Grower sparkling wine - our model
Our provincial liquor store has many sparkling wine options from large companies such as from Champagne but rarely will you find a Grower Champagne – small scale producers preserving family farming traditions and growing the grapes that go into the bottle. Our grower sparkling winery in Gaspereau, Nova Scotia parallels these interesting French wines.
Large sparkling wine brands such as Veuve Clicquot, Moet and Mumm buy most of their grapes from contracted growers for large scale bottle production shipped around the world. This disconnect is the main difference with grower sparkling wines.
Terroir
You create a sense of place, or terroir, in a wine when you focus on a single vineyard. For example, grapes for our Prestige Brut Estate are always sourced from the same vineyard block with 20 cm topsoil over an ancient seabed- a unique composition of slate, schist and sandstone gravels. These wines have minerality and slight saline characters that international wine judges have identified and awarded. Grape growing is thus extremely important since grapes that we nurture are transparently showcased for judge and consumer approval.
Sustainability
We farm organically – we understand the quality stakes and we want to preserve our land for family succession. Our organic vineyard has been organic since inception 20 years ago and in 2021 we achieved another level of sustainability - certified Biocyclic Vegan, soil to glass. We grow grapes with cover crops for regenerative agriculture and living soils, plant-based teas and no animal manures, and encourage biodiversity. Organic wines express their terroir better than chemical dependent vineyards.
Recently disgorged
Disgorging is the last process of sparkling wine production to remove yeast from the bottle, add dosage (sweetened wine), insert the cork and wire cage, and get ready to release the new vintage. Bottles usually rest on cork for about a month to marry flavours with dosage before release. Large sparkling wineries distribute their bottles around the world and they sit on cork for several years developing a richer honeyed character. Smaller wineries have the ability to sell bottles direct with less time on cork. These recently disgorged bottles are sought after for their freshness.
Vintage Dated
Large sparkling wineries are well branded and marketed with elevated prices. People buy them for brand recognition. There is a consistent flavour profile by blending reserve wines that are held back from past years. These non-vintage wines differ from vintage-dated grower sparkling wines where the growing season is showcased, and celebrated. Much like how a single vineyard gives a sense of place with unique terroir, vintage dates reflect what Mother Nature offered during that growing season. Winemaking has to be in top form to harness these gifts by deciding on variables such as harvest dates, fermentation temperature, lees contact time and dosage levels added at disgorging for balance.