Rating Champagne

How to Choose Champagne Brands You'll Like

There are three means of rating champagne and sparkling wine:

Here are the basics of all three, to help you choose champagne brands you'll like. But let's establish what is and is not champagne, first.

The Difference Between Champagne
and Sparkling Wine

Champagne is just wine with bubbles in it. All champagne is sparkling wine, but not all sparkling wine is champagne, however.

To be called champagne, it must be made in the traditional method; look for méthode traditionelle or methode champenoise on the bottle. (See What Makes Champagne Bubble? )

Secondly, it must be made in Champagne, France. The term 'French Champagne' is actually redundant. All true champagne is French champagne.

"Champagne" from anywhere else or made any other way is sparkling wine. Even bubbly made in France, but outside the Champagne region is sparkling wine, or as they call it, Crémant. Spain calls it Cava and Germany, Sekt.

Sparkling wine is not necessarily inferior to champagne, just a victim of another quirky food tradition. Watch your toes! I tend to use 'champagne' to refer to both.

Rating Champagne by its Price

There's really no trick to rating champagne or sparkling wine if you just look at the price. Expensive champagne is good champagne. A very good bottle of champagne from a famous vintner can run between $75 and $150. But if you only buy Cristal Champagne or Dom Perignon, or are seen with only the best vintage champagne brands, you're missing out.

There are many fine less expensive sparkling wines to explore, and not just on special occasions. Some very respectable sparkling wines can be had for $10-$20.

Rating Champagne by its Label

Unlike a book, you can tell a lot about sparkling wine by it cover, its label. If it says 'Champagne,' for instance, you already know where it's from and how it was produced. In just a few minutes you can understand the other basics of a sparkling wine label.

• Vintage or nonvintage: Typically, champagne is produced using a blend (cuvée) of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes from several harvests. 'Multi-vintage' may be more accurate than non-vintage. But once in a while a grape harvest produces a crop of just one type of grape that is perfect all by itself and a vintage champagne is born, rare and expensive.
• Color: Your choices are white, white, pink, and sometimes red.
  • Blanc de Blanc (blahnk de blahnk) on the label means it's a Chardonnay, white wine made with white grapes, with a distinctive crisp white grape flavor.
  • Blanc de Noir (blahnk de nwoir) is a white wine made from red grapes; expect a deeper, almost fruity flavor.
  • Rosé is fruity and pink, either from the addition of a little red wine or from letting the grape juice soak in its red skins.

  There are a few red (rouge) sparkling wines available; they tend to be on the sweet side and very unusual, if not downright potent.

• Sweet or Dry: The terms to indicate the sweetness or dryness of a sparkling wine can be confusing because the French words for dry and half-dry, sec and demi-sec, actually refer to the sweeter varieties. Brut varieties are dry. It makes a kind of sense, though, when you imagine a soda-pop-sweet drink at the top of the scale and compare all sparkling wines to it. From sweetest to driest the terms used are:
  • Demi-Sec
  • Sec
  • Extra Sec or Extra Dry
  • Brut
  • Extra Brut or Brut Extra
  • Brut Nature or Brut Zéro. Also, Sans-Dosage or Pas Dosé to indicate that no sugar at all has been added.

• R.D. or L.D.: The abbreviations stand for "recently disgorged" and "late-disgorged." They refer to wine left on its lees (the flavorful fermentation residue that is later discarded) an extra long time for extra flavor. Often, the bottle will tell how long.

• RM: It stands for "récoltant-manipulant" and it means the grower is also the vintner. He makes his own wine rather than grow the grapes to sell to another winery. Akin to a micro-brew beer in that a much smaller number of cases are produced than the big names, often surprisingly good at low cost.

  ---

  
  

  
  

  Rating Champagne
  by its Taste

  Sparkling wines are described as having oaky, toasty, fruity, citrus, vanilla, spice, and lots more flavors and hints of flavors in them; even leather. Read the descriptions to find something that appeals or intrigues and try it. As you drink it, pick out the various flavors listed in its description.

  There are those who claim that all champagne tastes alike. That's not true, but you may find that there is not enough difference for you to make it worthwhile to buy the expensive champagne except on very special occasions. That's okay.

  Taste is the most important means of rating champagne. It's all that really counts. Find what you like and drink that. Hopefully, it will be a long, fascinating exploration.

  
  
  Champagne Recipes and Serving Suggestions
  
  What Makes Champagne Bubble?
  
  How to Open, Serve and Store Champagne
  
  More Tutorials like Rating Champagne
  
  

  
  
  

  	Web GreatPartyRecipes.com

  Surprise me with another party idea from Great Party Recipes.