Harvest and Primary Fermentation
Grapes used for Champagne are generally picked earlier, when sugar levels are lower and acid levels higher. Except for pink or rosé Champagnes, the juice of harvested grapes is pressed off quickly, to keep the wine white. The first fermentation begins in the same way as any wine, converting the natural sugar in the grapes into alcohol while the resultant carbon dioxide is allowed to escape. This produces the base wine. This wine is not very pleasant by itself, being too acidic. At this point the blend, known as the cuvée, is assembled, using wines from various vineyards, and, in the case of non-vintage Champagne, various years.
Read more about this topic: Sparkling Wine Production
Famous quotes containing the words harvest, primary and/or fermentation:
“You are the harvest and not the reaper
And of your domain another is the keeper.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy.”
—bell hooks (b. c. 1955)
“A tree is made to live in peace in the color of day and in friendship with the sun, the wind and the rain. Its roots plunge in the fat fermentation of the soil, sucking in its elemental humors, its fortifying juices. Trees always seem lost in a great tranquil dream. The dark rising sap makes them groan in the warm afternoons. A tree is a living being that knows the course of the clouds and presses the storms because it is full of birds’ nests.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)