Fermentation tanks, sparkling wine

Briefly, the traditional process consists of secondary fermentation of a sweetened still wine in a bottle, removal of the yeast sediment from the bottle, sweetening, recorking, and sale in the same bottle. Sparkling wine made in this manner is often labeled Fermented in This Bottle. In the transfer system, secondary fermentation is in the bottle, the fermented sparkling wine is transferred under pressure to a tank, filtered into a second tank, sweetened, and rebottled under counterpressure. These wines may... 

Figure 11. Sparkling wine fermentation tanks, 12,000 and 6000 gallons...

Winery E. The second bulk wine producer sells over 1,000,000 cases annually. Base wines for sparkling wine are selected from a huge inventory of new table wines stored in tanks of up to 300,000-gallon capacity at temperatures held below 8° C year round. White wines do not undergo malo-lactic fermentation. The malo-lactic fermentation is complete in red wines, which are aged for at least one year. Base wines are processed to be heat and cold stable. The pH and total acidity are adjusted by ion exchange and/or addi-... 

Carbon dioxide produced by fermentation is known to have an inhibitory effect. This occurs during fermentations under pressure (sparkling wines). A slight internal pressure in the tank is sufficient to slow the fermentation, and above 7 bars fermentation becomes impossible. In normal winemaking conditions, carbon dioxide is released freely and exercises no inhibition on the fermentation. 

Fig. 14.1. A bulk-method installation for sparkling wine A, yeast starter preparation tank B, sugar addition tank equipped with a mixing system C, second fermentation tank D, refrigeration tank E, bottling tank F, air compressor for isobarometric bottling G, refrigeration group H, filter I, bottler...

---