Ever wanted to know how traditional method sparkling wine is made? Wine expert and Bodega Cruzat winemaker Lorena Mulet explains the secondary fermentation in bottle and how they produce their renowned sparkling wine in Mendoza, Argentina.
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To read more about Bodega Cruzat and other wineries in Mendoza, visit our Argentina winery guide
Interview with Lorena Mulet on making traditional method sparkling wine
Lorena, we are in the heart of Cruzat, where you do all the traditional method sparkling winemaking. Can you explain to us how the traditional method works, and why these bottles are here in riddling racks?
Yes, we are at the cellar of Cruzat winery We produce all of our sparkling wine following the traditional method… How do we do this? We first make the base wine in big tanks. And then we take this base wine, made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and put it in the wine bottles. Before putting it in the bottles, we prepare a liqueur de tirage which is a solution of the base wine, sugar, a clarifying agent and yeast.
We mix everything and put it in the bottle and then we bring the bottles to the cellar, where the second fermentation takes place. The yeast will transform the sugar we added into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide is not lost because we put a crown cap, and it becomes the bubbles in the sparkling wine.
If you look at the bottle though it is cloudy with the yeast, and we need to remove the yeast before it reaches the consumer. How do we do this? We turn the bottle in order to allow the lees to remain in suspension and place it in riddling racks. They are first placed in a horizontal position and we add a mark on each bottle as a guide. And every day we rotate the bottle a quarter turn to each side. And the bottle is gradually placed upside down until the wine looks clear and the lees remain in the neck of the bottle.
Can you tell me about why there are so many bottles exploding around us?
There are bottles breaking right now because they are in the middle of the fermentation process… The second fermentation stage is quite dramatic!
And how do you remove the lees in the neck of the bottle?
The neck of the bottle is frozen and the crown cap is removed using a machine and the pressure within the bottle will help push out the frozen yeast plug.
