# Sparkling Strawberry Chardonnay Rose?



## DeMarco Saunders (Dec 25, 2019)

Hi everyone, First post here. I'm currently attempting a champagne styled rose wine but I have 2 choices in how i want to implement this. The combination is that of a chardonnay and a strawberry wine. I can either combine before attempting to sparkle or I can use the strawberry wine as my dosage to complete the process. The strawberry wine is very sweet and the chardonnay is quite dry. What effects can these choices have on the finished sparkling wine?


----------



## Johnd (Dec 25, 2019)

What is preventing the sweet strawberry wine from fermenting right now?


----------



## DeMarco Saunders (Dec 25, 2019)

Potassium Sorbate and Metabisulfite. Its fully cleared and back sweetened with fresh strawberry juice. The chardonnay was filtered and not cleared with finings.


----------



## DeMarco Saunders (Dec 25, 2019)

The original planned recipe that i came up with was to make a sparkling chardonnay and use the strawberry wine to top up each bottle when removing the yeast so as to make a rose at the last possible second in the bottle. The problem I see that can arise is the inconsistency that can have with each bottle having a slightly different ratio of strawberry to chardonnay. On the other hand, allowing the yeast to make alcohol from the strawberry wine if its all blended before the sparkling process might raise the abv and remove the sweetness in the bottle, hence making a pretty dry rose and that's not my intention.


----------



## Johnd (Dec 26, 2019)

Your assuming in your second scenario that you’ll be able to ferment the sugar in the strawberry, which has been sorbated to prevent refermentation. That may not be the case. 

If it indeed will not ferment, perhaps your option to add the strawberry at disgorging and cork it will work. I suspect that you can do a pretty good job topping up with the strawberry to keep a uniform mixture.


----------



## DeMarco Saunders (Mar 3, 2020)

Updates... I can't seem to get the level of sparkle akin to champagne in the bottle... It's semi sparkling at best... Does the pressure come with time or did I do something wrong? The Chardonnay did not have any sorbate added to it ever and it did originally start re-fermenting in the bottle but everything seems to have stopped and the bottles are all clear with lees at the bottom. Any suggestions would be nice. Thanks


----------

