Yes, There ARE great Sparklers that are not French!

After talking about the wonderful sparkling wines from France, it’s important to talk about the great wines from other regions of the world as there are some excellent ones and they are often great value plays.

Spain perhaps offers the best bargains in the wine world and sparkling wines are no exception. These wines are made by the Methode Champenois like their French counterparts (secondary fermentation in the bottle). The grapes are different – Macabeo, Parellada and Xarel-lo being the major varietals. Spanish Cavas are minerally, dry with crisp flavors. The bubbles tend to be a little bigger and more exuberant than the French bubblies, and for this reason, Cavas are one of my two choices when making Mimosas and Bellinis as they stand up to the juice. They are wonderful on their own, though, and the prices are amazing. My favorite is Mercat, which comes as a Brut or a Brut Nature (see last week’s article). There are mineral driven aromas of orchard fruits, with a perfectly balanced acidity. Both are awesome for a mere $13.99. So you can buy it by the case for your New Year’s party and still impress.

Freixenet, in its familiar black bottle, is also a Cava, and is a bargain for making those mimosas at under $10 a bottle. For a mere $22.99 you can get an outstanding Cava, Raventos i Blanc, a beautifully balanced wine with delicate minerally stone fruit aromas and flavors. This will give $40 Champagnes a real run for their money.

There are many fine sparkling wines made in America, especially in California, Washington and..…New Mexico. The Gruet family, owners of a champagne house in France, were vacationing in the American Southwest when they ran into a group of vintners in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico. They gave it a whirl and now make a wide array of wonderful sparkling wines priced at about $16.99. They are all good, but for those liking sweeter wines, the Demi Sec is one of this country’s best and their Brut Rose is outstanding.

California has many estates that make good sparkling wines in partnership with French houses. Mumm Napa, Domain Carneros (with Tattinger), Chandon, and Piper Sonoma all make good sparkling wines in the $15-20 range. Schramsburg makes beautiful sparklers, and they are vintage wines. The Blanc de Blancs was served at Nixon’s “Toast to Peace” with China’s Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972 and has been served at state functions by just about every administration since. Priced at $29.99, these wines are an excellent alternative to $40 and $50 Champagnes. Roederer Estate makes a great Brut for $20 and a more costly ($50) L’Ermitage Vintage version that is really, REALLY good.

Treveri is a family owned estate in the Columbia Valley in Washington State, and their sparklers are fantastic for the price. They make a Brut and an Extra Brut with zero dosage (meaning very, VERY dry) that drink like they cost $30 or $40 instead of the $13.49 price tag.

All of the above wines are made in the traditional method, but another group of sparkling wines from Italy are made in a different way. The secondary fermentation is done in tanks and then the wine is bottled, the so called Charmat method. This is less expensive, and these wines, called Prosecco, are great values. The grape used is called Glera, and although most are called Brut, there is enough residual sugar to make them somewhere between a Brut and an Extra Dry. The bubbles are big and exuberant, which, along with the low price, make Prosecco ideal for Mimosas and “Champagne cocktails.” La Marca, at $12.49, is a top seller as is Cavit’s Lunetta for the same price. My favorites are Le Coulture Sylvoz, a true Brut at $12.49, and probably the best one made, Alice (pronounced a-LEECH-ae). This estate is owned by a woman, the winemaker is a woman, and the wine is named after the owner’s grandmother. The bubbles are surprisingly fine and there are wonderful flavors of stone fruit and minerals. The label is even elegant in this $22.99 wine.

New Year’s is a time for celebrating what was and what is to be. Hopefully this and my previous installment will help you in your endeavors to do so. I, as well as the staff at Liquor Mart, want to wish you all the happiest holiday season and the happiest of New Years. I am looking forward to another year of writing what I hope are enjoyable and informative articles to help expand your wine knowledge and appreciation.

