Champagne for New Year !!!

Almost New Year Eve!!!
  

Time for Champagne !!!!

What do you now about Champagne ? 

It is a sparkling wine, YES !
BUT why doesn't it taste like any other sparkling in the world ?

To be call "Champagne" it have to me made in the french region Champagne and the wine growers have to respect a lot of things with the vine and how to mature it.

First : The Champagne region : 

Realy close to Paris
You can go to Reims easily by car or train(90 miles)
 
You can see the 5different areas where you can make Champagne :

• Montagne de Reims
• Vallée de la Marne
• Côte des Blancs
• Coteaux du Sézannais
• Les vignobles de l'Aube

Cepage or grappe variety  :

The Champagne can only make with this 3 varieties of grappe :

      Pinot Meunier 

                                     Pinot Noir

                                                       Chardonnay






Champagne are the only one who can mix red and with grappe to produce white and rosé.

Champagnisation

How the wine become sparkling ?

We will not explain all chimical detail, BUT how to create bubbles into the wine.
Here are the big differences to make Champagne :
1- Grappe Harvest or Vendange
2 - Pressing or Pressurage
3 - Settling of the juce or Debourbage
same for still wine THEN
4 - Bottling or Tirage
Add a liqueur de tirage (sugar + yeast)
5 - A alcoholic fermentation in bottle call "prise de mousse"
6 - Bottle aging
The bottle is place on a "pupitre" and riddling it often to obtain all the deposit into the bottle-neck
7 - Disgorgement or Degorgement 
Take out the deposit : freeze the part with the deposit. When you open the bottle, it get ou with the pression
8 -Dosage of liqueur
Replace the deposit by a liqueur (wine and sugar), the quantity of sugar will define if the Champagne is brut, sec, demi sec ou doux

 The different types of Champagne

But

Demi-Sec

Rosé

*Brut Nature or Extra Brut
this Champagne is made with the minimum of sugar required for the "Champagnisation".

*Blanc de Blanc
white champagne made only with white grappes (Chardonnay)

*Blanc de Noir
white Champagne made only with red grappes (Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir)

ENJOY

AND SEE YOU NEXT YEAR !!!