Champagne from Champagne, France and sparkling wines are very similar. Of course, in France the Champagnes must be produced with grapes only from the Champagne region. Bottles of Champagne can be very expensive and not available to many people.

To the rescue are sparkling wines. In Italy there are Proseccos and in Spain there are Cavas. The similarity between sparkling wines and Champagnes may include riddling, disgorgement and more. However, there are different procedures for making sparkling wines. Some wineries use carbonation to make sparkling wines.

On a recent visit to Quebec wineries with In Vino Veritas, we visited Le Cep d’Argent where we were very fortunate to have an opportunity to visit with François Scieur, the winemaker and master of sparkling wines. At Le Cep d’Argent sparkling wines are riddled and disgorged by hand. François demonstrated disgorgement of a bottle of sparkling wine by hand. François and his brother, Jean-Paul, are from a 6^th generation winemaking family in Champagne. Today their brother continues the family’s winery in Champagne.

We were able to capture a short video of François’ demonstration of disgorgement by hand. The video is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Hs2kzhD7I.

For more information about visiting Le Cep d’Argent:
http://winetrailtraveler.com/canada/lecepdargent.php.

Enjoy!