Time for Bubbly!Part One - France

Once again the holidays are approaching and everybody is turning his attention to sparkling wine to ring in the New Year. Many people come in the store looking for “Champagne” but when I tell them a drinkable Champagne starts at $25.00 or so on sale, they realize that what they are looking for is sparkling wine. Champagne is sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France. The grapes must be from that region and secondary fermentation must occur in the bottle (Methode Champenois or Traditionelle). The wine is fermented and bottled. Yeast is then added, and the secondary fermentation results in bubbles which are trapped in the bottle. Champagnes tend to be pricy, starting in the upper twenty dollar range, with most being in the $40-80s and some reaching several hundred dollars. Champagne is made from three grape varietals—Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier.

Sparkling wines are made in many other parts of France and the world, and many are extraordinary. I will talk about those made in France today, and in the next article I’ll explore those from other countries. All the wines discussed here are made in the same way as those in Champagne, although they may be made from different grapes. More importantly, they are significantly less expensive.

Sparkling wines from the tiny town of Limoux, in Southwestern France offer great value. This is actually the birthplace of sparkling wines. The monks in the Abbey of St Hilaire discovered secondary fermentation and put it to use in 1536. A local varietal, Mauzac, is the primary grape used, along with small amounts of Chardonnay. These wines are fresh and dry with flavors of apple and pear and a beautiful acidity. Elegance Blanquette de Limoux is my every day sparkler and is a bargain at $12.99. Buy cases of this for your New Years Eve party!

The region of Burgundy is home to Cave Lugny Cremant de Bourgogne. (cremant basically means a sparkling wine made in France but not made in Champagne). This wine is made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and has a beautiful minerality and acidity, delicate perlage (tiny, delicate bubbles) and nuances of brioche and apple. This is an elegant, flavorful bubbly that costs only $16.99 and drinks like it is a lot more expensive.

Alsace is a region famous for its white wines – Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, and Gewürztraminer. They make wonderful sparkling wine as well, and my favorite is Lucien Albrecht’s Cremant D’Alsace, a beautiful sparkler made from 100% Pinot Blanc. It has a very fine perlage and delicate nose and flavors of apple and pear. This is a delicious wine that rivals $40 Champagnes and has performed very well against them in private tastings that I have done. At $18.99, a single bottle simply will not suffice.

Our final stop before Champagne is another northerly region, the Loire Valley. This is the home of sparkling Vouvray. Wines from this appellation are made from 100% Chenin Blanc. The Francois Pinon Brut is a fantastic example. Sourced from organic vineyards, this wine is a perfect expression of terroir, orchard fruits, spices, and minerals. This would be $22.99 very well spent.

This leads us to the “Mother of all Sparkling Wine,” Champagne. Nothing suggests celebration more than a bottle of this sparkler. Of course, the most well known are those from the big houses that buy from up to hundreds of growers and then literally assemble the wines in the cellar from many lots, thus keeping their style consistent year after year. Well known examples are Moet Chandon Imperial Brut and Veuve Cliquote Yellow label Brut. Priced in the $39-45 range during the holidays, these are beautiful, minerally wines with hints of apples and pear, creamy delicate perlage, and bracing acidity. One of my very favorites in this group is Billecart – Salmon Reserve Brut. At $52.99, this is one of the very best non vintage champagnes one can find done in a traditional house style. Rosé versions of most of these Champagnes can be found but are in limited quantities and are more expensive. Billecart makes probably the best non

vintage rosé Champagne I’ve ever had but will set you back $86.99 for the experience.

There are two versions of Champagnes that are becoming better known and are well worth searching out. First is the so called Brut Nature or Extra Brut. After fermentation, a small plug of yeast and debris is removed from the bottle. The resulting space is filled with a tiny amount of still wine and sugar. If the amount of sugar is small, the result is Brut (every wine discussed so far has been Brut). A little more sugar results in Extra Dry and a little more results in Demi Sec. With Brut Nature or Extra Brut, essentially no sugar is added and these are bone dry, steely, minerally wines that are truly beautiful. Francis Boulard Les Murgiers Brut Nature, a blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, is my favorite at a cost of $49.99.

