A MAJOR NEW CATEGORY FOR TEXAS WINE: CHAMPAGNE METHOD SPARKLING WINE
- andychalk
- Mar 28
- 10 min read
by Andrew Chalk
The husband and wife team of Elisa and Christopher Jones are the Texas Hill Country equivalents of high tech AI inventors. Except, in their case, the invention is sparkling wine made according to the traditional method in Texas, at their winery Elisa Christopher Wines.
Let’s crack apart what that means. The wine is sparkling. Alone, that is not new in Texas. The method is the method used in Champagne. Alone, that is not new. The wine is made in Texas from Texas grapes. Wine has been made in Texas for hundreds of years. Only taken together: Wine made from Texas grapes, wine completely made in Texas using the traditional method, are they a breakthrough, and its importance cannot be overstated. It offers Texas entry into an important, and growing, category of wine.
Wine sales in the US are falling amid ‘new sobriety’, competition from cocktails and beer, and an aging population. One bright spot is sparkling wine, where sales are up. If Texas winemakers can get into that market it means more sales for them, more grape purchases from Texas farmers, and more jobs in the infrastructure such as sales, teaching, and management around Texas wine.
The reason nobody has done this before is the cost of the equipment to make traditional method sparkling wine. It can easily top $100,000 up front, and that investment only pays for itself over many years. A winemaker has to have a long-term commitment to traditional method sparkling wine in order to take the plunge. In the instance of 3,500 case annual production Elisa Christopher Wines, it means that Elisa works full-time at the winery but Chris still has a full-time job as a landscape architect in Phoenix Arizona, in addition to his near full-time job at Elisa Christopher Wines. So much for the Château lifestyle. The hope is that the wine is successful enough that prosperity is down the road.
THE FOUR MAIN METHODS OF MAKING SPARKLING WINE
To appreciate the importance of what Elisa Christopher Wines is doing and see why wines made according to the traditional method are important let’s clarify the four alternative methods of making sparkling wine.
Carbonation (known by the French as the ‘bicycle pump’ method) simply injects carbon dioxide (CO2) into still wine to make it fizzy (just like soda drinks). The bubbles last a short time until they evaporate from the liquid, and that is all. The character of the still wine is not enhanced (beyond the sensory effect of brief fizziness) so this method is the cheapest and least interesting.
The Ancestral Method: While there are variations to this method the basic process is that the fermentation process in tank is stopped part way through by chilling the wine. It is put into bottles which are then sealed and the chilling turned off. This allows the fermentation to resume, trapping the CO2 in the wine. The yeast may or may not be removed before the bottle is shipped. Since at least some yeast is present in the bottle for a period of time the character of the wine is affected. THey are frequently cloudy. Wines in this style are marked as méthode ancienne, metodo ancestral, or pétillant naturel. The latter is often shortened to pet-nat in English-speaking countries. Many people find the character of pet-nat wines simple and too yeasty. There are no examples of global success despite a few obscure locations in Europe where they are made.
The Martinotti, or Charmat, or ‘tank’ method. This takes a still wine and adds yeast and sugar in a closed tank to start a second fermentation. Under pressure, the wine is filtered and transferred to bottle. This is the method used for Prosecco, the largest-selling sparkling wine (by volume) in the world. It is characterized by fresh wines that are easy to drink. In recent years Italian ingenuity has enabled the creation of better and better Prosecco over time. What started as a base for the Bellini cocktail is now a bona-fide wine in its own right.
The Traditional Method: Formerly called méthode Champenoise (the Champagne method) is the method used in the Champagne region of France to produce the most famous sparkling wine style in the world: Champagne. It involves the first fermentation in the tank or barrel to produce a still wine. This is then put into bottles together with sugar and yeast. Inside the sealed bottle a secondary fermentation occurs. When this is finished, and any desired aging complete, the neck of the inverted bottle is frozen and the dead yeast expelled as a plug in the ice. This process is called disgorgement. A final flavor component, known as the dosage, is added to determine the sweetness of the final wine and the characteristic mushroom-shaped cork plugged in. The results of the traditional method are considered so superior that consumers seek out examples. For example, in California, all but the cheapest sparkling wines use this method (Schramsberg, Domaine Roederer, Mumm’s, Iron Horse, etc.). In Spain, Cava does too.
