Chateaux Castillo

This summer we're enjoying some bubbly wine made last year with Becky Castillo of Carpe Vinum here in St Marys. The picture at right shows me  tightening up the wire hoods on the plastic champagne corks last summer. Becky and I made the wine, we added some sugar when fermentation was complete and immediately bottled and corked the bottles. One year later we have a lightly carbonated wine that's crisp and clear with a slight sediment on the bottom.

Here's the longer story on what we've done.

I've been interested in making some bubbly wine for a while. Especially after having been to the Champagne region of France and exploring the cellars there. The principle behind sparkling wines (and beers too) is pretty simple. Take fully fermented wine (or beer) that's still alive with yeast, add some sugar, cap it in a bottle and the yeast will take the sugar you've added to make carbon dioxide (that's the fermentation process) which dissolves in the wine to make the bubbles. Champagne bottles will take the pressure, the wire cages hold the corks in the bottle. If you don't use wire cages the corks will pop out. Adding too much sugar, or using bottles not designed to take the pressure, will mean you have exploding bottles! We didn't have any explode although Kate (my wife) was worried.

Becky Castillo and I make wine at her facility. I suggested we try to make some sparkling wine and had a collection of bubbly bottles (you must use proper bottles that can take the pressure -- do not try this with ordinary wine bottles). While not keen she was at least willing and interested.

While in France I learned that "Blanc de Blanc" is a style of Champagne made with Chardonnay grapes -- Becky and I often make a Chardonnay so why not try making it into a Bubbly Blanc de Blanc! You can making bubbly wine with any wine. People usually do bubbly white (Seaview Brut has been a long time favorite) or rosé wines (I'm not ashamed to say I like the light frizzante of Mateus Rose) but I've had a bubbly shiraz from Australia that was quite yummy.

Becky and I started a chardonnay kit wine and she called me at the time where she would usually stablize the wine (to stablize wine they add a chemical which essentially kills off all the yeast). That's at about the 4 week mark when making kit wines. The wine at that stage is still very cloudy (because there's still active yeast roaming about) with some sediment on the bottom of the carboy. Do not stablize the wine -- you want active yeast.

We racked the wine off the sediment into a clean carboy and mixed it with 1 cup of table sugar that I prepared the night before -- I dissolved in a 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of hot water (that's essentially a simple syrup as used for making cocktails). We capped the wine with plastic wine corks and at home I wired the corks down with my drill and an allen wrench. The wine rested in our basement for a year (I must admit I tried it after a few months when you could see that it had cleared).

The bottles were stored standing up in our basement and cleared after a few months. They have a modest sediment (the dead yeast) on the bottom but this can be a virtue -- the wine picks up a flavor from that sediment. That's what they mean by "sur lie" wines -- wines that have aged a while on the sediment (lies). I handle the bottles gently so as to not stir up the sediment, cool them in the fridge when I want to enjoy one and pour carefully. The first few glasses I pour are clear, crisp and clean. Often times the last glass is a bit cloudy but I just tell people it's a "Cloudy Bay" wine. People who have tried the wine say they like it -- I hope they're not just being kind.

My original intention was to cap the bottles with crown caps and age the wine inverted so the sediment would fall onto the cap. Then freeze the necks in an ice bath, pop off the caps to disgorge the sediment and then re-cork as above. That's what they do in Champagne and other places where they make wine by the Champagne method.

I discovered that the wine bottles I had saved wouldn't accept North American crown caps so I gave up on that idea. The method I've used produced pretty decent wine. And everyone tells me the process of disgorging the sediment is fraught with problems -- very messy. We used to make beer by a similar method, I know the sediment won't kill you.

If I were to do it again I'd add more sugar. The wine I made has a light fizz to it, more of a frissante than a fully fledged bubbly. Corks still pop but there could be more gas in the wine. I'd like a bit more fizz and will try adding another half cup of table sugar in the next batch.

The hard part, as with all home made wine, is waiting for the wine to mature. ..... I must call Becky today and get another kit started!

There's another quick clean method for making bubbly wine that I've tried with Randy Partridge of St Marys Wines -- carbon dioxide injection. I'll write about that another day.

Postscript (summer 2014). This summer I'm enjoying a sparkling rose made shortly after the posting above. For that batch I used a cup and half of sugar dissolved in a cup an half of white wine to try for more bubbles. That worked very well and there's lots of fizz -- yum!