Champagne everyone! Secrets of making homemade sparkling wines. Tips for making champagne at home How to make non-alcoholic champagne with your own hands

Of course, making champagne at home is always a risk. The wine may not carbonate, turn out cloudy, too sweet or, on the contrary, dry, bottles with a sparkling drink sometimes explode during aging, and the most annoying thing is that not only beginners, but also experienced winemakers are not immune from all this. But will such little things stop real alcohol experimenters? Of course not! After all, who doesn’t take risks... well, you get the idea.

It is clear that we will not get “champagne” in the full sense of the word at home. But it is quite possible to make sparkling wine, and it is not as difficult as it might seem. The only thing you will definitely need is a cool cellar and, of course, wine - either homemade, just finished the stage of rapid fermentation, or purchased (in this case, good wine yeast is also needed). Anyway, let's get started.

Champagne from house wine

In fact, you can make champagne from almost any type of wine. Of course, the ideal is a white made from grapes like Chardonnay. But not necessarily - excellent sparkling wine can be obtained from rose and red wines (especially those made using the “white” technology), and from berry wines - for example, gooseberry, currant, raspberry. A special topic is cider, but we have something about it.

How to make homemade champagne from homemade wine? And it couldn't be simpler! To begin with, we prepare ordinary light wine (recipes for grape, raspberry, see the rest in the corresponding section on the website). The wine should almost complete rapid fermentation - roughly speaking, it should be taken when the water seal is almost no longer gurgling, in which case we will not need anything other than a cellar to prepare sparkling wine.

1. We take the still slightly sparkling wine and pour it into bottles - always thick, champagne.
2. We seal the bottles as tightly as possible, preferably with a new steamed champagne cork with muzelle, and leave them in a cool cellar for 2-3 months. Bottles must be kept in an inclined or semi-inclined position - so that the wine is in contact with the lower surface of the cork - then it will not dry out.

To seal bottles, it is best to use new long champagne corks. If this is not possible, you can take used plugs, but in this case they will have to be sawed off from the bottom, in the thickest part - otherwise they will not fit into the neck. This, of course, is not so reliable. It is also better to use muzle ones that have not yet been used - otherwise they easily break when twisted, tested. And the most reliable way is to buy a special device for twisting the muselet, they are on sale.

1. A month before use, the bottle must be placed in a vertical position so that the sediment from the walls moves to the bottom. To speed up the process, you can shake each bottle lightly every day or lightly tap it with a rubber mallet.
2. Before use, cool to 8-15 degrees and you’re done! Pour into glasses carefully so as not to disturb the sediment.

Of course, this method has a lot of disadvantages. Firstly, the wine almost always turns out cloudy, as it simply does not have time to clarify. Secondly, due to aging on lees, it can acquire an unpleasant bitterness. Thirdly, due to insufficient aeration, the wine may turn out to be unstable, susceptible to spoilage and disease. Fourthly, it only comes out dry. And fifthly, with this method we cannot regulate the pressure inside the bottle, which is why the champagne often explodes (therefore, it is recommended to store the bottles with straw, at some distance from each other and from other wines or products).

Now on sale there are special champagne corks with a sediment trap - they are not very expensive and can be used several times. This is a good way to easily and without a headache get not only sparkling wine, but also clarified wine. Another great feature is a stopper with a barometer. It is usually placed on one or two bottles from a batch and allows you to monitor the pressure inside the vessel, which should not exceed 5-6 bar.

Making champagne from store-bought wine

This method is also not very complicated, but for it we need yeast and sugar. You need to take a light wine - no more than 9-10 degrees, naturally - of a fairly high quality, without preservatives, otherwise you will simply waste a lot of time and effort, and get a mediocre “sparkling”, not worthy even of a New Year’s corporate party at a 24-hour stall.

You can also use homemade, fully fermented wine. Only wine yeast is used - baker's yeast or alcohol yeast are not suitable for this, otherwise we will end up with carbonated mash for chacha.

• First you need to make the so-called “liqueur liqueur” from a small amount of wine, sugar and yeast. According to Champagne standards, for every 0.7 bottle of wine (completely dry!) ​​there should be 0.3 grams of yeast and 18 grams of sugar - then a normal pressure of 6 bar will be created inside the champagne. But at home, the pressure can be reduced to ensure that the bottles do not explode by reducing the sugar content to 12-15 grams. The yeast, of course, must first be fermented.
• Pour the wine into champagne bottles and add the liqueur. The drink should stand open for 1-2 days, in a dark, warm place, under gauze, so that fermentation can resume. When the yeast starts working - foam and a characteristic smell appear - we seal the bottles.
• Next, we follow the recipe outlined in the previous subsection of the article.

