Pét-Nat | The Coolest Sparkling Wine You’ve Never Tried

Do you love sparkling wine?

I’m talking about that effervescent, fizzy, tickle your nose vino that brings joy to your heart and froth to your wine glass.

If this sounds like you, I’d like to introduce you to Pét-Nat.

Pétillant Naturel

Pét-Nat is the easy-to-pronounce version of the French term pétillant-naturel, which translates to “natural sparkling.”

In order to fully appreciate it, let’s first understand how sparkling wine is traditionally produced.

The Traditional Method

The first step is to make and bottle a dry base wine.

Yeast and sugar are added and the base wine is immediately covered with a crown cap (similar to beer).

The yeast then converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.  This is called secondary fermentation. 

After secondary fermentation is complete, the yeast cells die and turn into sediment.

Through a process called riddling the sediment collects in the crown of the bottle.  Next the bottle is opened and the sediment is quickly disgorged (extracted).  Afterward the wine is topped off and the bottle is resealed.

Ta-da!  You have clear and bubbly sparkling wine!

Before winemakers perfected this method, the wine was created in the méthode ancestrale, aka the ancestral method, aka pétillant-naturel.

The Ancestral Method

This method begins before the first step of the traditional style.

Instead of creating a base wine, the winemaker bottles and caps an unfinished wine.  This keeps the wine sweet and allows fermentation to finish in the bottle.

These wines are often not riddled or disgorged, and the end result is a slightly sparkling wine that may be cloudy with remaining sediment.

The Coolness Factor

Pét-Nat is unpredictable and quite foamy when released!

Keep pitchers and towels nearby to handle the froth when opening one of these.  And enjoy the experience; it’s pretty cool.

A Pét-Nat Tasting

These types of wines are hard to find in the US, but I was lucky enough to attend a tasting hosted by Split Rail Winery, who recently released its Pét-Nat, named Gerfuffled, made from Riesling and Gewürztraminer.

The 2016 Gerfuffled is effervescent and cloudy with noticeable yeast particles.  Fruity aromas and flavors of pineapple, citrus and a hint of nutty yeast characteristics give way to a pleasant semi-dry, moderately acidic wine that is reminiscent of a pulpy mimosa.

The tasting also included a 2014 Onward Malvasia Bianca Pét-Nat, a biodynamic and organic wine from the Suisan Valley of California.  This was a lightly sparkling, clear pale yellow representation, quite floral with minerality on the nose and palate with fresh, crisp acidity – just delightful.

Finally, we tasted a 2016 Swick Wines Verdelho Pét-Nat from Columbia Valley, Washington.  This was a slightly sparkling and mostly clear wine.  It had a notable citric component that translated to a salty flavor, high in acidity with a bit of a yeasty finish.  This wine would go well with fried chicken, which was one of the suggested pairings!

I would definitely recommend all three to anyone interested in getting into Pét-Nat.  Since you are now a sparkling wine lover who knows the ins and outs, I hope you feel compelled to find it and try it for yourself!

Cheers!