What are the methods of making sparkling wine?
The short answer
Sparkling-wine techniques include the traditional method, tank method and ancestral method. They differ in where fermentation happens and how carbon dioxide is retained. A similar stream of bubbles can conceal a rather different cellar story.
Answered by Michael Goldstein · Founder, Bella Principessa
Updated on
The full answer
Sparkling-wine techniques include the traditional method, tank method and ancestral method. They differ in where fermentation happens and how carbon dioxide is retained. A similar stream of bubbles can conceal a rather different cellar story.
The bubbles are the part everyone sees. The work that keeps them inside the wine is rather less visible.
Ask where the sparkling fermentation happens and three familiar production methods begin to make sense. The answer may be a tank, a bottle, or a first fermentation that finishes after bottling. Those details help explain why similar-looking glasses can hold quite different wines.
Bottle fermentation: Champagne and Cava
In the traditional method, a second fermentation happens in bottles. The process retains carbon dioxide, and further stages deal with the yeast sediment and prepare the finished wine.
Champagne and Cava follow their respective appellation requirements. Sharing a bottle-fermentation approach does not make them the same wine; grapes, origin and other rules remain important. For country-level comparisons, see Spanish alternatives, German Sekt, British sparkling wine and American sparkling wine.
Tank fermentation: Prosecco DOC spumante
The Martinotti or Charmat method uses sealed pressure tanks for the sparkling fermentation. Yeast produces carbon dioxide that stays in the wine under pressure, and the wine is bottled with its sparkle retained.
Our how Prosecco is made guide follows the whole sequence. The Prosecco bubbles guide focuses on the gas itself and what happens when the bottle is opened.
Ancestral method: one fermentation completed in bottle
Ancestral-method wines are bottled before their first fermentation has finished. The remaining fermentation traps carbon dioxide in the bottle. Pét-nat is a name often associated with this approach; it is not simply another name for the traditional method’s separate second fermentation.
That distinction matters when comparing labels. Bottle fermentation can describe different sequences, so ask which process the producer actually used.
Keep the method in context
Other sparkling-wine processes exist. Even within Prosecco, the DOC rules distinguish spumante, frizzante and still expressions. Do not apply one description to every sparkling wine or use a method alone to establish a designation.
Bella Principessa white Brut and rosé Brut are Prosecco DOC wines. The method explains part of that identity, while the sweetness terms explain a different part.
For a bottle-level comparison, read Prosecco and Champagne; for the wider vocabulary, use Prosecco styles.
Sources
Prosecco DOC winemaking; Comité Champagne second fermentation; D.O. Cava traditional method.
WSET: sparkling-wine production methods explains the ancestral-method distinction.
The long read, in the JournalThe Charmat method: how Prosecco gets its bubbles6 min read →
Keep this answer
Print it, save it, or send it to whoever asked.
Il Bar di StaseraSophie’s 40th