That's all about the simple technology for making homemade champagne. Let's complicate the task.

From the “curiosities” section. I came across this recipe for “champagne” on the Internet - you need to carefully add soda and table vinegar to a bottle of wine, cork it, shake it well and - voila! – the elite drink is ready! The author even made a video about it, yeah. It’s a pity that I don’t know any French people - I could tell you how to make sparkling wine correctly, otherwise they, poor fellows, are just fooling around with these disgorgements and remuages.

Classic technology. Remuage of champagne.

A much more complex, time-consuming method that requires increased attention, manual dexterity and daily effort over several months. However, it is this method that allows you to get champagne that is as similar as possible to French - transparent, like the stingy tear of the hero of the day and with all the required 250,000,000 bubbles formed in an open bottle within 10-20 hours.

1. We take wine that is completely clarified, dry, and has completed the stage of vigorous fermentation. Ideally, the wine should have no more than 8-9 degrees by weight and 0.6-0.7% acidity.
2. We make a batch liqueur as in the previous recipe (18-20 grams of sugar and 0.3 grams of yeast for each bottle).

Instead of a batch liqueur, you can use a primer - wort from the same batch drained in the middle of primary fermentation and stored in the refrigerator or other actively fermenting wine - 1-2 teaspoons for each bottle + sugar. But I ask you, do not rely on raisins to restart fermentation, as some advise - nothing useful will come of it.

1. Combine wine with liqueur or primer with sugar. We fill each bottle almost to the neck - so that there is no more than 2 centimeters of free space between the surface of the liquid and the cork. We seal the drink with muzzle corks and send it to the basement or cellar.
2. The bottles should remain in a lying position for several months. When the wine has completely clarified, there is no longer the slightest cloudiness in it, and a dense sediment is noticeable at the bottom - it’s time to start remuaging.
3. Ideally, remuage is carried out like this: the bottles are stuck into the sand or placed in a special rack - first at an angle of 45° with the neck down, then 30, 15° and so on until a vertical position. But you can simplify the procedure by immediately placing the champagne vertically, and then turning it sharply every day or tapping it with a rubber mallet. The procedure should be repeated until all the yeast sediment moves to the neck and the drink becomes completely transparent again.

1. The time has come to carry out the most complex and responsible procedure - champagne disgorgement. For this you will need: a large trough or basin; new champagne corks with muzzle; another liqueur called "expedition"; and, preferably, an assistant who, again, preferably, has hands that grow from where they should be.
2. First you need to make an expedition liqueur. Despite the pretentious name, it is simply sugar dissolved in warm wine, sometimes with the addition of good cognac, to strengthen the drink and stop even a hint of fermentation in it. The proportions are as follows (each bottle of champagne will contain about 50-100 ml of liquor, depending on your dexterity and speed): 50 ml of cognac, 700 grams of sugar, 500 ml of wine ( we'll get some sweet champagne); 50 ml cognac, 550 wine, 600 g sugar ( semi-sweet); or 50 cognac, 650 wine, 500 sugar (semi-dry).

Instead of liqueur for fruit sparkling wines, you can use liqueurs or weak, slightly sweetened liqueurs or liqueurs from the same fruit or berry. Then the champagne will acquire a more pronounced fruity taste.

1. Actually, champagne disgorgement. Carefully, so as not to disturb the sediment that has settled near the cork, take the bottle and carefully tilt it vertically to the floor or slightly higher. As carefully as possible, over the basin, unscrew the muzzle, slightly loosen the cork - it should fly out on its own, along with the sediment and a small amount of wine. We close the neck with our finger, place the battle vertically, quickly add expeditionary liqueur to the top and immediately seal the bottle with a new cork with muzzle.
2. After this procedure, the sparkling wine must be kept for another 3 months, at a temperature of 6-10 degrees, and only after this period can it be tasted.

That's all, in general terms - this method of making champagne at home is considered the best!

If you think that Soviet champagne has its own special charm, then you are not mistaken. In the post-Soviet space, they use a simplified technology for making champagne, in which sparkling wine is prepared in large sealed containers, and filtered and bottled in special installations under high pressure. This method is called the “Sharma Method”.

"Champagne" from leaves

Of course, this is not champagne at all, or even wine at all: the first is rather kvass, and the second is drinking mash. But the drinks turn out to be interesting, refreshing, quite light, and most importantly, they are very easy to make!

