Holiday Bubbly

Filed in archive Sparkling Wine on December 4, 2006

Have you begun to consider what is on your wine list this holiday season? Nope. I haven't either. Heck, I am still trying to get my dang Christmas cards together and out to the mail box.

However, I know sooner or later I'm going to have to think about what I'll be drinking and eating in a few weeks.

As I looked around on line, I did find a few suggestions. This one is from Matt Kramer at Oregon Live.com:

Ecosse Brut nonvintage "Willamette Valley": In all the hoopla about Oregon as a great pinot noir state (which it is), something has been almost forgotten: Oregon may be an even better place to create great sparkling wine. "Almost" is the qualifier, if only because of the shining presence of argyle winery in Dundee, which consistently makes some of America's best bubbly and is, hands down, the best sparkling wine producer in Oregon.

Episodically, we do see other Oregon-grown sparkling wines. Erath Vineyards made some years ago that was pretty good. And you can find bubblies of varying quality from Domaine Meriwether, Soter Vineyards and Viento, among others.

Quality varies because sparkling wines take a certain knack. Unlike, say, a straightforward pinot noir, sparkling wines are often blends of two or three grape varieties, creating their own complications right there. And the decision about picking times for the grapes differs from choices made for a regular still wine. (You want higher acidity for sparkling wine yet with mature fruit flavors.)

Not least is the business of getting bubbles into the bottle. This is accomplished by a secondary fermentation where a measured amount of yeasts and sugar is added to the new wine, the bottle is tightly capped and the yeasts consume the sugar, giving off carbon dioxide, which is trapped inside the sealed bottle. Then the dead yeast cells are allowed to remain in the bottle, their decomposition (called autolysis) adding considerably and attractively to the flavor of the wine.

Ecosse (French for Scotland) is the newest sparkling wine producer in Oregon. Yet its first-ever offering is strikingly fine.