Sparkling wine and Champagne
The bubbles come from a second fermentation, fine in the bottle and exuberant in the tank. Eight catalogue drinks use the wine, and five pour it in last.
Where the bubbles come from
A sparkling wine is fermented twice. A still base wine is made first, then sugar and yeast are added and the wine ferments again in a sealed vessel, where the carbon dioxide has nowhere to escape to and dissolves into the liquid instead. The vessel sets the style. When the second fermentation happens in each individual bottle the method is called traditional — Champagne works this way, as do Spanish cava and the French crémants — and the long contact with the spent yeast gives a fine, persistent bead and a toasty, nutty depth. When it happens in a large pressurised steel tank, the Charmat or tank method, the wine is bottled young and keeps its fruit; prosecco is the familiar example, livelier and broader in its bubble. Either will mix. They do not taste alike.
Champagne is a place
Champagne is not a synonym for sparkling wine. It is a region in the north-east of France, recognised as an appellation of origin in 1936 and protected today in more than 130 countries, and wine made the same way anywhere else has to be called something else: cava, crémant, sekt, or simply sparkling wine. This matters at the bar. When a recipe says champagne, another traditional-method wine is the closest substitute, because it brings the same kind of bubble and the same yeasty weight. Prosecco will also work, but it changes the character of the drink rather than standing in for it.
The sweetness words
Sparkling wine has to declare its sugar, and the EU vocabulary for it runs backwards against intuition. Brut means under 12 grams of sugar per litre. Extra Dry means 12 to 17 — sweeter, not drier. Dry, or sec, is sweeter still at 17 to 32, and beyond brut in the other direction sit Extra Brut and Brut Nature, with almost no sugar added at all. So Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut; the terms are a nineteenth-century inheritance, not a translation error. Mixed drinks want brut almost without exception, because the recipe has already brought its own syrup, liqueur or fruit.
The ones it goes on top of
Five drinks here keep the bubbles until last. A Champagne Cocktail drops a bitters-soaked sugar cube into a flute, adds cognac and fills slowly with champagne, so the cube dissolves at the bottom and sends up a thread of bubbles. A French 75 shakes gin, lemon and syrup, strains them into a flute and tops them with chilled champagne. An Old Cuban shakes rum, lime, syrup, bitters and mint, strains it into a chilled coupe and builds the champagne in afterwards. A Russian Spring Punch strains a vodka sour over crushed ice in a tall glass and tops it with sparkling wine. A Barracuda shakes rum, Galliano, pineapple and lime, then finishes with sparkling wine in a chilled flute. One rule binds them: the bubbles never go into the shaker.
The ones it is mixed into
In three more drinks the sparkling wine is part of the recipe itself rather than a finish, and a fruity tank-method wine is the usual choice. A Bellini is white peach purée in a chilled flute with the wine poured in slowly and stirred once. A Mimosa is equal measures of sparkling wine and orange juice, wine first, juice built in after, no stirring at all. A Spritz Veneziano fills a wine glass with ice, takes sparkling wine and a bitter aperitif liqueur, a splash of soda and a slice of orange. All three carry sweetness or sharp fruit of their own, which is precisely why the wine should be dry.
How to add it
Three habits: never shaken, poured gently, and added last when it tops a drink. Sparkling wine is a built ingredient — shake it or stir it hard and you are left with a flat, sour glass. Pour it down the side, or onto the surface of what is already there, so the foam rises once instead of overflowing. Temperature does more than technique here: the wine wants to be around 6 to 10°C and the glass chilled, because the warmer the wine, the faster the gas leaves it.
After the bottle is open
With sparkling wine the clock is set by the gas, not by the wine. Even with a hinged sparkling stopper and an immediate return to the fridge, the bubbles last one to three days, after which you have a bottle of tired white. The conclusion is the same at home as behind a bar: a smaller bottle is more useful than a big one, and whatever is opened should be used the same day.
Further reading: wine, white wine, building, vermouth and aperitifs.