Making sparkling Chardonnay

[Xlev]

Hi

I cant seem to find many resources on making sparkling wine.Im planning on making a sparkling wine from grapes this year, but I am considering giving a go with the Winexpert Sonoma Chardonnay kit before. I am trying to understand what should the wine parameters look like when making sparkling wine. Should ph and TA be in the same range as a typical chardonnay? Im guessing that the production of carbonic acid during carbonation woukd increase the acidity which would make the wine taste differently than if it was a still wine.I guess you can back sweeten then.

Also I like my Chardonnay buttery,but if you make it from kit you cant put it through malo.Im planning on aging sur lie,but is there anything else that can be done to make the chardonnay kit get more of that buttery taste?

I found this resource if anyone is interested on making sparkling wine https://shop.scottlab.com/content/files/Documents/Handbooks/SparklingHandbook1819.pdf

Any other resources/books anyone would mind to share?

Thanks in advance

 

[BarrelMonkey]

I am making sparkling wine this year too (The following applies to traditional/champagne method... things may be different if you're planning to do forced carbonation)

As far as base wine parameters go, the first thing is to make sure the alcohol isn't too high. You don't want to go much over 11.5% since the secondary fermentation will add ~1% or more and yeast don't like fermenting in high alcohol environments.

pH is typically lower and TA higher for sparkling base wine vs still. After primary fermentation, my pH was ~3.05 and TA ~9.15. It should taste clean but a bit too tart for you to enjoy a whole glass as is.

The art and science of sparkling is in the tirage - the yeast culture that you'll add to your (sweetened) base wine to initiate secondary fermentation. You basically want to gradually introduce wine to your yeast culture to acclimatize it to the low pH/high alcohol content.

LMK if you're planning to do traditional method (ie ferment in bottle) - I'm sure I have some useful links.

 

[Xlev]

I am making sparkling wine this year too (The following applies to traditional/champagne method... things may be different if you're planning to do forced carbonation)

As far as base wine parameters go, the first thing is to make sure the alcohol isn't too high. You don't want to go much over 11.5% since the secondary fermentation will add ~1% or more and yeast don't like fermenting in high alcohol environments.

pH is typically lower and TA higher for sparkling base wine vs still. After primary fermentation, my pH was ~3.05 and TA ~9.15. It should taste clean but a bit too tart for you to enjoy a whole glass as is.

The art and science of sparkling is in the tirage - the yeast culture that you'll add to your (sweetened) base wine to initiate secondary fermentation. You basically want to gradually introduce wine to your yeast culture to acclimatize it to the low pH/high alcohol content.

LMK if you're planning to do traditional method (ie ferment in bottle) - I'm sure I have some useful links.

Hei and thank you for your reply. Yes I definitely would like to do the traditional method.Can I ask why should the TA be higher when making sparkling wine?Do you back sweeten yours to balance the acidity in the end?

Definitely some resources would be great

 

[cmason1957]

One resource you may consider watching is a webinar from Daniel Pambianchi entitled making sparkling wine at home. It will be very in depth, Daniel is very through in his talks, there is a cost to view it, but I believe it is nominal, like $5 USD.

https://techniquesinhomewinemaking.com/webinars/

 

[Xlev]

One resource you may consider watching is a webinar from Daniel Pambianchi entitled making sparkling wine at home. It will be very in depth, Daniel is very through in his talks, there is a cost to view it, but I believe it is nominal, like $5 USD.

https://techniquesinhomewinemaking.com/webinars/

Thank you for your reply,I have watched it but he is more focused on the carbonation and not on the base wine.Doesnt talk about the right balance of the base wine

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Can I ask why should the TA be higher when making sparkling wine?

Firstly I don’t consider myself an expert: I haven’t made sparkling wine at home before (except for some elderflower fizz last year). But I do work at a winery, where I’ve helped to make sparkling wines for the past 4-5 years.

It does seem counterintuitive that sparkling wines are acidic. I guess it’s because they are typically crisp and bright in character with subtle flavors. The bubbles really bring out the aromatics. If you age your wine for any period of time on the lees (in the bottle), that will add some creaminess which can also blunt the acidity. (For this reason I would also be hesitant to pile on the buttery notes in a sparkling wine. Certainly some producers use ML as part of their cuvee, but what might be attractive in a still wine may come across as over the top and strange in sparkling)

Do you back sweeten yours to balance the acidity in the end?