With this selection of methods Texas winemakers are faced with the choice about which one to adopt: the ‘bicycle pump’ wine is too crude. The tank method is a possibility but the product would have to compete with Prosecco selling at $10 a bottle (a commercial downside). Pet-nat wines do not sell beyond the cellar door and are a commercial dead-end. The traditional method allows winemakers to fashion wines of individual character which means they don’t have to compete solely on price (a formula that is the basis of just about all still wines from Texas that sell well and win medals).
WHO IS WINEMAKER ELISA JONES?
Elisa Jones, the Elisa part of the Elisa Christopher name, is a former spook. She obtained a degree in political science from Texa A&M University. She has what she terms “two useless masters degrees in international relations and national security studies”. She worked in intelligence for many years and, on return trips from Iraq to Texas, would stop in France to taste wine. She took winemaking classes from Texas Tech., UC Davis, and John Rivenburgh’s incubator at Kerrville Hills Winery.
TASTING TRADITIONAL METHOD TEXAS SPARKLING WINE
Elisa and Christopher are the first Texas winemakers to invest in the equipment to make traditional method sparkling wine and for the past three years have made examples in small quantities. I had the opportunity to sit down with them and taste their current selections.
I can safely say that I was blown away by the authoritative Champagne character of their efforts, and found them to be some of the best Texas wines I have tasted in months. These wines are ready to be served for the toasts at your next celebration, without announcement. Just ask your guests at the end where they thought they were from. The responses will be, overwhelmingly, “Champagne”, such is the character of these wines, but all the grapes came from Texas and the wines were made in the Hill Country.
One advantage of the Texas winemaking environment is a lot more winemaker freedom in the making of a wine. Elisa Christopher Wines takes advantage of this to use grapes that are not permitted in Champagne, but flourish here. “We've done Grenache, we've done Trebbiano that we've won a couple of awards on, we have done Chardonnay, we've done Pinot Noir, all Texas fruit, and then this year we'll do a Picpoul, and actually last harvest we did a Sangiovese as well.” explains Elisa.
A case in point is the blanc du bois grape. It had inauspicious beginnings in a Florida lab. in 1986 where the mandate was to produce a grape that could survive the temperatures, humidity, and Pierce’s Disease endemic in states that bordered the Gulf of America. Its unattractive organoleptic properties and foxy aromas meant that it was the grape you grew when you could not grow anything else. It is typically made as a dry, high-acid, white table wine that small wineries can sell from the cellar steps. This style has never been successful enough to, for example, compete with sauvignon blanc or get into distribution. The one exception is Haak Wines where retired engineer Raymond Haak built an estufa, the heated chamber that is the magic component in Madeira Wine production. Haak took the problematic blanc du bois grape and made a sweet dessert wine from it which, with a rhetorical flourish, he called Madeira. Haak should get some kind of medal for significant Texans for his creation of a whole new category of wine as it may have been the first Texas wine to be referred to by wine critic Jancis Robinson, editor of the Oxford Companion to Wine, who gave it 16./20 (a score denoting “very good”).
I have always wondered how blanc du bois would do in a traditional method sparkling wine since one of the two most important grapes in Champagne, a region on the boundary of grape cultivability, is chardonnay, which grows there as a white, high-acid grape.
The first wine in our tasting was the answer. The Elisa Christopher Wines 2023 Ultra Brut Blanc du Bois, Texas is a 100% Texas blanc du bois made by the traditional method in a very dry (in this context ‘dry’ means ‘not sweet’) style. Specifically, an ultra brut has 6 grams per litre or less of sugar (this example has 4g/l) , none of which is added at disgorgement. Gone are the foxy notes of blanc du bois, this wine has a nose of green apples, freshness, medium body, and flavors on the palate of lemons and minerality, and a glorious pale gold color. The character is similar to that of Champagne house Perrier-Jouët. Stick it in a line of Champagnes in a blind tasting with snooty friends who don’t believe Texas makes wine, and who refuse to travel on Southwest Airlines. They will be at a loss for words for the first time since Steve Harvey crowned the wrong Miss Universe.
Despite the polished result, Elisa describes a circuitous path to this wine’s creation. The grapes came from her father’s 4-acre vineyard. They were harvested on July 4th weekend. This was done by machine harvest. “We have since done more hand harvesting, but trying to get some labor on the 4th of July weekend is a little challenging”, she remarks.
