{"id":31270,"date":"2016-12-30T17:32:56","date_gmt":"2016-12-30T22:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/?p=31270"},"modified":"2016-12-30T17:35:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T22:35:41","slug":"great-bubbly-holiday-sparkling-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/great-bubbly-holiday-sparkling-wines\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Dynamite Bubblies for a Sparkling Holiday and How to Find Wonderful Wines to Celebrate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Melissa Pulvermacher<\/p>\n

‘Tis the season for family, food and sparkling wine. Every year I feature my favourite bottle of bubbly before New Year\u2019s Eve. This year, I decided to write about my top 5 picks to make sure everyone can ring in the new year with bubbles.<\/p>\n

To help you navigate the intimidating selection, all you need to know is the basics. Mostly you need to be able to navigate whether a bottle is traditional method or tank method and the level of dosage (sweetness added to the wine by concentrated grape juice).<\/p>\n

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1. Traditional Method<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the \u201ctraditional\u201d way of producing sparkling wine. The process can be complicated, but the most important part is that the wine is fermented two times with the final time occurring within a closed, single bottle.<\/p>\n

This allows the carbonation to happen naturally and the lees (dead yeasts from the fermentation) remain in the bottle as they die off.<\/p>\n

These lees are responsible for imparting specific flavour characteristics into the wine. These aromas and flavours are usually described as toast, pastry, bruised apple and spice.<\/p>\n

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2. Tank Method<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although there a few other ways of making sparkling wine (such as injecting CO2 or stopping fermentation to make a sweet wine such as Moscato d\u2019Asti), tank method is the second most important method to know.<\/p>\n

This is when the wine is fermented in a large, pressurized stainless steel tank. The winemaker may choose to allow the dead yeasts that fall to the bottom to remain in the tank for some time to impart those previously discussed flavours, but with being in such a large tank, the flavours would not be imparted quite in the same way.<\/p>\n

Most often, the lees are removed and the sparkling wine is produced extremely fresh and clean with notes of citrus, fresh apple and flower.<\/p>\n

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3. Dry or Sweet<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is extremely important as the labels can be a bit tricky. You know whether you prefer dry or sweet wines and this can make or break your experience. There are a few general labelling and style terms you can follow.<\/p>\n

Brut is referring to the level of dosage. A brut will be fairly dry, but balanced with the sugar added whereas Brut Nature, Brut Zero, Zero or Pas Dos will have no sugar added to the wine after the final fermentation. This wine will be extremely dry.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Asti, Secco, Sweet or Semi-Dry are all sweeter styles.<\/p>\n

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For wines that may not include these labels, you can assume:<\/p>\n