Champagne made from blackcurrant leaves

The recipe for this drink is very similar to or. We will need:

• Clean boiled water – 3 liters;
• Sugar – 200 grams;
• Lemon;
• 30-40 grams of young blackcurrant leaves;
• Yeast (preferably wine yeast) – 1 tsp.

Remove the zest from the lemon (colored only), cut out the pulp, and divide it into slices. The zest and pulp, along with sugar and leaves, are placed in water at room temperature. The jar is closed with a lid and kept in the sun for 2-3 days; the contents need to be shaken periodically. After a couple of days, we ferment the yeast in a small amount of warm water and add it to the resulting infusion. Cover the jar with a lid or gauze and leave for a couple of hours until fermentation starts. We place a water seal on the container and send it to a cool place for a week to ten days.

After this, we filter the drink using a couple of layers of gauze and put it in the refrigerator for a day to allow sediment to settle. Now the “champagne” needs to be decanted and poured into bottles or eggplants, after adding a tablespoon of sugar to each. The drink must be kept in a cold place for at least a month. That's it, you can try!

Champagne made from grape leaves

The recipe is a little more complicated than the previous one but, of course, much simpler than the first three. At the end, we will get a drink that is vaguely similar to wine, but at the same time we do not use a single bunch of grapes, but only young leaves. It is better to collect leaves that are juicy and fresh, from fruit varieties. In addition to the leaves, you only need water, sugar - 250-300 grams per liter of wort - and wine yeast. You can also use yeast feeding.

1. Wash the grape leaves (you can also take tender young shoots) and chop them coarsely with a knife. We put them in a suitable jar, fill it with sugar and pour boiling water so that the jar is filled to 2/3 of the volume.
2. Wrap the jar and let it cool to room temperature. Add pre-fermented yeast to the wort and place in a warm place to start fermentation.
3. When the process has begun, you should put a water seal on the jar. Primary fermentation lasts 7-8 days, after which you need to drain the wort, squeeze out the leaves, filter the liquid and pour it into plastic or champagne bottles to ¾ of the volume.
4. The bottles are sent to the cellar to age for three weeks to a month. When using plastic eggplants, excess carbon dioxide must be periodically released if the container becomes too inflated, otherwise it may burst under pressure.

That's all, our champagne from grape leaves is ready!

And finally, according to tradition, a quote from the greats:

“I drink champagne only for two reasons: when I’m in love and when I’m not in love” (4)

Every year, approximately 3 billion glasses of champagne are drunk around the world. The history of this drink goes back several hundred years. In 1670, the abbey's cellarer Pierre Perignon discovered a technology for blending several grape varieties at once. In addition, he figured out how to bottle such wine and seal it for storage. For a long time, sparkling wines were exclusively sweet. But the technology was imperfect - up to 40% of the bottles exploded. Today you can make champagne at home. The only thing is that you need to take into account a number of nuances so that the bottles are intact.

What are the risks?

It is important to understand that making a sparkling drink at home is fraught with a number of dangers. In the list of risks:

• Can't carbonate wine
• The color of the wine will be cloudy
• The wine comes out too sweet
• The drink comes out too dry

Moreover, not only those who first tried to make champagne themselves, but also experienced craftsmen risk encountering such problems.

How to make a drink

Experts say that there are two ways to prepare champagne at home:

• Artificial
• Natural

In the first case, they mean the technology when the drink is artificially saturated with carbon dioxide - this requires cylinders with carbon dioxide.

In the second option, young wine should ferment in bottles that are tightly sealed. After infusion, it is purified. This option is called more preferable, because the wine turns out natural.

Natural option

To prepare champagne in this way you will need:

• 0.7 liters of wine
• tablespoon sugar
• unwashed raisins – 3-4 pieces are enough

Homemade wine would be an excellent solution. Moreover, any options are suitable - grape wine, a drink made from apples, cherries, rowan berries, etc. Also, if you don’t have time, you can choose store-bought wine – here you should rely on average-cost options. It’s better not to pay attention to the cheapest ones, because... they contain a lot of preservatives, which is why it won’t turn out to be a normal drink.

The first point is bottling the wine. The best option would be to choose champagne bottles. These are especially durable and can easily withstand the pressure from a fermenting drink. But it’s better to refuse plastic options, because... alcohol and plastic react, spoiling the taste of the drink. After bottling, you need to add raisins and sugar to the wine. These are the fermentation catalysts. Bottles should be filled to the very top. Next, all that remains is to close them with lids and tie them with wire for security.