You add sugar to your base wine at bottling – however, this is largely to feed the yeast in secondary fermentation. This can be up to ~25g/L, which (if fully fermented) will give a pressure in the bottle of about 6 atm – so you definitely want to use real champagne bottles with a suitable closure.

The acidity/sugar balance is adjusted at disgorgement – the ‘dosage’ . If your acidity is on the low end, you might not need to add any sugar. You may even skip the disgorging step (which by all accounts is a bit messy) – though of course your wine will then still have some yeast/cloudiness.

Definitely some resources would be great

Some introductory references to sparkling wine:

Napa wine academy
Rack and Riddle

More detailed guides that I have found helpful:

Bruce Zoecklein
Univ. of Georgia
Peter Brehm
Jack Keller

I'm not sure how the various ingredients in kits are presented, but I would be hesitant to add the standard additives (SO2, sorbate). Both of these will likely prevent your secondary fermentation from taking off. I do add SO2 to my sparkling base wine, but only to about 15-20ppm.

 

[joeswine]

Ok first keep it simple ( Chardonnay) not so much pino , or any liter wine , if you want champagne , start your kit at around 12% abv. Wait till it drops to around 1.02 % .
Prep .
Clean and ha be 5 wine bottles ready , plus corks and cages , rack off 5 bottles cork place a sugar pill in each bottle ,cork and cage and then place them in a bucket with a lid ( do not locked down the lip , place a towel over it and place it in a dark spot for 20 days , should be done , longer would be better.

 

[joeswine]

Ok first keep it simple (Chardonnay) not so much Pino, or any liter wine, if you want champagne, start your kit at around 12% abv. Wait till it drops to around 1.02 % .
Prep.
Clean and ha be 5 wine bottles ready, plus corks and cages, rack off 5 bottles of cork place a sugar pill in each bottle, cork, and cage, and then place them in a bucket with a lid (do not lock down the lip, place a towel over it and place it in a dark spot for 20 days, should be done, longer would be better.

carbonation drops. short but sweet. just be careful.

 

[Jeriatric]

Hi,
A bit late to this but would like to know how your kit turned out as a spk wine?
As a general ballpark pH is usually around 2.9 - 3.1 and TA are above >9g/L for the juice. Taking into account if you age your base wine, to use a sparkling yeast strain designed to ferment at low pH and alcohol tolerance, EC-1118 usually fits the bill here.
Generally speaking you can taste TA but not pH. High TA might have derived as a wine style and preference, once you consider the history of its development. Low TA is usually are coupled with higher alcohol (depending on region/varietal) and lose that drive/precision that great sparkling wine has. You can always try carbonating a commercial warm climate chardonnay or a mass production Prosecco that has flabby acidity.
I agree you generally don't want >11.5%, you have the additional approx. 0.8 - 1% abv (5 bars of pressure) increase from secondary depending on how many bars of pressure you are targeting. Higher abv also has an inverse relationship with CO2. So the higher the alcohol then quicker it will lose it carbonation once open.

If you are planning on bulk aging base wine before tirage then 15 - 20ppm should be plenty after primary. If kept at cool enough temperature the pH and the alcohol should be able to inhibit most types of spoilage microbes. The addition of SO2 would be mainly against oxidation but at a low pH the molecular SO2 would be high as well.

I would cold stabilise the base wine and rack it off cold. Once you referment it will throw off the equilibrium, the more potassium tartrate you remove earlier the less likely it will throw crystals afterwards. Most commercial spk add CMC or something else to inhibit tartrate formation.

Rankine; 'How to make good wine' is a good reference.
Patrick Iland books are good references and almost a copy of the lab book has been in every winery I have worked at.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Most commercial spk add CMC or something else to inhibit tartrate formation.

Do you know of any data supporting the duration of (tartrate stabilizing) action for CMC (and/or other additives like KPA)? None of the sparkling producers I work with use additives, preferring to rely on cold stab - although additives would be simpler and cheaper, I think their reluctance stems from lack of knowledge about what happens after 2-5 years in tirage.

