Homebrew Champagne 201

They are just different, that's all. Most prefer the taste you get when you ferment in the bottle. The longer you keep the yeast that fermented it in the bottle with the wine the more it imparts a sort of creamy taste. I have a few bottles of Seyval left from 1997 made this way and quite a few made in 1999 and 2000. All sit on the yeast for a few years. it's a style, just like beer and ale making have different styles of treating the same raw materials.

You can certainly make carbonated wine by your method but it will be very young and won't taste much like true champagne. That does not mean it will be awful either, just not the same. If you want to do this you may want to start with a fruity wine and maybe leave it a bit sweet so it masks the youth; then carbonate and drink within a few weeks or keep it very cold. You do not want the added sugar to create more pressure.

Another cheap and easy way to do this is to just add any carbonated soda to an average bottle of white wine right at the beginning of your get together. Ginger ale, Seven Up, any sweet light drink can be used to make 'coolers'.

It's actually a common technique used to cover up wine flaws; if you make something sweet enough it usually taste good. Coca Cola would not get anywhere telling you it's a flavored blend of water, sugar and phosphoric acid but that is what it is. (It's food grade phosphoric and I like Coke by the way, the level of acid in it is similar to wine levels...)

Hope that helps.

Joe