tache’ ( stain ) method by putting a little red wine into the liqueur to turn the product pink. The quality of Champagne is almost invariably affected by the amount of time that the wine spends inside the bottle between the second fermentation and disgorging, while in contact with the decaying yeast cells, which make a deposit inside the bottle called `lees’. The longer this period, the more yeast character in the wine, up to a point. Yeastiness is often likened to Vegemite and bready, doughy flavours, but in spite of this it is extremely pleasant and is the hallmark of great Champagne. French Vintage Champagnes spend a minimum of three years before disgorgement, the Non-Vintage Champagnes one year. Remember that this is the `Methode Champenoise’ technique I have just described, which is not to be confused with Australian terms like `Bottle Fermented’, `Naturally Fermented’ or `Naturally Sparkling’. The French method is the best ( I’d better be careful where I say that ), and these others are basically short-cuts to save on cost and inevitably reduce quality. `Bottle Fermented’ means that the second fermentation did in fact take place inside a bottle, but not the one you buy, as with `Methode Champenoise’. This `transfer’ method then involves the movement of wine from one bottle to another, probably via a tank, with loss of fizz and flavour. `Naturally femented’ is the next step down. This implies that the bubbles were actually put there by a yeast fermentation, but this didn’t happen inside a bottle at all, but inside an enormous stainless steel tank, which they put a tight lid on so the bubbles don’t escape. Remuage is obviously out of the question here – even for heavyweights like Bob MacLean – so they make do with a filter to clarify the wine. This technique is occasionally referred to as the `Charmat’ method, and it is readily forgettable and does not produce much in the way of yeast character or quality wine. The very cheapest sparkling wines – and we all know what they’re called – are little more than carbonated wines, and the end result is little better than the standard of wine used to begin with. One would hardly expect them to show much in the way of developed yeast character – if you find one that smells of Vegemite, look at what it was made from.
