What kind of bubblies do we get in South Africa?
We import a lot of great bubblies, including Cava from Spain, Spumante and Prosecco from Italy, and Cre´mant and Champagne from France. We also make fantastic sparkling wine and Méthode Cap Classique (MCC) right here in Mzanzi
What are the differences between them?
Well, they’re all fizzy wines; the differences amount to origin, quality, taste and production.
And how are they produced?
Broadly speaking, there are two steps: first you need to make a base wine by fermenting grapes, and then you introduce bubbles. There are several techniques for the various bubblies, but let’s keep it local and compare our sparkling wine to our MCC.
For sparkling, the most common method in South Africa is to add carbon dioxide to the base wine, under pressure, and then bottle it. For MCC, we bottle the base wine, then add sugar and yeast so it ferments a second time. Our Cap Classique method is the same as the traditional Champagne method, arguably the most sophisticated way of producing bubbly.
So is MCC the same as Champagne?
Pretty much. The only difference is that Champagne grapes must be grown in the Champagne region of France, while we use local grapes for our MCCs.
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