Perhaps you’ve noticed that sparkling wines are everywhere these days. Sipping on bubbly isn’t just for special occasions, anymore. With its alluring effervescence, pretty hues and a broad spectrum of flavors, it’s no wonder that sparkling wine is such a darling among wine drinkers.
Sparkling wine has a long, legendary history going back at least into the 16th century. French monks created and popularized sparkling wines, with Benedictine Dom Pérignon likening it to “drinking the stars” (how apt!). The Champagne style burst onto the scene in the early 19th century, setting a benchmark for wine makers the world over. Today, sparkling options abound, from elegant brut to canned bubbly rosés and the ubiquitous Prosecco. Pennsylvania produces a number of exceptional sparkling wines with a wide variety of red and white grapes just waiting for you to try.
There are a number of methods for making sparkling wine with varying degrees of cost, labor intensity and final products. The four methods listed below are the most common and, for our purposes, cover all the bases:
- Traditional Method: This is a revered, high-quality and costly approach and the method used for making Champagne. Grapes are gently pressed and then the juice undergoes the primary alcohol fermentation. This juice or wine is often combined with other lots to make a cuvée (blend). Then, the wine is bottled along with tirage (yeast and sugar), undergoing a second fermentation inside of the bottle. This process increases the alcohol and creates carbonation for small, lasting bubbles. The yeast dies, and those particles (called lees) add texture to the wine as it ages in the bottle. A Champagne wine must age for 15 months, by definition, and other wines have different requirements. After aging on the lees, the bottle is turned upside-down so that the sediment collects in its neck. Riddling is the process of turning the bottle 1/8th of a turn to compact the lees in the neck. Then, the temporary cap is removed, the lees are disgorged (removed), a bit more wine is added, and it’s corked and caged (muselet).
- Charmat aka Tank or Cuvée Close Method: Used to make Prosecco among many other popular sparklers, Charmat is cost-effective and efficient for bulk production. Wine, yeast and sugars are mixed and fermented in a pressurized steel tank. After filtering, the second fermentation takes place in a tank again instead of the bottle. The tanks trap the carbonation into the wine, which is bottled after the second fermentation is complete. Charmat wines are generally bright and fruity with large bubbles.
- Ancestral Method: This method, used for creating pét-nat, is the oldest method of sparkling wine production. The wine begins fermentation, which is paused about halfway through as the wine is filtered and chilled for several months. Later, the wine is bottled, where it completes fermentation. The bottles are riddled and disgorged, often by hand, with a bit more sediment left behind for a hazier, more “natural” end result.
- Forced Carbonation Method: This is the least expensive and simplest method of sparkling wine production. Carbon dioxide gas is forced into chilled still wine in a pressurized tank, creating carbonation. After a few weeks or months, the fizzy wine is bottled. Its bubbles are more coarse and fleeting, like in a soft drink.
To learn more about sparkling wine production, we spoke with Corey Krejcik, General Manager of Chaddsford Winery in southeastern Pennsylvania. Chaddsford Winery has evolved with the demand for sparkling wine and has produced a number of award-winning vintages in the style. Read our Q&A to learn more:
PA Eats: What are you observing about sparkling wine’s place in the market?
Corey Krejcik: I think over the past five years or so there’s been a general, overall increase in interest in that style of wine. We picked up on that relatively early on, based on customer inquiries and people asking for sparkling wines in the tasting room. That led us down a path of committing resources to making them regularly.
I think it has a lot to do with consumers’ interest in things like bubbly water, sparkly non-alcoholic beverages and sparkly cocktails over the last decade, and I think sparkling wine is an extension of all of that. It’s one segment of the wine market that hasn’t hit a decline. We have the ability to translate styles that we had previously offered into sparkling options, so we put the time and resources into seeing how we could do that.
What are the methods Chaddsford Winery uses for making sparkling wine?
The beauty of the shifting consumer demand is that it doesn’t need to be the traditional method for there to be interest. As you see the forced carbonation method or Charmat method, like with Prosecco, take over the market, we didn’t feel like we had to only focus on a traditional Champenoise method. We’ve done the traditional method about three times in our history, but it’s labor intensive, and there are potential challenges where things could go wrong, like exploding bottles in your cellar.
The most recent time we used the traditional method was in 2019, and it was a real labor of love for our team. We saw a window of time that the team had and wanted to allocate, and it was certainly a worthwhile endeavor. We borrowed disgorging equipment from a neighbor.
That wine, Sparkling Sémillon, was a beautiful single variety example. It’s bright and bone dry with palate cleansing acidity and refined bubbles. It won best sparkling through the 2022 PWA Sommelier Judgement and 2023 Best Sparkling/Gold at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, among other awards.
During that same time period, on a parallel track, we started to put effort into the tank/Charmat method because the turnaround time and the labor with reduced production were a little more palatable for us. For our first foray, we used a third party with a pressurized tank to slowly pressurize gallons of our house wines. We bottled it and sold it up very quickly, which reinforced our suspicions that this could be successful for us.
