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Sparkling wines and champagne are one of the most exciting forms of alcohol. Many happy and celebratory occasions are celebrated by opening a bottle of sparkling wine.

Exciting occasions, like weddings, will have sparkling wine present. This makes sparkling wine the beverage of choice for parties. Sparkling wine has a very fascinating history and how it is made is also quite interesting.

Award winning wines

It is a common wine legend that sparkling wines were created by accident. Supposedly, some monks from Champagne, France discovered the method because they incorrectly fermented some wine. When they uncorked it, the wine had that bubbly appearance and they thought it was spoiled.

It actually took years for champagne making to be recognized as a intentional process, rather than a mistake. The old way of making sparkling wine was through temperature changes. The wine was cooled below fermenting temperature before all the sugar turned into alcohol.

The wine was then reheated later on to the fermenting temperature, which created the carbon dioxide reaction that forms the sparkling bubbles. Real champagne wine only comes from Champagne, France and a group of localized wineries there. Any other winery that claims to make champagne is faulty unless they actually use grapes that are specifically from Champagne.

Food and wine

The process of making sparkling wine has stayed pretty much the same throughout the years. The process has become modernized, but for the most part retains the spirit of the old ways. The first step in making champagne and sparkling wines is to pick the grapes over a period of time so that every grape is at its ripest.

Sometimes, different grapes from different vineyards are used to retain the best qualities of each variety. The grapes are then pressed and stored, usually in stainless steel barrels to ferment. This is done over a period of at least three weeks, until all the sugar is turned into alcohol.

The wine is then separated from the bits that sunk to the bottom of the barrels and is transferred to other barrels, sometimes wood, to ferment longer or is mixed in with older wines to retain a particular flavor.

Wine tasting

For the second fermentation, extra sugar and yeast is put in with the wine to make the bubbly texture. That is how sparkling wine is made! There are many different kinds of sparking wines and they are all made a little differently, but the basic process is the same.

The process of the creation of sparkling wines began long ago. Since then there have been so many different kinds created that it is impossible to mention them all. A wine club or a resourceful website can help you to discover more information about wines. Of course, the most important fact to remember is that Champagne, France is the only true origin of champagne.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 3:48 am and is filed under Food and Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.