Point two is storage. It is necessary to ensure proper storage of the drink. This champagne will infuse for two to three months. At the same time, it should be kept in a horizontal position, and the temperature in the room where the bottles are located should not exceed 25 degrees. Moreover, experts say that it is necessary to maintain the same temperature constantly. This will be the key to successful fermentation and the development of the necessary wine yeasts.

Towards the end of storage - about two weeks - the bottles should be turned upside down and slowly turned over every day. This measure will allow you to move the wine yeast so that it does not collect on the walls.

Point three – removal of sediment. This procedure is called disgorgement. This stage is considered the most difficult. And here you should show special agility and dexterity. The essence of the procedure is to remove yeast and other fermentation products that have accumulated around the cork. It looks like this: the bottles are quickly opened, the sediment is also quickly drained and sealed back. To increase the success of this, it is recommended to select plugs and wire in advance.

Point four – endurance. The next thing to do is to make sure that the bottles are securely closed. After which they should be left in a cold room - the temperature here should be at 8-10 degrees. The champagne will remain here for another three months. Moreover, there is no need to rush, because... The longer the drink sits, the better quality it will be.

Manufacturing nuances

If you want to get champagne with a fruity taste, you can use various liqueurs as a base product.

It is also worth understanding that today there are special corks for champagne on sale that enhance the sediment - these can be used as many times as possible. There is also such an option as a cork with a barometer. It allows you to monitor the pressure in the bottle. The optimal parameter is considered to be 5-6 bar.

Thanks to this material, you will learn how to make champagne at home from any ready-made wine. The recipe is simple, but the preparation technology requires dexterity at the time of disgorgement (removing sediment from the bottle). That’s why I recommend making champagne together, it’s more interesting and easier.

There are two methods to prepare homemade champagne:

Artificial. The drink is saturated with carbon dioxide without fermentation (carbon dioxide cylinders are required).

Natural. Young wine ferments in tightly sealed bottles, then it is purified. This method is better, as it produces natural sparkling wine with a rich taste. It is the natural method that will be discussed further.

Ingredients:

• wine – 0.75 liters;
• sugar – 1 tablespoon;
• unwashed raisins – 3-4 pieces.

Homemade champagne recipe

1. Filling bottles with wine. You can use any homemade wine from grapes, apples, cherries, rowan berries, or other fruits, or buy the drink in a store. In the second case, I advise you to choose wines in the middle price range; the cheapest ones have a lot of preservatives, as a result of which they ferment poorly.

Pour the wine into champagne bottles in a cool room. They are strong enough to withstand gas pressure, this is an ideal option. If there are no such bottles, any other bottles will do, preferably made of dark glass. Plastic bottles are the worst option because the alcohol in the wine reacts with the plastic and ruins the taste.

Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and a few raisins. These ingredients are necessary to activate fermentation. Bottles should be filled up to the neck to make them easier to work with in the future.

Seal full bottles with reliable corks and, for greater reliability, tie them with wire, as is done in factory champagne. An alternative option is to fill the plugs with sealing wax or hot wax.

2. Storage. For 60-90 days, future homemade champagne should be stored horizontally at a temperature of 18-25°C. Try to maintain a stable temperature, this is very important for the normal development of wine yeast and fermentation.

In the last 2 weeks of storage, the bottles are placed with their necks down and slowly rotated every day. This is done so that the yeast lags behind the walls and gradually accumulates at the neck.

Sediment near the neck

3. Disgorgement (removal of sediment). The most difficult stage, which requires dexterity or the help of other people. I advise you to prepare new plugs and wire for dressing in advance. The procedure must be performed in the room where the drink was stored.

The essence of disgorgement is that we remove yeast and other fermentation products that have accumulated near the cork. To do this, you need to open the bottles, quickly drain the sediment, add a little fresh wine and cork them back.

The procedure is performed by two people in the following order: the first winemaker carefully opens the bottle without changing its original position, drains the sediment (small losses of champagne are inevitable), closes the neck with his finger, and hands the bottle to his partner. The second one grabs the neck with his finger, turns it over and opens the bottle, pours wine into it, tightly caps the cork and pulls the wire (fills it with wax or sealing wax).

Attention! Under gas pressure, a poorly closed plug can fly out.

4. Holding. Place closed bottles in a cold room (temperature 8-10°C) and keep for at least three months. The longer this period lasts, the better the champagne will be.

Apple juice champagne

P.S. The video describes a method for making champagne from black currant leaves (grape leaves will also work). Although this drink cannot be called traditional champagne, it is made easier and faster than using the technology described above.