The effect of sucrose addition at dosage stage on the foam attributes of traditional method English Sparkling Wine.

Approximately two-thirds of wine produced in England and Wales is traditional method sparkling wine. English Sparkling Wine (ESW) has gained a good international reputation for quality, and maintaining this standard is critical to the UK wine industry. Effervescence and foamability are key features used to assess ESW quality. A critical, yet understudied, area of research is the potential for dosage to influence foam behaviour via associated changes in wine viscosity. In this project, dosage treatments of increasing levels of sucrose (5 g/L, 10 g/L, 20 g/L, and 50 g/L,) were added to commercially produced ESW, using commercial dosage practices. After storage for two months, bottles were opened and the foamability attributes of different treatments analyses via two novel foam assessment methods; an adapted Mosalux method and a novel image analysis method, designed to simulate more accurately ‘real world’ serving conditions when assessing foam behaviour. General wine chemical parameters as well as the wine dynamic viscosity were also measured. Results indicated that increasing sucrose concentration at dosage resulted in an improved foam formation, but reduced foam stability. As expected, sucrose increased wine viscosity and we hypothesised that this change could be the major driver for the observed alterations in foam behaviour. These results give an important insight into the impact that dosage treatments can have on the quality of foam produced upon pouring, and therefore have the potential to inform future sparkling winemaking practices