by Dan Smothergill » Mon Oct 25, 2010 8:32 am
One night in Tours our host brought out a bottle wrapped in a bag. He poured and asked us to guess what it was. Spritzy and cloudy, it was grapey, refreshing and somewhat familiar too. It turned out to be Bernache, wine juice in the process of fermenting and an area tradition during the vendage. The bottle said 5.5% - 12.5%, presumably the beginning and finished alcohol levels. So what prevents the bottle from exploding from the carbon dioxide given off during fermentation? The answer is a little hole at the top of the closure allowing the carbon dioxide to disperse. We'd had the equivalent of Bernache, we realized, when a half gallon of juice picked up when getting wine juice was left in the refrigerator too long. Despite the low temperature it wanted to ferment and with no hole in the top a loud hissing noise came out when finally opened.
