Sparkling wine is one such wine that is very difficult to make and yet easy to drink. There are six different methods used to make sparkling wine: the tank method, traditional method, ancestral method, transfer method, continuous method, and carbonation method.
However, here in this article, we will focus on the carbonation method and see how wine carbonators are used to make sparkling wine. Carbonation is gaining a lot of popularity with time because the process is much easier than fermentation. In addition, carbonators are very efficient when it comes to pushing air bubbles into the wine, and most of the time, winemakers get the perfect result from every batch.
What is Sparkling Wine?
Ancient winemakers from cold regions of the world fermented wine and witnessed some unintentional bubbles, which was then considered bad. However, with time winemakers began to leverage that technique of creating bubbles and came up with various new methods to produce sparkling wine. Thanks to the ingenuity and observation skills of those winemakers, today we have an array of sparkling wines such as cava, champagne, and even sodas. However, all of these are made using different methods.
Sparkling wine is very different from most other types of wines. Why? Because sparkling wine is carbonated during its manufacturing process. Previously this carbonating was only possible through fermentation and was not very effective. But, thanks to technological advancement, we can now use modern tools and machinery to add carbon dioxide based on the required level of carbonation. There are many variants of sparkling wine available in the market, but champagne remains one of the best-known variants of sparkling wine.
What Is The Role Of Carbonators In Adding Carbon Dioxide To Wine?
Carbonators are mostly common among winemakers who produce sparkling wines that are relatively less expensive. However, the process of carbonating sparkling wine is very interesting in its own way. Firstly, one needs to stabilize the wine, and after that is done, the wine needs to be filtered before passing it on for the bottling process. But this is where things start to get interesting. Instead of placing the wine in individual bottles, it is chilled in a tank with a temperature of zero degrees celsius underneath a layer of carbon dioxide.
The wine then has to reach the right temperature so that the carbonator can mix the chilled wine with carbon dioxide in a way that gas bubbles start forming in the wine. Finally, one can adjust the flow rate of the carbonator to control the level of fizz in the wine. However, it is worth mentioning that different types of carbonators work in different manners, so the best thing to do here is go through the user manual and acquaint oneself with the correct manner of operating the machine. Further, one must then bottle the sparkling wine using appropriate techniques and machinery to preserve the fizziness of the wine.
Conclusion
Today the process of carbonation is also called gas injection or industrial method. Different aspects of carbonation, such as efficiency and quality, have made this process a go-to choice for winemakers from all around the world. The demand for wine is not going away anytime soon as people have loved wine for centuries, and they continue to do so. Today almost anyone with the right knowledge and understanding can make their own wine without much complication.
