To most people, sparkling wines mean either Champagne or Prosecco, a splurge or a cheap thrill. Unbeknownst to many, there are a lot of options in between these two extremes in terms of price and style. Here's a quick insight into 3 types of quality sparkling wines you can get without funds flying out your wallet like the effervescence of your drink. Let's hope this read brings more sparkle into your life!
Crémant de ...
A crémant from France is a great alternative to Champagne. Champagne is known for its smooth bubbles and distinct bready flavour, and you can get both from a crémant. The reason why you have to pay a premium for Champagne is because only sparkling wines produced from three specific grapes from the Champagne region in northeast France can be labelled after it. Any other sparkling wines produced outside of the famed region, even if they use the same grapes and follow the same traditional method, can only call themselves a crémant.
Like Champagne, a crémant uses the traditional method of fermenting wine in bottles and aging it on lees (yeast cells expired from fermentation). Crémants by EU law have to age their wines on lees for a minimum of 9 months. This aging requirement is less than the 12-month minimum in Champagne, which means that the lees-derived bread-related flavours will be less distinct in a crémant than in Champagne. Whilst a shame for those who enjoy such flavours in Champagne, this delicate note of toast and sourdough in crémants may be preferred by those who are not a fan of Champagne's strong bread-like flavours.
Recommendation: A few crémants to keep an eye out for are Crémant d'Alsace (floral), Crémant de Bourgogne (rich and creamy), and Crémant de Loire (fruity: apple, pear, peach). These three regions have a long history of making quality and tasty crémants, and bottles from these regions can be easily found in your neighbourhood grocery shop or wine store.
They are Champagne tasting without Champagne pricing.
Crémants are usually found at around £14-£26, with exceptions beyond the upper limit - premium crémants also exist after all and there are many! A recent favourite is Christophe Denizot's 'Domaine des Moirots Crémant de Bourgogne NV'. The crémant is very fruit forward of green apple and peach, with some nice pastry notes and hints of honey and mushroom. If you're in the UK, this lovely bubbly can be purchased at Streatham Wine House for £24. It's a brilliant aperitif to have with some hard nutty cheeses, like a good Comté. It also pairs really well with a roast chicken dinner!
Cava
Like crémants, the Spanish Cava is a great alternative to the premium Champagne, and can have an even more attractive price tag than crémants. Produced mainly in Penedès, Catalonia in northeast Spain, Cava is made using the same traditional method as Champagne and like crémants, by law, Cava spends a minimum of 9 months aging on lees. As it has a shorter aging process than Champagne, less time and labour is needed in its production, which translates to lower costs for the producers, and ultimately for the consumer as well.
Usually less acidic than Champagne and less sweet than Prosecco, Cava can have nice complexity with its zesty flavour profile that carries hints of minerality.
A beautiful type of sparkling, Cava unfortunately suffers from the bad rep of being a cheap drink due to the influx of low-end Cava on the market in the 1990s. In the 2000s, the sweeter and fruitier, easy drinking Prosecco, which is similarly inexpensive due to its much simpler production process, quickly replaced Cava in the market, even when its flavour profile is less diverse.
Don't get me wrong Prosecco is great. There are many well-made Proseccos in the world and its lighter, sweeter, fruitier style is probably more suited to the tastes of modern drinkers. However, we should not be so quick to discount Cava, for there are some wonderfully tasty Cavas that are sidelined. Since Cava lost its market position to Prosecco, producers have been trying hard to improve its flavour quality to win back consumers. Priced at around £8-£18, Cava is a type of sparkling that has versatile uses: it can add some sparkle to your light lunch of seafood, chicken and a fresh salad, or be a great accompaniment to some Manchego, jamón, olives, and almonds for an apéro.
Recommendation: The two largest producers of Cava are Codorníu and Freixenet. When one is unfamiliar with something, big brands can be a good place to start since flavour and a certain level of quality can be assured. Codorníu's 'Raventós Selección Familia Reserva Cava' with its lemon, green apple, and pastry flavour profile is quite approachable and easy drinking. You can pick up a bottle from Waitrose for £13, and your local wine shop is also likely to stock Cava from Codorníu and Freixenet, so keep an eye out for them. Cava is great with some white fish and lightly fried foods like fried calamari, and stalk vegetables like asparagus and artichoke. Cava that has been aged for longer, like those with a '(Gran) Reserva' label, also pairs very well with hard sheep milk cheeses like Manchego, Ossau Iraty or Pecorino.
Moscato d'Asti
As mentioned, Prosecco has been widely popular due to its sweet, fruity, easy drinking style. A favourite of mine and a less known alternative to Prosecco is Moscato d'Asti, also from Italy. A Moscato d'Asti is a light and sweet low-alcohol sparkling white wine from the region of Asti in northwest Italy. It uses the highly aromatic muscat grape and usually has beautiful aromas of blossom, pear, peach, and grape (muscat is one of the few grape varieties that have grape-y flavours!) Fermentation is terminated early when ~7% abv is reached, meaning some sugars not converted into alcohol by yeast remain, thereby giving Moscato d'Asti its distinctive characteristic of being low-alcohol and slightly sweet.
A Moscato d'Asti is brilliant as an apéritif, or as an accompaniment to your weekend brunch or plate of fresh oysters.
The low alcohol content and delicate sweetness means that you would have sipped through glasses of this before realising you've drank the bottle. Very reasonably priced at around £7-£16, a Moscato d'Asti is a beautifully perfumed bubbly that is sure to please crowds.
Recommendation: Asti by Martini ('Martini Asti Spumante Non Vintage') can be easily found in the wine fridges of Tesco at £8 - chilled and ready for immediate consumption. With aromas of honeysuckle, pear, and grape, it takes like a breezy garden party and is also perfect to take to one.
Bring the sparkle
Christmas, New Year's, graduations and birthdays do not have to be the only time you have a glass of bubbly. If you know what to look for, you can easily find quality sparkling wines at a reasonable price. I would choose a Moscato d'Asti over a paint-stripper of a bottle of white for the same price any day. Similarly, I would rather buy a high end crémant than a low end Champagne, and pay a premium for its quality rather than its name.
With the veil of mystique and prestige wine is often wrapped in, the pricing of wine is heavily influenced by consumer perception and knowledge. Lesser known grapes, wines, and regions struggle to gain consumer demand and are subsequently sold at a lower price, even if they are of a high quality. In other words, if you know just a little more about wine than the average consumer, you'll be able to find really good wines for really good prices. Cheers to that!
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