By Jessica Thomas, General Manager

In my early career in the wine industry, I was lucky enough to find myself on vacation near Napa Valley. One of the wineries we visited specialized in sparkling wine – and I was genuinely captivated. How do you make sparkling wine? Luckily, this winery has a visual tour (added bonus of tastings along the route) that follows the start-to-finish process of crafting sparkling wine. 

There is an important component to understanding about sparkling wine. The term “Champagne” is protected, and can only be labeled as such if the wine is made within the Champagne region of France, produced using the méthode champenoise. Throughout the world, each county has their own term for this style of wine. To keep things simple, let’s just focus on the United States. If we follow the same process, we can use the term “méthode tranditionalle” to note our winemaking process and the term Sparkling Wine in lieu of Champagne.

The First Step 

Making sparkling wine starts the exact same way as still wine. The grapes are harvested, pressed, and fermented in stainless steel tanks. In the sparkling wine world – this is known as your base. Once your fermentation is complete, you have the option to blend together base wines. A perfect example is our 2019 Luminary Sparkling. This wine was 50% estate-grown Pinot Noir and 50% estate-grown Chardonnay. 

Create The Sparkle

Once you have perfected your blend, the wine will be bottled with the addition of a yeast and sugar mixture. Instead of using a cork, the bottles are topped with a cap similar to a glass soda bottle. This step is known as the tirage. The yeast and sugar will initiate a secondary fermentation process. During the secondary fermentation, carbon dioxide is released – having no escape, the carbon dioxide forms bubbles within the wine. Have you heard the term “extended tirage” or “time en tirage”? This refers to the period of time the wine was aged during this process. The longer you age the wines, the texture becomes richer with creamy, brioche flavors. 

The Finishing Touch

During this secondary fermentation, the yeast cells are still in the bottle. To clarify the wine and remove these cloudy yeast cells, you complete a process called riddling.

Historically, this was done by hand – and some wineries still implement hand riddling. Each bottle takes 4-6 weeks with an average of 25 turns per bottle when hand riddling. If you would like to speed up the process, you can use a mechanical gyropalette. The bottles will complete the riddling process in 7-10 days.

The yeast is now resting on that bottle cap, and ready to be removed. To remove the yeast, the neck of the bottle is placed in a freezing liquid that causes the yeast to form an ice block.  

The crown cap is then popped off to allow the frozen yeast to shoot out of the pressurized bottle. To ensure the sparkling is not lost within the wine, a dosage can be added quickly, followed by a cork and wired closed. A dosage is where a winemaker could add sweetness or more color to a wine. Let’s say you wanted to make a sparkling rosé wine, and you wanted a little more color – by adding a small splash of Pinot Noir, you would achieve a beautiful rosé color. 

At Sweet Cheeks Winery, we have experimented with sparkling wines over the years. Those of you from the beginning of our history may remember the Red Fizz. Our Luminary Sparkling is our most recent version of this style of wine. In the winter of 2018, we unexpectedly lost our visionary storyteller. The 2019 vintage was the first time Dan didn’t drive the first tractor-load of grapes for harvest. We wanted to name the 2019 Luminary in his honor. We will continue to make a sparkling wine that is 50% estate Chardonnay and 50% estate Pinot Noir and call it our Luminary Sparkling, but as described above – it’s a process that takes time. 

In our December 2024 release, you will be the first to have access to our newest sparkling wine. A sparkling rosé of our estate-grown grapes, named Reverie. In addition to Dan being our leader and storyteller – you would often find him driving the tractor or sitting on the winery patio, daydreaming about a new invention, adventure, or winery improvements. Reverie is a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts, a daydream. We look forward to raising a glass of our 2022 Reverie Sparkling Rosé with you this winter, cheers.