Sunday, June 01, 2008
Food, "Behind the Bar"

Wolf Mountain Vineyards Gets Bubbly

Talking with Karl and Brannon Boegner

By Hope S. Philbrick

    At Wolf Mountain Vineyards, located in the Dahlonega mountains, the winemaking philosophy is more European than Californian—which means you’ll find only vinifera grapes in the field, barrels made of French and Hungarian oak in the cellar, and blends of various grapes in the bottle. While owner/winemaker Karl Boegner and assistant winemaker Brannon Boegner (Karl’s son) have developed an award-winning portfolio of seven wines, they’re not content to rest on their laurels. Over the past year and a half they’ve created sparkling wine—a first in the state of Georgia—in three styles: blanc de blanc, brut rosé and demi-sec.

Q What inspired you to produce sparkling wine?
A KARL: We enjoy sparkling wines and wanted to introduce wines made by the true Methode Champenoise to Georgia. Having been one who has enjoyed champagne all my life, I knew I’d have to do it at some point for the challenge. For me it really is the sheer joy of drinking sparkling wine. Having an interest in it and visiting wineries in Epernay, France and in California I grew more inquisitive of the process. Then on a more recent trip to the Chandon facilities in California I saw the crown cap and saw that as an opportunity whereby it would be a bit easier to get the process started here. We’re going to use that—it’s a stainless steel gold-plated crown cap with a special inner liner. We get it from France and it just makes a perfect seal which helps preserve the sparkling wine and at the same time removes any potential problem of cork taint. Using cork would require a more substantial investment on my part for a separate corker and device that turns the wire cage. Though that would be more traditional, it’s not really the best for the wine. I hadn’t seen the crown cap until visiting Chandon and it dawned on me that it would be an excellent way for us to finish a sparkling wine.

Why hasn’t a sparkling wine been made in Georgia before now?
BRANNON: It’s very labor intensive. But we host over 60 weddings a year, Sunday Brunches and many other events, and a lot of people do want sparkling wine. Currently in our county we can only sell what we produce on a Sunday, so we need a sparkling wine to satisfy that demand.

What’s the Methode Champenoise process of making sparkling wine?
KARL: It’s the true French method of re-fermenting still wine in the bottle. It’s not injected with carbon dioxide like cheap sparkling wine can be. You add extra sugar in the form of simple syrup and yeast and put the bottles in a ‘riddling rack’ so sediment settles into the neck of the bottle. Then you freeze the neck and pop the cap to remove the dead yeast cells and make the finished wine clear. You then add the dosage, the final adjustment of sweetness and acidity to finish the wine—because when you ferment in the bottle you’re removing all the available sweetness and sugar levels so the wine is totally austere and you need to reintroduce some sweetness and adjust acidity.

    Our process started about a year and a half ago. All our sparkling wines are made with Georgia-grown Chardonnay. They’re going to be available only at the winery this year and will be released beginning the weekend of June 14 and 15. We’re going to make 250 cases. Our production of still wines is around 3,000 cases.

    That same weekend we’re releasing our 2006 Instinct, an estate blend red wine in the Rhone style with Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cabernet Sauvignon and Touriga Nacional.

BRANNON: We’re going for a nuttier, yeastier approach to our sparkling wines. We like relatively austere wines because we feel they’re better food wines. It’s been quite a project. We’ve been tasting different dosage samples for about a month. And we’re fine-tuning the production process so it’s more efficient when we finish the 250 cases in a couple of months. SP
For more information about Wolf Mountain Vineyards, including details about its wines and events, call 706-867-9862 or visit  www.wolfmountainvineyards.com.