Grower Champagnes are the wines I feel that anyone who wants to experience the true “Champagne Experience” needs to search out. These estates have their own vineyards and bottle their wines after each harvest. They often save lots from previous vintages to blend in with the current vintage to make the wine more consistent year after year, but they still demonstrate incredible character approaching that of vintage Champagnes. Champagne Piollot, a blend of 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay, is loaded with minerals, orchard fruit, and notes of fresh baked bread, the latter being a characteristic usually only seen in vintage Champagnes. At $37.49, this is probably the best value on the entire sparkling wine aisle. Champagne Aubry is another excellent example at $48.99.

Finally, at the top of the heap, are the Vintage Champagnes. These wines are made only in years when conditions allow for the best quality grapes and only grapes from that vintage are used and the bottle is labeled with the year of the harvest. These are the very best Champagnes that are meant to age into otherworldy wines. Perhaps the most well known are Moet’s Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot’s La Grande Dame. These wines are excellent at release, but if you have the will power, put one in your cellar for ten years and you’ll find out what all the fuss is about. Upon opening, the nose of yeasty brioche makes you feel like you are standing in a bakery. This is followed by complex aromas and flavors of apple, honey and minerals, and baking spices. These wines are magnificent. You might actually forget you paid $130-$200 for the experience.

You can celebrate with style no matter what your budget, so get in on the act and enjoy! Happy holidays!

Grower Champagnes – A New Approach to “Bubbly”

As the holidays approach, sparkling wines come to mind, from inexpensive Proseccos from Italy and Cavas from Spain, to the myriad California and French bubbly to the most famous (and expensive) of all—Champagne (sparkling wine from the Champagne region of  France). Nothing seems to epitomize celebration like Champagne, and when most people consider buying it they look for the large houses such as Moet et Chandon or Veuve Cliquot. These producers source their grapes from all over the region and blend various lots from different areas and even different years to maintain a consistent flavor and style year after year.

There is, however, an interesting alternative—the grower champagnes. The  vineyards sourced by  this type of maker are clustered in a single village and sometimes even a single vineyard. The wines are crafted to reflect the terroir of the village, especially if it is a grand cru vineyard.

Grower Champagnes are usually released younger and often show a lower dosage (the process of adding sugar before final corking) and occasionally no dosage at all. Before shipping, most producers disgorge the deposits that collect in the bottles. The resulting space is filled with a shipping liquor and a tiny bit of pure cane sugar. The absence of dosage allows the intrinsic qualities of the wine, such as terroir and minerality, to show through.

The downside is these wines are more variable year to year compared to the large houses. But the wines are far more interesting and flavorful. Today there are 19,000 growers in Champagne and about 5000 are making their own wines as the popularity grows. To find out if a Champagne is a grower Champagne look for the initials RM (recoltant-manipulant) or ask your wine associate.

While the number of wines is staggering, here are few examples that you can’t go wrong with. Champagne Moutard  is one of my favorite Champagnes period. It is from a grand cuvee vineyard and is 100% Pinot Noir. The wine bursts with brioche, pear, and peach aromas and flavors with beautiful notes of honey, flowers and minerals. The price is about $43.00—not cheap, but on par with Veuve or Moet Chandon NVs, and far more interesting.

Champagne Aubrey is made from a majority of Pinot Meunier with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay as part of the mix. All the fruit is from Grand Cru vineyards. Fresh apples leap from the glass to your nose, with hints of cocoa and toast. There are flavors of passion fruit, apricots and spices, even mango. This wine undergoes malolactic fermentation, giving it impressive body. A beautiful Champagne for $45.00.

Finally there is Jacques Copinet, a NV Champagne that  mimics an aged Vintage Champagne. The aroma is of buttered toast sprinkled with a bit of molasses. On the palate there is a wonderful balance of power, intense caramel breadiness, and wonderful elegance.  Worth the $50.00 you’ll have to spend.

When it’s time to celebrate, try one of these Champagnes and have a truly wonderful experience.