Women's Day wine

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 After three months idling in Estonia, I am back in Luxembourg and back on serious wine track. Not that I did not have any wine in Estonia...

To celebrate the Women's Day this Tuesday, I got myself a local sparkling wine from Bernard-Massard. To make it feminine, I bought a rosé on purpose.

Boyfriend sent me a beautiful plant for that occasion so as soon as I had received it, I opened the bottle.

2018 Bernard Massard, 100% Pinot Noir

Bernard-Massard is a Luxembourgish wine producer making both still and sparkling wines. Although I have a feeling that it's more known for sparklings. Maybe because every event where I have been (e.g. business events, exhibition openings) this is what is offered. In 2021, Bernard-Massard celebrated it's 100th anniversary. They came out even with special wine for that occasion that was quite nice. Me and boyfriend visited their cellar and did a wine tasting back in September. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to try everything we would have wanted so there is plenty to discover, including this rosé.

I bought this one from Auchan for a bit over 8 euros.

The colour of the wine is pale salmon.

It has medium- aromas of lime, citrus peel, fresh pear, nectarines, white peaches, strawberries, red cherries and sweet hints of vanilla and even toffee.

On the palate, the wine is dry, has high acidity, medium alcohol, medium- flavour intensity, medium body and medium- finish.

It was a perfect refreshing wine for a sunny day.

The wine is made using traditional method which is same as Champagne method but as we are not in Champagne region, we cannot call it like that. Here, the wine made like this is called Crémant (as also in many placed in France).

Traditional method means that after the base wine (dry, still wine with neutral flavours and high acidity) is ready and blended with either wines from different vineyards, grape varieties or vintages to achieve desired house-style, enhance balance or complexity, the mixture of wine, sugar, yeast, yeast nutrients and clarifying agent is added and wine is bottled and closed with a crown cap. The second fermentation that creates the bubbles, takes place in that bottle.

When the second fermentation is finished, yeast dies and forms a sediment in bottle (lees). Dead yeast cells start to break down and release a chemical compounds into the wine (yeast autolysis). Those compounds add flavours and aromas of biscuit, toast and bread to the wine. The longer the contact, the stronger the yeast character.

To remove the dead yeast, bottles are turned very slowly to vertical position (upside down), the necks of the bottles are frozen in brine, the crown caps are removed and pressure in the bottle pushes the ice plug containing dead yeast out from the bottle. The wine is then topped up with mixture of wine and sugar and closed with cork and wire cage.

Spanish Cava is made the same way. It's costly and time consuming method but it creates wonderful wines, worth of trying. Cava and Crémant are also often more affordable than Champagne. 

I like to call them regional Champagnes :) 

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