Ep. 1071 Map 36 French Sparkline Wine | Jumbo Shrimp Maps

This episode is brought to you by the Italian wine Academy, teaching WSET levels one, two, and three in English right here in verona, the home of the Italian wine podcast. Want to become part of the international wine sector? Need a worldwide recognized certification. Don't know where to start. You can easily complete our courses while you enjoy the fun and excitement of verona. Make your vacation good value for money by adding a wine certificate to your souvenirs. Visit our website at italian wine academy dot org for more information and sign up today to start your personal adventure in Global Wine Education. Welcome to jumbo shrimp wine study maps. We have specially created this free content for all our listeners who are studying for wine exams. This has been a journey of development since Stevie Kim discovered Rosie Baker's hand drawn maps on Instagram through two years of work by our in house editorial and graphics team, and now the maps are available to purchase in beta form while they undergo the final briefing and editing by our expert advisory board. It's a three layered project because we know everyone learns differently. We now offer the complete box set of thirty nine maps, this series of podcasts with the maps narrated by our crack team of wine educators. And finally, the study guide book, which will be published later this year. Our map project is in no way a substitute for the materials set out by other educational organizations, but we hope all wine students out there will find our map project a new exciting and useful tool for learning. For more information and to buy the maps, please visit our website at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. I'm Jill Gordon Smith, and this is the jumbo shrimp's guide to wine maps. Today, we're going to be looking at Champagne. So the Champagne AOC in Northern France produces the world's most famous sparkling wine, the word itself, Champagne has become synonymous with sparkling wine, but true champagne may only be produced in the small region of the same name in Northern France. Sparkling winemaking in Champagne dates back to the seventeen hundreds. The region, Champagne AOC is located along the forty eighth parallel, near the world's northerly limit for Viticulture. It's cold here. The region's cool climate promotes high acidity in grapes, which is an asset in the production of sparkling wines. The vineyards of champagne are planted on chalky soils, which means that they can retain heat, and it also provides excellent water regulation for the vine. Below the ground, a large natural cave network provides perfect storage conditions for the cellaring of wine. Champagne is divided into five main areas. There's the Montana Rantz, which is the northernmost region situated around the city of Rantz, and that's the premier region for Pinanhua, the Valley de la Maum, so the Mann Valley surrounds the Mann River and includes the town of Epane. Munier is the favored grape of this region. The coat de blanc, the best region in Champagne for chardonnay grapes, the coat to cezanne, and the orb, otherwise known as the coat de ba. In addition, wine producing villages in Champagne are classified as Grand Crew, premier crew, or Simply crew. In Burgundy, single vineyards attain the rank of premier or Grand Crew, but in Champagne, it's the entire village that achieves the status. The seventeen Grand Crew villages are held in the highest regard, and are located in the Montana de France, Valie de Laman, and Côte de Blanc. If a producer makes a wine using only Grand Crew or premier cru fruit, you may use these terms on the bottles label. Champagne gets its sparkle from a second fermentation in the bottle. A steel based wine is bottled with a small amount of liqueur de Terrage. Which is a mixture of wine, sugar, and yeast. This causes a second fermentation, and the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast that converts sugar to alcohol is trapped inside the bottle, making the sparkle. As the yeast die, they form sediment, known as leaves inside the bottle. Over time, the presence of Lee's in the wine contributes pleasant characters such as Yiesti, bake shop, croissant, aromas. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp. For fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond, meeting winemakers, eating local food, and taking in the scenery. Now, back to the show. Producers will age their better champagne bottlings on the lees for a period of years. Part of Champagne's appeal is visual, so producers discourage the wines prior to selling them. So in this process, the lees, which would create cloudiness in the final wine, are removed from the bottle, small amount of dosage, which is a liquid mixture of sugar and wine, is often added for balance or for sweetness. Champagne's a really cold region. It's as far north as grapes will barely ripen, which is a key to the wine's personality. Cold regions produce a city grapes with low potential alcohol. The acid has a preserving effect and that protects against oxidation and allows the wine to age. Jewel climate strong continental and atlantic influences brings cold and threat of frost. Champagne by law must undergo at least fifteen months of maturation in the bottle prior to sale and thirty six months for a vintage dated wine, but the wine often ages much longer. The secondary fermentation increases the alcohol from ten point five to twelve to thirteen percent, which is the legal maximum. And only a cold climate would produce grapes that have sufficient flavor at such moderate alcohol levels. The hills also provide protection from the cold Atlantic winds that sweep across Northern France. There's quite a lot of rain in the region, so mildew is an occasional problem, late summer and autumns are dry. The soils drain, but they don't dry out. The chalk soil is powdery and loose and allows the roots to grow deep, even in drought. The limestone supplies water, but the soils are low in