Two years later, in 2022, we bought a brand-new, 750-gallon, pressurized Charmat tank.
How has your team built knowledge around producing sparkling wines?
Our team had a desire to learn about it. They had not had a lot of exposure prior, but by observing the third party and looking at their equipment and what worked, we used that first year or two to learn what we could before our equipment was purchased. That way, when we were ready to purchase, we knew what we were looking for and our team was seasoned enough to be comfortable.
The wine is being made prior to going into the tank and we feel comfortable with the winemaking process. We knew that the only thing that changes when it goes into the tank is residual sugar. Adding a smidge of residual sugar to the finished product helps to balance it out. We learned all of this through trials. We tested a bunch of batches of our wines to hone and see where we wanted to go.
Can you tell us about the grapes you use and the sparkling wines you’ve produced?
We use Vidal blanc and Seyval blanc from farms in Erie that we’ve worked with over the last four decades. We have long standing relationships with growers and produce some beautiful white wines with their grapes. The Sémillon was from our exclusive vineyard in Chester County, 25 minutes from the winery.
With the nature of our business and our curiosity as winemakers, we’re always looking to see what’s next, and we’ve expanded our offerings.
Our most popular sparkling wine is our Sparkling White, made with our dry White Standard house wine. It’s “off dry,” with a slightly higher residual sugar to balance out acidity and carbonation.
We’ve tried a couple of Piquettes. The first was made by utilizing the spent skins and pomace from Marechal Foch. It has a deep, pinky pigmentation to it. We utilize the pressed skins and just let it do its thing in the Charmat tank, then bottle it under pressure for a really lovely, light bodied, chillable red.
We did the same thing this year with our Steuben grapes, which we use for our Sunset Blush and dry rosé, Redux. We also did a Pinkette, using the same methodology. That came out really incredible with notes of rose and watermelon, a little bit of hibiscus, and it’s really bright and light. It was a really popular wine for us during the warmer months.
Spiced Apple mulling wine is one of our biggest seasonal wines. It’s a 10.5% apple wine with nutmeg and cinnamon that you can enjoy chilled or heated up. A few years ago, we took the apple wine and put it through the Charmat tank. It tastes like the apple cider you used to drink as a kid, but sparkling. You can imagine what that’s like to have at the holiday table.
We’re always having these conversations about, ‘What else can we put in that tank? What else would be really fun to sparkle?’
How do sparkling PA wines stand out from other sparkling wines?
With the grapes, I think you’re typically looking at what will be preserved, as far as the structure and acidity, and how it’s going to translate into a sparkling wine. We have some really vibrant acidity in our white grapes and white wines. There’s a lot of opportunity to experiment with what’s grown in Pennsylvania with the traditional, Charmat and forced carbonation methods.
We’ve seen a number of our peers in Brandywine Valley try their hand at a blanc and they’re coming out with really great results. I think it’s exciting and a relatively new frontier. We can certainly grow the grapes that lend themselves to sparkling production.
What do you find sparkling wines pair best with? Any favorites?
They can be absolute rock stars with either heavier dishes or spicier dishes. The bubbles provide a way to cut through, support or enhance flavor, depending on what you’re looking for.
I like something with bubbles with Thai food or Indian foods. I think it can really enhance the experience, especially with Middle Eastern and Pan Asian spices. Or, with cheese boards, like a triple cream brie, the bubbles and the acid can really cut through and serve as a palate cleanser between bites. There’s a lot of different things you can use it for, but those jump out when I’m drinking it at home.
What do you envision for the future of sparkling wines?
Like with so many things in our industry, I see a demystification of sparkling wine happening. It used to be reserved for celebratory events, but people are realizing they can open a bottle of bubbly anytime. We love that, and our ability to convey to consumers that if you’re buying takeout Thai food, grab a bottle of sparkling to go with it. There’s no need for it to be a fancy celebration to have sparkling wine.
We’re also tying in wine based cocktail programming. We piloted a canned sangria spritzer last year. We used a third party to utilize our equipment to can it so it’s ready to drink in a single serving. That segment of the market continues to grow, so that’s the next step. Some of these concepts that translated well into a 750 ml bottle, we’re looking at how we can pack and serve in a single serve, ready-to-drink-cocktail concept.
It’s a really fun project for our team because the equipment we have affords us the ability to come up with interesting things – things you can’t achieve when offering a still wine option.
You can visit Chaddsford Winery and try its sparkling wines for yourself at 632 Baltimore Pike, Chadds Ford; (610) 388-6221.
The PA Vines & Wines series was created in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Wine Association with Round 8, Act 39 grant funding from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB).
The Pennsylvania Winery Association (PWA) is a trade association that markets and advocates for the limited licensed wineries in Pennsylvania.
