[Sca-cooks] champagne

[kylie walker]

mmm, champagne .... perfect topic for this time of year!

Huette wrote ...

>Actually, there is a treaty that the French made other
>European countries sign that only France can call
>their sparkling wines "champagne".  However, they
>never asked the US or the other non-European wine
>producers to sign such a treaty

Australia is party to such an agreement - we can't market our sparkers as
champagne either.

>As for "pink champagne", I have been told that it was
>in reality sparkling rose, and not made from the
>champagne grape.  There are bottlers who have labeled
>their product as "pink champagne" but are misleading
>you as to what their product really is.  If someone
>has hybridized a pink champagne grape, I have never
>heard of it.

Well, there are three grape varieties used for champagne (by which I mean
French champagne) You can theoretically make a sparkling wine from any grape
variety, but champagne uses (it must, by law) a combination of chardonnay,
pinot noir and pinot meunier. Or only one or two of them - a Blanc de blanc,
for example, uses only white grapes. The pink/ rose/salmon-colored sparkling
wines get their color from the pinot noir and/or pinot meunier - the base
wine is allowed some skin contact (hmmm, actually, I have a vague feeling
I've heard about artificially colored, carbonated "sparkling wine" - but I
will admit to being a complete wine snob on that count, and not thinking of
that as even a remote cousin of champagne!) If the base wines have no skin
contact - the grapes are crushed and pressed, and only the juice fermented -
then you can get a white wine from red grapes. So a white sparkling wine can
be made from white grapes (chardonnay) or white and red grapes.

And then there are the sparkling shirazes ....  they have become very
popular here in Australia these past few years.  I'm pretty sure I've heard
of sparkling zins, too  - any Americans on the list had much to do with
them?

Obligatory historical content - contrary to popular myth, Dom Perignon very
likely didn't invent champage.

Kylie





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