Terroir-Driven Bottles

This Holiday season that has past went well around barn 101 here at www.goldengatefields.com.

Trainer Nick Sloan and some of the owners, after seeing to the morning needs of the stable, popped a bottle. We are celebrating a good year of racing and it's Christmas morning OK. What do hard-working horse people drink on the morning of a holiday? 

Crémant — a term once used for a style — it now legally refers to all méthode Champenoise wine made outside of the Champagne appellation.

All of the wines of this style are made in steel vats and all undergo malolactic fermentation. Some bottles are riddled by hand in a deep, hand-dug chalk cellar, and the wine is disgorged without freezing. This style emphasizes fine mousse and intense aromas of lime, green apple, hay, and dried apricot. These are beautiful expressions of often intensely mineral Chardonnay, with elegance, subtlety, and gorgeous fruit that is not dressed up by overtly sweet dosages. 

None of this is in our barn.

Gas injection

Comparatively inexpensive sparkling wine is made by simple injection of CO₂ from a carbonator. This way of manufacturing is allowed but. Sparkling wines made via this method must use terms ‘aerated sparkling wine’ and ‘aerated semi-sparkling wine’ must be supplemented, where necessary, by the words ‘obtained by adding carbon dioxide’ or ‘obtained by adding carbon anhydride.