That being said, I was able to source some KPA for my homemade sparkling wine this year so I guess I'll see how it works out. Only 2 weeks after bottling so far, so a bit early to tell...

 

[Jeriatric]

Do you know of any data supporting the duration of (tartrate stabilizing) action for CMC (and/or other additives like KPA)? None of the sparkling producers I work with use additives, preferring to rely on cold stab - although additives would be simpler and cheaper, I think their reluctance stems from lack of knowledge about what happens after 2-5 years in tirage.

That being said, I was able to source some KPA for my homemade sparkling wine this year so I guess I'll see how it works out. Only 2 weeks after bottling so far, so a bit early to tell...

Sorry, I generalised a bit too much. Not most commercial but a lot here in Australia. The bigger modern sparkling wineries here usually have an ion exchange and just correct the charge. Sorry, no data beyond a couple studies that are kind of non definitive. Maybe there are more recent studies done, might be worth while reaching out to some sales reps? Mine is anecdotal, for spk base, previous places that I have worked will still do a traditional cold stab with cream of tartar and chilling. X-flow at cold stab temperatures then mix in CMC at disgorging. It is more like insurance than anything else though depending on how quickly you want your product to be consumed.
Using CMC is a bit of pain as well, because of the link it can form with proteins and produce haze. The wines have to heat stabbed, which is just a pain in the a__. If you ever have to do it, the sodium bento works so much better.
If they are serious wines that consumers want to age and pay a premium for then it is probably worthwhile to complete a traditional cold stab but if the product is meant to be consumed in the next 3 - 5 years I would assume it should be okay.
Then there was the year it was throwing Calcium tartrates.........but that was a vineyard issue.

CMC/KPA/Mannoprotein/metatartaric
https://www.awri.com.au/industry_su...ratory_methods/chemical/cold_stab/#saturationhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22762479/

 

[Bmd2k1]

I am making sparkling wine this year too (The following applies to traditional/champagne method... things may be different if you're planning to do forced carbonation)

As far as base wine parameters go, the first thing is to make sure the alcohol isn't too high. You don't want to go much over 11.5% since the secondary fermentation will add ~1% or more and yeast don't like fermenting in high alcohol environments.

pH is typically lower and TA higher for sparkling base wine vs still. After primary fermentation, my pH was ~3.05 and TA ~9.15. It should taste clean but a bit too tart for you to enjoy a whole glass as is.

The art and science of sparkling is in the tirage - the yeast culture that you'll add to your (sweetened) base wine to initiate secondary fermentation. You basically want to gradually introduce wine to your yeast culture to acclimatize it to the low pH/high alcohol content.

LMK if you're planning to do traditional method (ie ferment in bottle) - I'm sure I have some useful links.

How'd ur sparkling go? Its on my radar for 2024....for a dry Moscato.

Cheers!

 

[BarrelMonkey]

How'd ur sparkling go? Its on my radar for 2024....for a dry Moscato.

Cheers!

Your timing is impeccable - I disgorged my second bottle today:



I am super happy with how this is tasting so far. Dry, of course; bright fruit and a surprising amount of toast since it's only been in bottle for about 6 months. It will be even better with a little dosage. I have another 4 bottles riddling in the basement in anticipation of the holiday season, but I'm trying to save most of them for at least another year.

My original thread on the making of this wine is here - I should probably update it with this picture above!

 

[Bmd2k1]

Your timing is impeccable - I disgorged my second bottle today:

View attachment 107235

Looks Awesome!

Cheers!

I am super happy with how this is tasting so far. Dry, of course; bright fruit and a surprising amount of toast since it's only been in bottle for about 6 months. It will be even better with a little dosage. I have another 4 bottles riddling in the basement in anticipation of the holiday season, but I'm trying to save most of them for at least another year.

My original thread on the making of this wine is here - I should probably update it with this picture above!

 

[Bmd2k1]

Here's some additional info on making sparkling wines that just arrived in my inbox from WineMaker Mag.

My Moscato Pet Nat project - which is currently still cold crashing - get's racked, sugar added and bottled this Friday. Fingers Crossed!

Here's more on Pet Nat from WineMakerMag

Cheers!