by When the vintners of Buckingham Valley Vineyards created a sparkling green in honor of the Philadelphia Eagles before Super Bowl LVII, they never could have predicted the level of interest the beverage would immediately attract.
It all started with a Facebook post announcing a limited release of the green “Eagles Champ-aign” for the big game. The result was an immediate sellout for the Buckingham, Pennsylvania vineyard.
“We sold out in record time — about 1.5 hours,” Chris Forest of Buckingham Valley Vineyards told Yahoo Life. “We are planning to disgorge (a process in Champagne making in which dead yeast cells are removed from a bottle before a new cork is added) another cage on Friday which should be available at 10am when we open. We will not be taking any pre -order because, quite simply, the product does not yet exist in its entirety.”
“Early on we did a few cases as a kind of novelty and the Facebook post started gaining traction, so we did more, then more, then even more,” adds Forest. “We sold over 100 cases in less than a week. As far as Champagne sales go, that’s a record in our books.”
But all hope isn’t lost for fans who weren’t able to snag a few bottles in time: While there’s more to come, Forest predicts that too will go quickly. “We’ll do another cage, about 500 bottles, Friday morning, assuming all goes well,” he says. “The best thing to get some is to be in the cellar at 10 on a Friday or try to call us, but our phones have been blasting non-stop so it might be hard to get by.”
The method of making bubbly green is similar to those green bagels we see on St. Patrick’s Day. “During the disgorgement and capping process, we add a small amount of sweetener to each bottle to achieve the desired levels,” Forest explains. “The dosage for the green sparkling wine is our normal brut dosage, but with the addition of green organic colouring.”
According to Forest, the dosage is a blend of sugar. “You inject different doses to get the desired sweetness,” she says. “Brut is our most popular sparkling wine. It’s almost dry with just a touch of sweetness.”
Forest says the idea came about when his father, Jerry Forest, the vineyard’s founder and winemaker, dyed a bottle green as something of a novelty. “We ended up building a few cases just to prove it,” Forest says. “Then the orders came in, so we had to make more.”
According to Forest, Buckingham Valley is one of the few Pennsylvania wineries to make their sparkling wine in the traditional French style. “It’s fermented in the bottle for about five years before it’s riddled to get rid of the sediment,” he shares. “Then it is disgorged and corked.”
The result is a rather delightful and festive pregame addition that would make any tailgater proud.
If your pre-Super Bowl plans don’t give you enough time to survey the vineyard in hopes of snagging yourself one of these coveted bottles, there AND a way to conjure up some bubbly greenery at home in time for the big game. “To add a green tinge to your bubbles, add a drop or two of green food coloring to the glass and blue Curaçao, then fill the glass with the sparkling wine or champagne,” says Lucas Scudeler, director of restaurants and bars at Florida’s Loews . Miami Beach Hotels. “Incorporating a splash of orange juice will make it greener. For a more festive version, use glitter green food coloring.”
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