Collection: Champagne & Sparkling Wines

Shop Champagne & Sparkling Wines

Sparkling wine has long been the perfect expression of celebration, luxury and ease. As taste and technology continue to evolve across the world of winemaking, so do the opportunities for sparkling wine.

Our collection of sparkling white wines includes Prosecco from producers like Innocent Bystander, sparkling Pinot Noir, sparkling Sauvignon Blanc, sparkling Riesling, sparkling Chardonnay, as well as our selection of sparkling red wine varieties including sparkling Shiraz, sparkling Merlot and sparkling Rose wines. 

Is Sparkling Wine, Champagne?

Sparkling wine certainly originated in the wine-making region of France called Champagne, but not all sparkling wine is considered Champagne.

Naming conventions for French wine must adhere to both strict regional qualities as well as a range of conditions relating to the wine’s properties. To be called Champagne, the sparkling variety must, first and foremost, be created within the French winemaking region.

If Champagne can only be made in the wine-making region of Champagne, then all other sparkling varieties are, therefore, known as sparkling wine instead. 

How are Sparkling Wines made?

The history of sparkling wine is an interesting one. Initially, sparkling wines were considered a catastrophic failure by the winemaker who was trying to create a still wine. The bubbles in wine are due to a two-stage fermentation process that naturally occurs during particularly cold weather.

The fermentation of the wine would occur as it was supposed to occur in the vats, but it would finish early, unbeknownst to the winemaker, when the weather turned cold.  Traditional wine yeasts would go dormant in cold weather and reactivate once the weather warmed up to complete their fermentation process. 

This secondary fermentation would occur within the bottle rather than the barrel (traditionally) after primary fermentation, and when yeast creates alcohol it also creates carbon dioxide. This gas would build up within the wine bottle and the wine producer wouldn’t know about it until they either opened the bottle with the sparkling wine’s signature “pop”, or the wine bottle would explode under the pressure of the gas while stored.

Technology has made making sparkling wine of consistently high quality much easier and thankfully everyone can enjoy an excellent bottle of bubbly.

What about Australian varieties?

Australian sparkling wine ranks highly on the world’s stage with a homegrown favourite of sparkling Rose that is still the perfect accompaniment to the great Australian barbeque.

We have some excellent cool climate regions perfect for developing a very dry sparkling wine, in the closest tradition of the sparkling brut, but experimentation with a host of other grape varieties has proven to produce very fruitful sparkling varieties also.

Other notable regions are Spain, New Zealand and North America. 

How do you keep sparkling wine fizzy?

The key to storing sparking wines well is to cork it with a proper wine stopper and store it lying down in your fridge. Once opened, the bubbles that give sparkling wine its signature fizz are already dispersing and there’s nothing you can do to stop that from happening.

You can slow it down with cooler temperatures, which stop the wine bubbles from bursting and thus disappearing, and by ensuring that it isn’t agitated more than it needs to be. The more often the bottle is moved, the more likely it is to lose its bubbles.

Never store your bubbly on the fridge door, for example.