fertility. The most widely planted grape, is pinot noir, which gives Cherry strawberry, power, and richness, low to medium tannins, and really good acidity. Moonne adds earthy fruity notes and is frost resistant. Shardon me gives the citrus, apple, lightness, and can be fat or fruity dependent on the year. Most grapes are grown on slopes, and there are specific pruning techniques are used in the region. Most of these pruning techniques will leave large amounts of permanent wood, which improves frost resistance. And makes it easier to grow a second crop in years when frost basically destroys the grapes. Montanda Rantz is a very high elevation area. It's planted to pin and wire, and the vineyards are angled directly towards the sun. And therefore, are not frost prone during cold spring cells. Pin and wire is early budding, and it wouldn't flower successfully on flatter sites. The cool air also drains off the mountains and is replaced by air sufficiently won't ripen this variety. Wines from this region tend to be the richest and fullest of champagne. There are significant plantings of chardonnay and pinot meunier in the region as well. Pre sparkling era, pinot wines were really popular here. The cote de Blanc is all about chardonnay. It's limestone chalk soils and ninety six percent planted to chardonnay. A hilly zone and produces racy lighter bodied wines in the Montana ants. Shardonese from here provide the backbone and aging potential for champagne blends. Most sought after and costly wines in champagne come from here. It's less prone to frost damage. And that's pretty good because chardonnay is early budding. The Valley de la marne, Monier dominates the plantings. Monier produces fruity, lively flavored, but early maturing wines. The tua is much more prone to frost and autumn humidity issues. Mernier, has a shorter growing cycle. It buds later and ripens earlier than chardonnay and pin and wire. The coat de bar has quite substantial vineyard acreage, but it's less uniform in its terra, so it's hard to generalize about the grapes growing here. It's an important source of pin and wire. And whenever there's chalk near the surface, you'll find sharpening. As far as style, non vintage is the most commercially important wine. It's based on the current vintage with reserve wines added as necessary. Stiles can be light and crisp, to rich, full bodied, and yeasty. Vintage comes from a single vintage only, and that's only made in the best years and only from the grapes that are stated as vintage. Vintage comes from a single vintage and is made only in the best years and only from grapes from the stated vintage. A maximum of eighty percent of the harvest can be used for a vintage wine. So they maintain reserve stocks, and they're blended to show the house style as well as the vintage. It's normally three years on lease. The wines come from the best parcels, and they have a more pronounced yeasty style. Some are left on leaves for much longer, for example, bollinger, r d, late, disgorged. Rosay's also made, but this is the one of the only times that you will blend a red wine with a white wine anytime up to the liqueur de Terage. Some producers make a rose based wine, but the best rose's have a delicate fruit character and the fruit fades with age, so they really benefit from extended aging. So the styles we've got are non vintage and vintage, blank to blank, which is made purely from chardonnay, blanc de noir from Pinanwara Mounier, also prestige cuvees. These are super premium wines. They're vintage or non vintage. They can be single vineyard wines, but they're usually made in tiny quantities. Brute natura, which is really dry, less than zero to three grams per liter of residual sugar, extra brute, which is considered dry, so zero to six grams per liter, brute, which is dry or off dry, zero to twelve grams per liter, extra sec, which is off dry to medium dry, twelve to twenty grams per liter, sec, which is medium dry, so seventeen to thirty two grams per liter, demi sec, which is sweet, thirty two to fifty grams per liter, and do. We're just quite luscious. And fifty grams per liter. Other French sparklings include cremonte de Jura, cremonte de bordeaux, there's actually seven French sparkling ACs. The most important would probably be cremonte de bourgogne, cremonte de limaux, and cremonte de la and they're all made in the traditional method using whole bunch pressing and limiting extraction rate to one hundred liters from a hundred and fifty kilograms. Other French sparklings include cremonte de bourgogne, cremonte de limaux, and cremonte de l'ouire. Also Cromont de Jura and Cromont de Bordeaux. And these are all made in the traditional method using whole bunch pressing and limiting extraction to one hundred liters of juice from a hundred and fifty kilograms. In Champagne, large brands known as Negoscience, purchase many of their grapes from networks of smaller growers, and many smaller estates, known as grower producers grow their own fruit, vivinification. The larger houses may enjoy more consistency from year to year, but the smaller estates may offer a more individual product. Negotiations such as Moeta Chandon or Viv Klico can be identified by locating the initials NM on a small code on the label of the bottle. Grower producers can be identified by locating the initials RM on the bottle code and are located throughout the region. Famous examples would be Wilmar, c, Pierre gimone, and Aguilarier. We'll cover the winemaking of sparkling wines in the next couple of maps. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast brought to you by Italian wine Academy, offering WSET levels one, two, and three in English. Visit our website at Italianwine Academy dot org for more information. And sign up today to start your personal adventure in global wine education right here in the heart of verona. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast and catch us on Sound Pod, Spotify, and wherever you get your pop. 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