Base Wine & Blend

Before a Pezsgő gets its bubbles, it's a still wine, and it's deliberately picked early. At that stage, the grapes still have plenty of acidity and little sugar, keeping the alcohol level low. EU law requires a minimum of 9 percent total alcohol for the base wine, or cuvée, used in quality sparkling wine, leaving room for the second fermentation that follows.

Pressing is done gently so that little color or tannin passes from the skins into the juice. This is straightforward with white grapes like Chardonnay, but requires even more care with red ones. The juice undergoes a first fermentation, producing a dry, austere wine that you'd hardly want to drink on its own.

The art lies in blending, or assemblage. The cellar master combines wines from different sites and years so the house style tastes consistent year after year. Reserve wines from older vintages add depth. Törley's premium range is called François Prestige, named after a former cellar master of the house.

A vintage wine, by contrast, comes from a single year and reflects its particular character. A non-vintage Pezsgő aims to taste the same year after year, regardless of how the summer turned out. A Blanc de Noirs, meanwhile, is pressed from red grapes separated from their juice so quickly that it stays pale. Many houses indicate on the label which style is in the bottle.

Törley Chardonnay Brut is a Blanc de Blancs made from a single variety. There's no blending of grape varieties here—just Chardonnay from Etyek-Buda. The character of such a wine is therefore shaped by the harvest, the soil, and the cellar aging.