Hurtle V Champagne

So in honour of O'Leary-Walker wines wining a load of awards we've decided to put them on promotion! Now i know a lot of you will have tried most, if not all, of the O'Leary Walker wines- but one which may have eluded you is the Hurtle. The Hurtle is a Sparkling Wine made in the Classic Champagne way- so I thought it fitting to do up a blog on Champagne!

First bit of interesting information about Champagne- it became popular because of its association with the anointment of French Kings, so it then became associated with Luxury and Power. All this coincided with the emergence of a middle class, which had a bit of money to spend and wanted to show this fact off- So they bought a lot of the Sparkling Stuff! So that's your History lesson for today... but its important when you realise that Champagne's price tag comes pretty much from the word Champagne... Now I don't know about you but if i have any money nowadays I'm not spending it on fancy pancy status symbols like Champagne... but every now and then the fancy pancy Pop of a Sparkling wine is needed- which brings us on nicely to the Hurtle! Its called the Hurtle because Nick Walker's Grandfather Hurtle Walker was revered as one of the best producers of Sparkling Wine- ergo its only fitting that this Sparkling Wine be named after him!

So I know you are all dying to know what is the traditional Champagne method... well basically after the first fermentation takes place- its bottled and a bit of yeast is added to so a second fermentation happens. This is where the Bubbles come from. Apparently it takes 1 and a half years for all the flavours to come through in the Champagne. So what they just put it in the bottle, leave it for a year and a half, slap a huge price tag on it... easy! WRONG! One man is actually responsible for turning the bottles a fraction each day so the yeast doesn't settle... so a lot of Love goes into that Sparkling Stuff!