Weekend Wine: Sparkling Wine for the Holidays

This week we look at sparkling wines from $25 to $75 a bottle. In this price range, we can start to look at real, honest Champagne as opposed to sparkling wines.

If you’ve ever wondered why Champagne costs more than other old world and domestic versions, I can tell you from firsthand experience that the reasons make sense. Foremost is that the winemakers of Champagne operate under stricter regulations than any other bubbly wine maker. There are limitations on quality, sugar levels, picking dates, bottling methodologies, naming conventions, and both barrel and bottle aging. You can find winemakers that adopt these strict methods, but nowhere else (except one tiny area of Italy called Franciacorta) are the standards adopted industry wide. Their goal is to assure you, the consumer, that if it comes from Champagne, you know they got the details right.

Starting at the bottom of the price range, an American sparkling wine, Scharffenberger Brut Rosé Excellence ($27) comes from a company that applies most of Champagne’s rules and systems. This is a delightful wine for lubricating a chat or for matching up with a nice Gulf snapper.

Once you move up the price range, we are in Champagne territory and my favorite of the “lower” price bottles is the Joseph Perrier Cuvee Royale Brut ($45). This is a wine that endeavors to emulate the tastes of classic Champagne, something similar to what you might have experienced 200 years ago when the house was founded. The wine is quite dry and the perfect apéritif.

Tattinger’s Brut Réserve Champagne ($58) oozes French style and joie. Imagine handsome men, beautiful women, expensive spots cars, and James Bond playing Baccarat Chemin de Fer in Monaco. The wine is elegant in the best sense of the word.

Bollinger Brut Special Cuvée ($75) is my personal favorite in this price category. It is big and bold and, even though it is Bollinger’s least expensive wines, it tastes the equal of many wines in the way over $100 range. One of the classic aromas of the best Champagne is of fresh baked biscuits and this has enough to make a wine lover swoon. By the way, when Champagne aficionados talk about biscuits, they don’t mean like we would eat with cream gravy, but more of a light, not too sweet cookie like the Brits would refer to as in “tea and biscuits.” Don’t ask me.

Next week we finish with the stuff six and seven figure earners like to drink. And while that probably doesn’t describe you or me, we can all dream.