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The production of sparkling wines relies on a basic principle - the prise de mousse, or “capturing the sparkle”.
Two families of methods exist, according to the type of container in which the wine is enclosed during the prise de mousse: it can be a vat which is hermetically-closed to retain the carbon dioxide, referred to as the "cuve close" method, or a robust glass bottle, in which case we refer to a bottle-fermented product.
A wide variety of regional variations of these methods exist, some of them even alternating a bottle-fermentation stage with a period in vat before transfer back to the bottle, while all the time retaining the precious carbon dioxide.
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