“This past year we actually harvested June 29th for the sparkling, and that was all done by hand harvest. But anyway, back to this wine grown just outside of College Station in the thriving metropolis of Snook, Texas. My dad has a little bit of salinity in his soil and in the water, unless you get rainwater. So I think it helps kind of add to the characteristics of his Blanc de Bois. I've helped him make Blanc de Bois in his glycol chill tank in his garage for personal use for years. And I said, you know, Dad, one day I want to make this into sparkling.”
“And I mean, in sparkling, I would say the winemaking process is slightly different in that it's more as if you were to equate it to something like baking versus cooking. This is more like being a pastry chef where things have to be a little more precise. You can't have tartrates in the wine. You can't have protein haze. Things need to be very clean to start that second fermentation. In fact, the first time we did sparkling, you know, it was eating sugar at the normal rate for our kind of yeast culture. And then, all of a sudden, it was like, whew, we ate overnight, like three and a half brix. And I was like, what is happening? We weren't quite ready to bottle then. So I was like, okay, well, so now even though we measure twice a day, I try and calculate how many brix it's eating per hour. And then we use that calculation to determine, will it last. We usually start a culture on a Monday so we can bottle on Friday. Will it last till Friday morning? Or do we need to add a bit more sugar Thursday evening just to see it through till Friday morning?”
Elisa also made a close cousin of this wine, the Elisa Christopher Wines 2023 Ultra Brut Blanc du Bois, Late Disgorged, Texas. The difference was that wine was left in the bottle with the lees (dead yeast) for longer, in fact it has only just been released. The tasting experience is very similar but with an added bread crust note on the palate.
Next was the Elisa Christopher Wines 2023 Ultra Brut Grenache, Texas High Plains. Its origins were “...grenache remade as a sparkling in part, because I wanted to see what it would do. And also in part, because this particular one, we had pressed on the High Plains, acid was super high. And I said, well, I could raise the acid a slight bit and have a sparkling wine, or it's almost going to be too acidic for a still wine. So I decided to raise it one gram per litre.” The wine is vinified white, even though it is made from a red grape.
Gone were the green apples, the nose had a note of toast, and nuts, and a hint of maderization. On the palate were hints of grenache grape flavors. Medium plus finish.
The Elisa Christopher Wines 2023 Brut Trebbiano, Texas Hill Country was inspired by a trip to southern France of all places -- not Italy, the home of the grape. They made a sparkling wine from the grape (which they called by its French name, Ugni Blanc) that impressed Elisa and she wondered, since trebbiano grew in Texas, could she make it here? It is slightly less dry than the previous wines. The color is a glorious gold. The nose is redolent with meyer lemon notes. On the palate the wine is nutty and utterly charming. It was likely the favorite in our group (although I was the odd man out, preferring the first wine).
Turning briefly back to the business case for sparkling wine in Texas. Trebbiano’s status as a blending grape means that the cost of the sparkling process is offset, to an extent, by the low grape costs.
NON-SPARKLING WINES
Elisa Christopher Wines makes a line of Texas non-sparkling wines as well, but they were not tasted on this visit. Their production is about 50/50 sparkling./still, but is expected to skew heavily to sparkling in the future.
IS TRADITIONAL SPARKLING SPREADING IN TEXAS?
The value of Texas traditional method sparkling wine has not been lost on other producers. Elisa Christopher is doing the secondary fermentations for a couple of other Texas wineries and I got the impression on my recent visit to the Hill Country that there may be a queue at their door in the near future. Other wineries are also considering making the splurge and purchasing traditional method sparkling wine equipment of their own.
One advantage of the traditional method is that the secondary fermentation does not have to be done on a tight schedule, tying down the specialised equipment. So several producers can share it, and take it in terms to process their own wines over a period of months. Or a coop could host the equipment and share it among several wineries.
BLANC DU BOIS - THE HERO GRAPE
Perhaps the most profound finding of this visit to Elisa Christopher Wines was the discovery of a star grape - blanc du bois. All those Texas growers in the southeast of the state who thought they had to get their grapes from the other end of Texas have a new champion right on their doorstep.
Elisa Christopher’s discovery of the suitability of blanc du bois for traditional method sparkling wine is important to the Texas wine industry, maybe even more important than Raymond Haak’s discovery of its suitability in late harvest wine. The market for sparkling wine dwarfs that of late harvest wines so the effect on the size of the Texas wine industry could be significant.
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