"MOG": Material Other than Grapes

It'll be in your cheap "champagne".

We wrapped up Wine Studies I today with an overview of the manufacturing processes used to make sparkling wines. We took our two-part final, then finished up with a celebratory tasting.

There are three methods used for making sparkling wines: "The horrible awful way, the not-so-bad way, and the right way." Horrible/awful is the "charmant bulk process," ("tanks that look like a refinery"), turning out finished bottles in about five weeks, using machine harvested grapes, and "the best you can hope for is that it won't make you gag." Think André. or Cook's.

The not-so-bad way is "the transfer process," where the wine is aged in a bottle and then filtered and re-bottled. The filtering process removes sediment and character. We don't find much of this in the US. Steve says it's a process commonly used for Prosecco.

"Methode Champenoise" is the right way, legislated in the AOC of Champagne (where the sparkling wine can only be made from chardonnay, pinot noir, and/or pinot meunier.) After primary fermentation and blending, the wine is bottled for two to four years. At the end of the aging process, the wine is riddled on an increasingly flattened rack, so that the sediment settles in the bottle's neck. Then the neck is frozen and the bottle is "disgorged," then topped off by a little bit of something (a closely guarded secret in many Champagne houses). The term "methode Champenoise" is restricted, within the European Union, to France, so you'll see "cava," "methode traditionelle," and "metodo classico" in other countries. They describe the exact same process.

Hot tip: Spanish cavas, like Codornui, Freixenet, and Segura Viudas, are best bets for inexpensive bubbles. The quality is very high and the price is reasonable.

Most champagne is produced by big companies: it's an expensive process, not usually undertaken by small wineries. Most champagne (about 85% of each house's production) is non-vintage or NV: this enables the winemaker to replicate the special blend of the brand, so that a Mumm's that you drink now will taste the same in two years, or ten. "Brut" is the typical designation, meaning that it's dry: the classic level for fine champagne.

Sometimes champagne is kept for a long time "en tirage" (or on the lees), and it might be designated as "recently disgorged" or "late disgorged." Champagne of this type has an especially yeasty flavor. Bollinger is a notable producer of RD champagne.

The first part of the final was analysis of six wine labels. ("Tell me everything you know about this wine.") Then we had to sort a list of twenty wines, as they'd appear on a wine list, into categories: i.e., California Red, White Burgundy, Alsace, Dessert Wine. The second part was short answer and multiple choice ("Which of the following are red grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, Zinfandel, Cabernet Franc?")

After the final, we were excused while our classmates finished, and several of us congregated down the hall in the library. Our next instructor, Chef Stazy (Stanislav), is a known stickler for uniform, among other things, and Andy mentioned this to Jordan, who's sporting black fingernails and orangish hair today. "Hey, he has to give us some notice!" Jordan insisted. "He can't just crack down!" Andy looked at me and rolled his eyes.

We started the tasting with Cook's (made the "horrible awful way," and "definitely containing MOG"), and moved up the quality ladder immediately to an Iron Horse "Classic Vintage Brut." Then we tried an Italian version, from Franciacorta (in the Lombardy district, near Milan), made by Bella Vista, "one of the best producers," according to Steve. Bubbles on good sparkling wine are so wonderful — sometimes they're perky, sometimes creamy, but always, "they leave your mouth so happy!"

And we ended the class with some authentic French champagne. The real deal: a Laurent-Perrier Brut that was as sophisticated as a little black dress, and then some beautiful Veuve Clicquot Brut Rosé that hung out in your mouth for such a long time, you'd want to sip it slowly, to enjoy every bit of it.

Cheers. Something tells me we'll be changing gears in a big way tomorrow.