The methods for producing base wines are those of white wine making.

Sparkling wines are the product of a refermentation of still wines to which sugar and yeast are added.

Today they are a leading type of wine on the Italian and world wine scene, appreciated at festive occasions and on special occasions, but also to accompany large and small events, aperitifs and elegant dinners, providing liveliness and joy. This type of wine often goes by the name of the engineer Eugéne Charmat, who developed the method and developed the autoclaves. We should also mention the important contribution of the Italian Federico Martinotti, who in 1895 in Asti developed the method for processing wines in containers. We are still a long way from the idea of modern Champagne, as the wines of the abbey were sugary and made from sweet concentrated musts. The brothers introduced stronger glass bottles and corks that could maintain the internal pressure of the wine. In reality the legend is unclear as some claim it was his brothers, but what is important is that the legendary Champagne was developed during these years. History has it that in the same period as Rudolph, a legendary Benedictine monk from Hautvillers Abbey, called Dom Pérignon, perfected the technique of refermentation in the bottle. Refermentation is described at every stage. The book by the Italian Father Rodolfo Acquaviva, who lived at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, gives a detailed account of all the steps involved in making wine from Montepulciano in Siena. In 1570, the Brescian doctor Girolamo Conforti described in his text ''Libellus de vino mordaci'' the methods of preparation of sparkling wines then produced in the Franciacorta area, describing them as 'mordaci' because of their light froth. A few centuries earlier, in the Middle Ages, we find mentions of it, especially in the book Regimen Sanitatis of the Salerno Medical School, which tells how sparkling wines should be drunk in moderation. Only the Renaissance marked the resurrection of the ''ispumante'', a term coined by doctors to describe the beneficial and healthy effects of the drink. Alongside these wines, there was also Azinatio, made from dried grape must, which was added to dry wines that were probably made sparkling.Īfter the fall of the Roman Empire, dark and troubled centuries began for grape cultivation. Proptropum was the Roman quality product, made using the same methods as Aigleucos but from a flower must. In fact, the former, also mentioned by Pliny, was made from concentrated must sealed in amphorae and immersed in cold water, where at low temperatures a slow fermentation began, generating bubbles in the wine. We learn how the ancient Romans rejoiced in two types of bubbly wine: Aigleucos and Proptropum, which were not so different from our modern sweet sparkling wines. Virgil refers to bubbly wine in his Aeneid and Georgics, and Lucan and other Latin authors mention the drink in their writings. The oldest and most detailed accounts date back to Roman times. The story is also intertwined with the great writings of Homer, particularly in the Iliad, in which the Greek poet recounts that Achilles' shield depicts the image of peasants drinking 'sparkling wine of the sweetest Bacchus'. in the Book of Psalms, which speaks of a wine in the hand of God. The first evidence dates back to 1000 B.C. In ancient times there were no clear parameters to determine what it was and how it was produced.

A common belief is that the French were the first to invent this type of wine, but it is more correct to say that the discovery was born in the mists of time, when a farmer noticed that the fermenting must was boiling. It is impossible to define where and when it originated and mystery surrounds its origins.