Blanc de blancs
Parking for Your Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Aston Martin
It was a month or two before making good on a birthday promise.
Besides, we had convivial friends who had also accumulated both a birthday and an anniversary to celebrate, but the holidays had interfered.
With a massive snowstorm in the offing but near-Mediterranean weather Friday, there was ample motivation to spend a few hours at a new installation I had passed every day since October.
The weather had been the clear, warm last gasp of January thaw before winter arrived, by the first of February each year. Between first freeze and early February, the weather was forgiving at vineyards, for pruning grape vines as April budbreak approached.
If this storm justified its promotion, we were in for it.
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Petit Domaine, rising from the bones of a small prior family winery, was new to the market. Jay, a local entrepreneur bankrolling the venture following recent success at architectural rendering software, had partnered with Shai, an experienced winemaker most recently from Blue Valley Vineyards in Markham.
The focus, and gamble, was high-end champagne and haute cuisine as their niche.
Sparkling wine, a legally inoffensive synonym for “champagne” made outside the French Champagne, has not quite the cache’ of champagne. But in both, a festive occasion is implied. Champagne’s regional designation had become trademark and patent. If nbot made in Champagne, a label could not legally boast it as champagne.
To avoid legal challenge, sparkling appeared on label made in other locations.
It is rare among northern Virginia wineries to exclusively market, what I shall call champagne. The classic ingredients, pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier follow a time-honored vinification protocol for the best French champagnes.
However, there are less expensive methods, and other grapes.
Original French champagne was so popular, analogues have appeared in every other European country. In Germany, a similar beverage was marketed as Sekt, in Italy, as prosecco.
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How to make a laborious path to excellent champagne, easy?
Acidity is a notable feature of base wine, and most often chardonnay is chosen. It is among the earliest ripening grapes. Each different varietal owns its characteristic biology: thus, chardonnay is picked early and petit verdot, late with others in between.
Grape ripening is, for mnemonic purposes, a Twin Peaks Phenomenon.
Without belaboring the oenoleptic analysis of fine wine, acids (primarily tartaric and malic, among others) rise late in maturity (say, mid August) then drop.
Acid is what gives wine its refreshing, crisp nature. Too much and it seems sour; too little, flat. Acidity by physiological response is the feeling the salivary glands of the mouth, contract.
On a maturity schedule not directly linked to grape acids, is sugar. There are many types but late in maturity, the vines shuttle a majority of sugar to the fruit, the grapes themselves.
This is simultaneous, more or less, with development of color, which nature has provided to attract wildlife who eat the grapes and deposit their seeds elsewhere.
Sugar, on exposure to yeast, ferments to alcohol, a final wine component important in wine stability, balance and taste.
In most seasons, acids rise, then fall.
They are preserved by cool nights during ripening.
After acids peak, sugars rise with the unit of sugar concentration being Brix.
It is a juggling act with interference (or help) from weather.
When tasting an unknown wine, the relative contributions of sugar (or it final product, alcohol) and acid, can be a gustatory earmark for geography.
Let me explain.
The further south, the more sun. The more sun, the more alcohol (sugar), all other things being equal.
Of course, the acids in a hot climate, suffer when nights are warm or hot.
So: hot alcohol, less pucker, predicts a southern vineyard location.
Likewise, if lower alcohol, more acid, bet on a more northern origin. Northern areas are also associated with a higher level of aromatics.
We are talking about the difference between pinot gris in its Alsatian or Burgundian iteration, and pinot grigio. Same grape, different latitude, very different wine.
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But we started on champagne, and we chose chardonnay as the grape.
For sparkling wine (as opposed to still chardonnay wine without fizz), best to pick it early for the base wine. High acids, lesser sugars (alcohol).
The name?
Blanc de Blanc is white (sparkling wine) from white (grapes). The other option is Blanc de Noir (white sparkling wine from black grapes).
White only, is from chardonnay, a white grape. White wine from noir is from chardonnay (a white grape), and pinot noir (a black varietal), and pinot meunier (a red dark varietal).
Thus: Blanc de blanc and Blanc de noir.
There is more than one approach to carbonation, and other grapes that can be employed, but for the sake of brevity, these will be deferred to Part II of Blanc de blanc.