(VinePair) - While the bubbles are the most exciting part of a sparkling wine — from the classic “pop!” that means refreshment is en route, to the way the bubbles float up in flutes or coupes — it’s the still wine behind the bubbles that makes sparklers so delicious and age-worthy.

Not every wine is fit to sparkle, but the wines that do are classic examples of ugly ducklings transformed into swans. Traditional method sparkling wines — like Champagne, Cava, and American bottlings like Gloria Ferrer — go through two rounds of fermentation. While the second is responsible for the bubbles, the first gives each wine its signature character.

Referred to in the biz as “base wines,” these wines start in the vineyard just like still wines, but that’s where the similarities end. Unlike still Chardonnay or Pinot Noir — the predominant grapes in sparkling wine — berries destined for bubbly are picked extremely early and processed differently than their still counterparts.