‘Tis the Season for Bubbly!

Hello there! Today is December 31st and I can’t help but write a post about sparkling wine. I recently tried my Muller-Thurgau Sekt, and let me tell you – it is turning out quite nice! It is still sur lie (that is – the dead yeast is still in the bottle), but in a few months I will riddle the wine, disgorge the yeast, decide on dosage, and cork it.

Dosage – the process of choosing the level of dryness (a.k.a how much residual sugar) – is something that I was lucky enough to be personally involved in last month. When you release the yeast (disgorge), a small amount of the wine is lost. This is the time when you decide how much reserve wine to add to fill the bottle back up. The additional liquid can have a high amount of sweetness, or next to nothing.

This is how you end up with a myriad of sparkling wine types to choose from in the stores:

Doux (sweet: 50+ g/l residual sugar)

Demi-sec (half-dry: 32-50 g/l residual sugar)

Sec (dry: 17-32 g/l residual sugar)

Extra sec (extra dry: 12-17 g/l residual sugar)

Brut (very dry-dry: 0-12 g/l residual sugar)

Extra brut (very dry: 0-6 g/l residual sugar)

Brut nature (bone dry: 0-3 g/l residual sugar)

doux - demi-sec - sec - extra-sec - brut - extra brut - brut nature

The Sekt I was helping to choose the dosage for is a delicious, full bodied, unusual, exciting Pinot mix. That is to say it combines Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, and Pinot Auxerrois. Super tasty! The options we tasted had a residual sugar level of 3, 4, 5, and 7g/l, respectively.

Two of the Dosage Options Tasted

In the end we decided on the lowest residual sugar level tasted – 3g/l. There was a short discussion over the public’s preference for a little sweeter sparkling wine, but in the end, our taste buds won-out and the driest dosage was chosen. The wine maker’s choice!

Now tonight I am sipping on this perfectly lovely STILL UNLABELLED (how fancy!) Sekt that I had a hand in making. I think this bubbly will pair very nicely with friends, family, and fireworks tonight.

Happy New Year!