 | Andrew Pennington is the head Wine Maker at Keltoi Winery (5 miles east of MO-KAN) in Oronogo MO. Andrew has a degree in biology and an emphasis in botany. For more information please call 417-642-6190 or visit http://www.keltoivineyard.com. |
Wine & Spirits
2011-11-17 15:50:16
Sparkling wine
Q: Tell us about Sparkling wine and its association with the holidays.
A: The beginning of sparkling wine was an accidental miracle for the 15th century by Dom Pérignon, a monk and cellar master at the Benedictine abbey. This miracle occurred from live yeast cell left in the bottle allowing the wine to continue to ferment, trapping all the carbon dioxide inside the bottle. This old tradition of making sparkling wine involves months of very complex processes, which involve keeping the bottle pointed downward and turning the bottle a fourth of a rotation daily. When this is complete, one would remove the cap and re-cork the bottle. Doing such removes all the old yeast cells from the wine. In the early years of sparkling wine, production exploding bottles were common. Fortunately, this soon led to the invention of the wirer hood over the cork and thick glass bottles. The modern age of wine making has made great strides in the production of sparkling wine and eliminating the old issue of exploding bottles. Something I’ve recently been a part of producing, sparkling sweet white wine, is a hand crafted product and a reminiscence of the old world with a modern production influence. This is sure to be a popular production line, especially around the Holidays! And speaking on behalf of how we produce sparkling sweet white wine, to ensure the highest quality, only 25 bottles are produced during a single production.
