Few wines have the legendary reputation of those that bear bubbles. From coronations to celebrations, sparkling wine is what we drink when we want to mark an occasion.
With New Year’s Eve comes the pop of thousands of corks, now joined by the twist of screw caps and the “pfiszzt” of crown seals. But sparkling wine, this ancient and formidable beverage, is having a mini-shakeup all of its own as “new” (actually, very old) forms of manufacturing are introduced.
The majority of the sparkling wine you drink will be a hyper-clean, almost factory-produced beverage, a result of filtering and fining with, in most cases, the bubbles added by force. In that, I mean the bubbles are pumped into the wine like a bottle of soda water. If we travel back a few hundred years, the bubbles arrived in the wine naturally, at first by accident, later after hundreds of exploded bottles and messy practice. To make bubbles, yeast eats the sugar from the grapes and creates alcohol, heat and CO2. If this happens inside a closed bottle, the CO2 is captured.
The main concern with this process happening in the bottle is that the sediment that is created after the little yeast beasties die stays in the bottle. The fallen yeast cells leave a small slurry which goes against sparkling wines’ beautiful crisp image. Imagine a blushing groom holding a glass of murky bubbly. I don’t think so. Most sparkling wine is disgorged, a process that removes the dead yeast and leaves the wine clear.
Enter petillant naturale (pet nat). These wines are made by beginning a fermentation and then putting the still fermenting liquid into a bottle to complete the transformation, sediment and all. This is an ancient way of making sparkling wine (it’s sometimes referred to as méthode ancestrale). Anyone who has ever had a Coopers pale ale will be familiar with its muddy visage. This is the exact same thing as pet nat, just with beer instead of wine. With this methodology of creation comes risk and, perhaps most concerning for the orthodox wine folk among us, inconsistency.
Here’s a selection of a few of my favourite sparkling wines, manufactured each way.
The new guard of sparkling wines
Express Winemakers Grizz Fizz, Western Australia
This is riesling fermented on gewürztraminer skins. It’s best not to think of this as sparkling wine, but more as beverage made from grapes. It’s savoury, bubbly and a little cider-like. It also retains those lovely musky – lollies not socks – aromas. Endlessly crunchy, interesting and attractively packaged, if not your typical bottle of bubbles. Crown seal. $19
Jauma Blewitt Springs “Prisca” pet nat chenin blanc, South Australia
Made from chenin blanc, the other great white grape for bubbly wine production, this wine is like green apples rubbed with beeswax and lanolin drenched in the juice of a chargrilled lemon. As it rolls around your mouth, there is a sweet cinnamon element – it’s saline spicy. I think I like it. Crown seal. $27
The old guard: consistent, comforting and familiar
2010 Blue Pyrenees Midnight Cuvée, Victoria
This is made in the traditional way, that is, in the style of champagne. It’s quite generous and offers fruit and classic savoury, bready, biscuity aromas. It is very good and if you’re not yet ready to walk the line of pet nat, this will do nicely. Natural cork. $35
NV Dalzotto Pucino prosecco, Victoria
This is also carbonated; made using the “charmat” method. Charmat certainly sounds nicer. It’s delicate, vinous and wonderfully fresh. It has that Italianate sleek and refined element to it but underneath, it’s very playful. Crown seal. $22
The budget favourite
NV Trevi Original, by De Bortoli
This is a special bottle because it has a screw cap. We’re ignoring the pop of the cork altogether and I’m pretty happy about it. It’s not pet nat and it’s not meant to be. You can open the carbonated sparkling wine, drink some and then pack it back into your picnic basket without needing any gadgets. In terms of what’s in the bottle, this is the antipodes to pet nat’s UK. They really could not be more opposed. It’s a little sweet, simple and a handful of strawberries would top it off nicely. It would also work well as the base spritz for a cocktail. Screw cap. $5
