Pétillant

When I turned the screw cap of this unoaked Chardonnay, it literally blew the cap off the bottle. Like an impatient genie, it wanted OUT! and shot the cap halfway across our kitchen.

All through dinner, it kept making tiny bubbles that drifted up slowly through the wine. Not vigorous, champagne-style bubbles, just quiet, lazy little orbs of light that twinkled their way gently to the top and popped with a minuscule hiss. The wine was crisp with acid but very fruity; it wasn't spoiled or vinegarish, just very lightly fizzy.

I'm an almost complete dunce when it comes to wines, so I emailed my older brother, who isn't, and asked for his opinion about why the pétillance? He didn't know, but he supplied the French word for it.

I went to the Morgan website to see if it was intentional, but no mention was made of that in the wine's description. We speculate that there were residual sugars in the wine that did their own second fermentation in the bottle after it was sealed. We don't know, but if you do, we'd love to know your opinion.

In the meantime, I'm finishing off that bottle and hoping the pétillance lasts.