Many people believe that Russian sparkling winewine of obviously low quality. Vladimir Tsapelik, President of the Independent Wine Club, decided to refute this popular opinion. On the eve of the New Year holidays, he held a master class "Russian Sparkling Wines for the New Year", at which he named the best sparkling wines of Russian wineries. Wines from the enterprises "Fanagoria", "Kuban-Vino", "Romanov" received high marks. They are created using two different methods - "champenoise" and "acratophoric". The first of them was invented and legislatively approved in Champagne. It consists in the fact that secondary fermentation - the transformation of still wine into sparkling - occurs directly in the bottles, which are regularly removed from the shelves and shaken. A simpler "acratophore" method was invented in the Soviet Union: a huge stainless steel cylinder - "acratophore" - is used for secondary fermentation of wine, and ready-made sparkling wine is poured into bottles. Accordingly, sparkling wine is produced much faster, is cheap and is available to almost everyone.
Russian champagnePresident of the IndependentWine Club noted the following wines:Charm Valley Riesling (Kuban-wine) - white young sparkling brut from Rhine Riesling grapes, prepared by the acratophoric method.Charm Valley Muscat semi-dry (Kuban-wine) from Muscat grapes, prepared by the acratophoric method.Chateau Tamagne Reserve Brut 2007 (Kuban-wine) from Chardonnay - sparkling wine created using the classic French Champenoise technology as part of the Russian-French project Chateau Tamagne.Chateau Tamagne Reserve Brut 2007 (Kuban-wine) - sparkling wine from the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Amur varieties, created using the "champanoise" method. Russian Fanagoria white brut - sparkling wine from Pinot Blanc, Aligote, Rhine Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc grapes, prepared using the acratophoric method. Cabernet sparkling semi-sweet (Fanagoria) - red sparkling wine from the Cabernet Sauvignon variety, prepared using the acratophoric method. Romanov brut 1998 from Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay varieties - sparkling wine made using the classic champagne technology. Romanov Cuvee Saint Petersburg Brut 2002 from Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay and Aligote varieties - sparkling wine made using the champagne method. Vladimir Tsapelik noted that today more and more Russian sparkling wines are made from high-quality grapes obtained on the plantations of Russian wine companies. Not only white (Aligote, Rkatsiteli, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc) are used, but also black grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Merlot. Red sparkling wines made from them (especially semi-sweet) are a rarity for world winemaking practice, but in Russia they have long been in steady demand.
