A bottle of bubbly is a universal symbol of celebration. Like its still counterpart, sparkling wine encompasses a wide range of styles, regions, production methods, and grape varieties. It also spans a staggering array of price points—you may not find vintage Champagne on a beer budget, but there are endless high-quality options to be found in French crémant, Italian metodo classicos, or a Spanish cava.
If you’re ready to expand beyond your go-to bottle of prosecco, or just want to learn more about the expansive world of sparkling wine, let this guide act as a roadmap to your next favorite pour.
What Is Sparkling Wine?
Sparkling wine is simply wine that has absorbed significant levels of carbon dioxide. However, the means by which this carbonation occurs can range in complexity.
Most sparkling wine begins with a base of still wine. During the fermentation process, yeast converts the natural sugars of the pressed grapes and its juice into ethanol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide typically escapes into the atmosphere, though in the case of ancestral method sparkling wine (usually referred to as pétillant-naturel), the wine is bottled before primary fermentation has completed, trapping the carbon dioxide and producing a lightly carbonated wine.
Other sparkling wines, like Champagne and cava, undergo a second fermentation, in which sugar and yeast are added to the base wine either in the bottle (for the traditional method) or in pressurized stainless steel tanks (for the tank, or charmat, method).
Methods of Making Sparkling Wine
Ancestral Method
For pétillant-naturel wines (also called pét-nat, a catch-all term for wine made using the ancestral method), still wines are bottled before fermentation is over, trapping carbon dioxide and producing a lightly carbonated wine. This is the simplest and oldest way of creating sparkling wine, which has led to the technique being described as the ancestral method.
Pét-nats have risen in popularity over the past decade and are produced across the globe, though certain regions of France have become particularly associated with the style’s resurgence. Loire Valley winemakers began to experiment with the ancestral technique again in the 1990s, and Montlouis-sur-Loire Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) granted legal status to its Pétillant Originel bottlings in 2007 to help differentiate them from the region’s traditional-method sparklers. Gaillac AOC and Limoux Méthode Ancestrale AOC both produce pét-nats from the mauzac grape, and the latter is created within the larger Languedoc region specifically for ancestral method sparkling wine production.
Representatives from the Syndicat des Vins AOC de Limoux also claim the region is where sparkling wine was first accidentally created in the 1500s (via the ancestral method). They say a Benedictine monk noticed bubbles had formed inside of a bottle of still wine, after fermentation had inadvertently restarted due to warm weather.
Traditional Method
Also known as méthode champenoise in France and the metodo classico in Italy, the traditional method is most popularly associated with wines produced in the Champagne region of France. However, the technique has gone global and is used in the production of wines that include Spanish cava, those of Italy’s Franciacorta and Trentodoc denominations, and South Africa’s méthode cap classique, to name a few.
In the traditional method, still wine undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle, remaining in contact with lees (deposits of dead yeast cells and other particles) to produce creamy, rounded flavors that may present as toasted or nutty. Bottles made using the traditional method will often have finer, more persistent bubbles than wines made using the tank method, and they tend to be more expensive due to the hands-on and time-consuming nature of production.
To create this secondary fermentation, the still wine is bottled with a small liquid solution of additional wine, yeast, and sugar, called the liqueur de tirage. The sealed bottle is placed on its side to age, where the liqueur de tirage induces a second fermentation, creating additional alcohol (around 1–2% of the final ABV) and carbon dioxide that becomes trapped in the wine. The bottle is gradually tipped and spun so the lees collect in the neck, then are removed in a process called disgorgement. The resulting liquid is dosed with an additional mixture of wine and sugar (the amount of sugar will depend on the sweetness of the intended expression). After it’s corked, the sparkling wine may be aged longer.
Tank Method
Also known as the charmat or martinotti method, the tank method is most commonly associated with prosecco, but it’s also used for other sparkling wines, including lambrusco. A base of still wine undergoes a secondary fermentation in a large pressurized stainless steel tank rather than in a bottle. After the second fermentation is complete, the wine is filtered to remove any sediment, then dosed with a mixture of additional wine and sugar to create the desired balance of sweetness before it’s bottled.
Because tank-method wines rely on much less contact with lees than those made using the traditional method, the resulting liquid tends to be cleaner-tasting, more youthful, and fruit-forward; the grapes’ natural aromas aren’t as impacted by the complexity and toasted/brioche notes that lees can impart. The comparatively industrialized nature of the process also means tank-method wines often cost less to produce and buy.
Asti Method
Asti is a sparkling wine made from muscat blanc à petit grain (or moscato bianco) grapes in Italy’s Piedmont region. The style boasts its own method, which differs slightly from the tank method. Although Asti is tank-fermented like prosecco, it only undergoes one fermentation. Muscat grape juice, rather than still wine, is directly transferred to a pressurized tank. Partway through fermentation, the tank is sealed to trap carbon dioxide, and fermentation is stopped early to retain some sweetness from unfermented sugars.
Forced Carbonation
Some mass-produced sparkling wines may rely on forced carbonation, in which carbon dioxide is injected into a base wine from an external source, rather than being created and trapped through natural fermentation.
