A Star Is Born?

Domaine Chandon, one of the pioneer wineries in California, has released a new product that represents a technological breakthrough in sparkling wine. It also happens to be an exceptional product.

But it’s one that is hard to describe without a lot of background.

The firm of Moet et Chandon was the first French Champagne producer to make wine in the United States. It acquired property here in 1973, built a magnificent sparkling-wine facility and released the first wines in 1976. They were superb and rivaled those of Schramsberg as the best in the New World.

However, the wines were limited: an attractive Brut and a bold Blanc de Noirs, both nonvintage wines blended to a house style so consumers would always see them as the same.

The problem: Vintages occur that give the winemaker the chance to make spectacular wines now and then. However, with only nonvintage products in its line, even if the wines improved marginally from year to year (and Domaine Chandon’s did), there was no way for the consumer to tell which bottling was the one that was slightly better.

Moreover, by having a nonvintage product that wasn’t supposed to change from year to year, the winemaker was enjoined from making a significantly better wine, even when it was possible to do so, for fear of confusing loyal customers.

Throughout the years, other French and Spanish makers of sparkling wines came to California and many also adopted the nonvintage approach.

Now comes Domain Chandon’s breakthrough wine, called simply etoile--that’s etoile with a lower-case e .

etoile (pronounced ay-twahl) is made by a process I have never heard of for sparkling wine and one that winemaker Dawnine Dyer says is a major step forward in the production of superior sparkling wine.

The highest-quality sparkling wines are made by the French methode champenoise , an expensive and time-intensive process so singular in the world of wine that it has its own terminology.

Methode champenoise wines start out identical to white table wine. Grapes are pressed into a vat and fermented until the wine is dry. Then various wines are blended into a cuvee , which is then bottled along with additional yeast and a small amount of sugar, and the bottle fitted with a steel crown cap. The bottles are then laid down to rest.

The yeast converts the sugar into a trace of additional alcohol and carbon dioxide. But because the bottle is sealed, the carbon dioxide--bubbles--cannot escape, so they stay in solution.

After the wine and yeast have been in contact long enough to give the wine character (this period is called en tirage ), the winemaker must remove the sediment, the spent yeast cells.

This is a tricky process in which the bottles are inverted to encourage the sediment to fall into the neck of the bottle (the remuage ). Then the neck is plunged into a brine solution cold enough to freeze the sediment into a plug of ice. Then the crown cap is popped.

The pressure inside the bottle forces the sediment out, and then additional wine is added to the bottle to replace that which was lost ( remplissage ), and a cork is placed into the bottle and wired down to prevent it from flying out. The entire process is called degorgement (disgorging).

Some of the best Champagnes and California sparkling wines I have ever tasted were those aged en tirage for a long time on the yeast. This imparts a special aged character and brings the different elements of the cuvee into a delicate harmony.

Among the best of these wines are those aged in magnums. For reasons winemakers never have been able to figure out, magnums seem to be a perfect size bottle for making complex sparkling wine.

Domaine Chandon produced etoile by first making vintage-dated wines in magnums and then removing the best of these wines from the magnums and blending them before re-bottling the wine into regular-size bottles.

The process of blending after the bubbles are already in the wine is new. I asked how it’s done, since it’s possible to lose the bubbles.

“Very carefully,” she said with a laugh.

Dyer said the shorter, warmer 1984 vintage gave components that were full, ripe and voluptuous. And the long, cool growing season of 1986 gave wine that had crisp acidity and a lean, austere finish. By blending these wines, she made a strikingly complex wine that smells at first like mature Chardonnay with a trace of roasted hazelnuts and moist hay. The overall impression is quite complex.

Only 2,300 cases of this wine were made (not much, considering that Domaine Chandon produces more than half a million cases annually).

The bottle shape chosen for this special wine is like that of Moet’s Saran Nature, the rare non-sparkling Chardonnay it makes. And the front of the bottle sports the name of the wine in silk-screened 22-karat-gold lettering.

The name etoile is French for star, the house symbol at Moet et Chandon. The star illusion is from the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon, who legend has it discovered Champagne and who, referring to the bubbles, once proclaimed, “I am drinking stars.”

Etoile, priced at $25 a bottle, is not vintage-dated, but Dyer said subsequent releases will carry some designation to alert consumers as to the particular bottling.

Wine ofthe Week

1989 Mirassou Petite Sirah ($7.50) --Lovers of deeply flavored red wines will appreciate this one. Similar to many red Rhone wines, this attractive effort from Monterey County grapes has wonderful fruit reminiscent of blackberries and cloves with a hint of orange peel. The wine has a small amount of Mourvedre grapes blended in for complexity. It isn’t particularly tannic, and the lush fruit in the mouth is terrific with hearty stews, game and other well-seasoned dishes. Considering the lofty prices of so many of the “Rhone Ranger” wines these days, this wine is a bargain.