The recently aired What’s in Your Wine as part of Channel 4’s Dispatches series was one of the most frustrating pieces of television I have watched for some time. The central theme was that a list of ingredients should appear on every wine bottle and I can’t disagree with the benefits for many consumers in doing so.
My irritation came from the lack of explanation about why it is that certain ingredients are used and what they bring to the final product. Ingredients such as sugar, acid, gelatine and clay were spoken in a tone that suggested their presence in the winery could only be sinister.
A considerable segment of the programme was given over to the apparently shocking discovery by someone in a white coat that they had found sugar in Champagne.
Sugar is an essential and extremely important part in making sparkling wine. It’s first used, along with a small amount of yeast, to bring about the second fermentation that turns the base still wine into a sparkling drink. It’s what the French call tirage and without it there would be no fizz. Does 24g per litre of sugar sound like a lot? Well, it’s just about right to generate pressure of around five atmospheres, which, in layman’s terms, gives the bubbliness that you would expect from a quality sparkling wines.
The next important role that sugar plays comes after the fiddly stage known as disgorgement. Because the second fermentation takes place in the bottle, a collection of deposits — tartrates and the like — have to be removed from the bottle. Producers do this by gathering them in the bottle neck and dipping it into a freezing solution. The top is then removed and an ice cube of unwanted elements pops out.
This leaves the bottle needing topped-up which they do with a solution of wine and sugar syrup known as dosage. The wine is typically so incredible dry that a modest level of residual sugar is desirable to make the Champagne the drink so many of us love.
Dosage is an essential element in determining the house style. For Champagne to be declared brut, the producer is legally permitted to add anywhere between 6g and 15g per litre. Sugar isn’t a bad ingredient, it’s an essential one.
The programme also made much of the use of ingredients such as clay, eggs and gelatine in winemaking. It was made clear that these are used to remove deposits and remove any cloudiness in the wine.
Where it fell short was in making it understood that once these agents have attached themselves to the unwanted deposits they are removed from the wine. In a final analysis, their presence in the wine is imperceptible.
Lastly, I can understand that the addition of ascorbic acid might sound scary but this acid is better known to you and me as vitamin C and it plays an important role in preventing wines from oxidising and permitted levels are closely monitored.
I agree that adopting a more open approach to declaring what has been used would be a positive step but if we are to encourage wine producers to look seriously at this idea then we are much more likely to succeed if they can be reassured that they will not be unfairly judged for using ingredients that are perfectly safe and valid in the making of quality wine.
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