Would have liked to have had the description on the mousse and what to expect, and what you should see with the bubbles in the glass. Want to present this education video at a tasting, to a group interested in AWS. Thanks Aaron, everything else was great.
Honestly, much of what you hear about mousse and bubbles is bull shit and most people are better served by learning about production methods and autolysis than they are about the quality and nature of the bubbles. Bubbles can be affected by different yeasts, secondary fermentation temperatures, the glass you are using, the pressure in the bottle as well as a myriad of other things. So they are like color in wine- they can mean something but typically mean far less than people want them to.
So for a home wine maker, the only reasonable method for making bubbly without buying a lot of expensive equipment is the ancestral/natural method or forced carbonation like beer?
No, you can leave a little residual sugar in the wine and add a touch of yeast to create a sparkle. This would be a somewhat modified version of the ancestral system. I even have a few bottles of homemade sparkling cider in my cellar that were made that way by a friend. In theory, you could do this with any bottle of wine, but, in doing so, you need to be careful with proportions, the type of yeast, corks and bottles. In the old days, injuries in champagne houses from exploding bottles were fairly common. Stronger bottles, better corks and understanding the system made things safer. So, if you want to make a homemade sparkler, make sure the yeast and sugar amounts are right and don't skimp on the bottles.
I was looking to create a semi-sweet sparkling red, something like a northern Italian Lambrusco with ~7-9% abv with ~4% alcohol potential from the original fermentation left as residual sugar. Can the yeast be completely killed off with cold storage or will it only go dormant and reactivate once they are taken out of the cold?
If you want to take a deeper dive into sparkling wines, you can follow Brad Greatrix of Nyetimber on Twitter. He discusses some fascinating aspects of sparkling wine production. Here, for example, he discusses autolysis prior to riddling as well as the oxygen transfer rate under crown caps- I warned you it is a deeper dive. twitter.com/GreatrixBrad/status/1105510604297637889
Champagne wants their name used only for wines made in Champagne, so they oppose their name being used for any wine made elsewhere, even if only designating the method of production.
@@TheDanishSpaceman Sometimes you get too many numbers spinning in your head. Coke has about 32 g in a 12 ounce can, not in a liter. Some day I will figure out how to make corrections on these things
