Where do the bubbles in Champagne come from?

To understand how the bubbles in Champagne are created, we first need to understand how Champagne is made.

Let's start at the beginning. Once the grapes are picked and pressed, the juice is pumped into a tank for fermentation . Some yeast and possibly sugar are added. The yeast essentially consumes the sugars, producing carbon dioxide and alcohol, among other things.

The carbon dioxide escapes, and the alcohol becomes part of the juice. This process continues until no more sugar remains. The result of this first fermentation is a still wine, vin clair . with an alcohol percentage of approximately 10.5%.

To transform this still wine into sparkling wine, even more sugar and yeast are needed. The mixture of sugar, yeast, and a little wine at this stage is called liqueur de tirage . The liqueur de tirage is added to the Champagne bottle along with the still wine and sealed with a temporary stopper, the crown cork. This fermentation process thus takes place in the Champagne bottle .

Once again, the yeast consumes the sugars, creating carbon dioxide and alcohol. This time, however, the gas is trapped. It's trapped in the bottle and absorbed by the wine, so to speak. The result: bubbles in the wine. This second fermentation is also called the prise de mousse (bubble formation). When people talk about the méthode traditionelle , they often mean that the bubbles are created this way. Incidentally, this is the only way bubbles are allowed to be created in Champagne.

After a long period of aging in the cellars, the dead yeast cells are removed from the bottle and a dosage liqueur is added. A few months later, you can enjoy a delicious glass of sparkling Champagne with a million bubbles!