Asti Spumante

A sweet sparkling wine with the name Asti Spumante comes from Italy

It is named after the town of Asti in the wine-growing region of Piedmont; 'spumante' means 'sparkling'.

It is a simple Sparkling winewhich only undergoes a single fermentation in the tank.

The ripened grapes are pressed, the must is then filtered and stored in large refrigerated vats at around 0°C. The must is then fermented at around 20°C in large pressurised tanks with special cultured yeasts.

The grapes from the region are naturally very sweet. A residual sweetness of 70 - 96g/l, an alcohol content of 7 - 9.5% and a carbon dioxide pressure of 3+ bar are aimed for during fermentation. As soon as these conditions are met, fermentation is interrupted by strong cooling. This is followed by further filtering. Only then is the Asti Spumante bottled, corked and delivered.

As already mentioned, Asti Spumante is sweet and is therefore suitable for desserts. However, some people also enjoy it independently of desserts on almost every conceivable occasion because they like the high sweetness in this sparkling wine.

In addition, Asti Spumante is generally rich in the primary aromas of the original grapes and muscatel flavour. The alcohol content is also relatively low at 7 - 9.5%. What's more, Asti Spumante is available almost everywhere in the world and stands out among sparkling wines as very favourably priced (in Europe as well as on the US market, prices are often less than ten euros).

Incidentally, a coupe glass ('champagne bowl'), which is used for Champagne is completely unsuitable for serving an Asti Spumante. The ideal drinking temperature is between 8 and 11° C.

It should not be concealed that there are also connoisseurs who do not like this sparkling wine at all. So if someone wants to treat a Champagne lover to a wine gift, it is generally recommended that they do not choose an Asti Spumante for this person, as Asti Spumante and Champagne are fundamentally different in almost every respect.

 

 

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