What Grapes Are Used in Making Sparklers?

Video Transcript

"Hi again, it's Chuck Byers for Expert Village. Again at Ocala Winery in Port Perry and what I wanted to tell you about in this segment is to discuss the many types of grapes used in making sparkling wine. You know, the French really like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier for making their champagne style wines; they make their champagnes. But you know it's not necessary because you can make great sparkling wine from almost any type of grape imaginable. As a matter of fact, as Irwin Smith said, almost any type of fruit imaginable. We've found that you can make a nice sparkling wine out of almost any fruit that will ferment. We have obviously, like other wineries, Chardonnay, Reisling, makes an excellent, gives excellent flavor in a sparkling wine, either method. But we've also found that because we have lots of orchard fruit, we can make some very tasty sparkling apple wine or apple with some raspberry in it. And this year, we had an excellent crop of Damson plums and we are considering making a sparkling plum wine. There's always a need to have something new on the shelves for the customers, especially if it's a traveling customer. [And you can control the sweet, much as you stated before with the Douce?] That's right. And with a sparkling wine, we tend to like it fairly dry. The higher acidity that tends to come along with a sparkling wine and the Carbon Dioxide gives a lot of those orchard fruits a very nice flavor as well. I realize that you are looking mostly towards grape and what we have seen is that there are every wine maker has an idea of what he likes to do. Even now, some red wines are being used for it. You don't see it too much. But I have a bottle in my cellar that's a sparkling Cabernet Sauvignon. And I don't want to open it because I don't want to waste it. I want to save it for a special occasion. And that's what sparkling wines are all about; special occasions!"