22 hours Ago
The vast majority of champagne sold in the United States — and maybe around the world — this year will be purchased in December, and much of it will be consumed in the year’s waning hours on New Year’s Eve. That’s fine, but it’s also a shame because it means we are limiting champagne to a ceremonial ritual and ignoring its beauty as wine. If we just want bubbles for a toast, we can buy and enjoy the cheap stuff.
Champagne is special. (And there is good cheap champagne, as I discovered in my recent foray to Costco.) Here are five things to know as you buy and enjoy champagne this holiday season — and beyond.
Yes. If you’re hosting a dinner party and you offer your guests a glass of any ol’ bubbly and call it champagne, they’d be uncouth to call you out on it. Though given the popularity and quality of prosecco, franciacorta, cava and other sparkling wines, there’s no shame in offering them under their own names.
Technically, champagne is the sparkling wine from the Champagne region of northern France. Consider this my obligatory nod to the trademark protection hawks in the CIVC, the champagne trade bureau. As far as I know, they haven’t yet gone after consumers for calling a generic sparkling wine “champagne.
” Yes, and to understand why, we need to know how champagne is made. The champagne method, now usually called the traditional method (nod to those trademark hawks), involves aging the fermented wine on the lees (spent yeasts) produced during the second fermentation that adds the bubbles. Longer aging also gives the wine a brioche flavor.
Your wine geek friends might toss out the word “autolytic.” If they do, just slap them down by saying, “Yeah, I get the brioche.” If you don’t know what I mean by brioche, go to Trader Joe’s, buy a loaf and toast a slice.
An almond croissant from a good French bakery is another analogy for that wonderful character of champagne. Many other sparkling wines are made by the same method, but with different grapes and often with less time on the lees. As such, they lack the complexity of champagne.
No. Champagne is a great food wine. Think salty — caviar, oysters — or crunchy and salty — french fries, popcorn, potato chips.
But there’s much more. “I like blanc de blancs with fish, oysters, crudos and delicate buttery flavors,” says Elli Benchimol, a sommelier and owner of Apéro champagne bar and La Bohème restaurant in Washington, D.C.
’s Georgetown neighborhood. Blanc de blancs are champagnes made entirely of white grapes, almost always chardonnay. A blanc de noirs — a white wine made from red grapes, typically pinot noir, by pressing the juice off the skins early — can “go all the way up to squab and gamey dishes,” Benchimol says.
“It’s still pinot noir, after all.” Rosé champagnes can gain their color from a few hours of skin contact, giving them a measure of substance akin to lighter red wines, Benchimol explains. “We paired a rosé with duck tortellini in an orange sauce, like duck à l’orange, and it was fantastic,” she adds.
Champagne sales are likely to be robust this holiday season, as consumers anticipate higher prices from tariffs promised by the incoming Trump administration. Champagne, a quintessentially French luxury product, is always an easy target in a trade dispute with the European Union. So prices are likely to rise next year, making this holiday season a good time to lay in a few bottles for your cellar.
“Think about what you like in a still wine,” Benchimol says. “If you like sauvignon blanc or chablis, start with a blanc de blancs. If you’re into white burgundy, you’re probably into vintage champagne.
But if you like pinot noir and nebbiolo, like I do, then you want blanc de noirs.” Benchimol paused before saying, with a note of mischief in her voice, “If you’re a cabernet sauvignon drinker, leave the champagne to us.” While we can all agree that champagne is special, specific champagne preferences are very personal.
Some people prefer bubbles by small growers, who make wine from their own vineyards rather than purchased grapes, believing these bottles are more distinctive from the “house style” of the major producers. Others favor a blanc de blancs as an expression of chardonnay, or blanc de noirs for pinot noir. The current vogue is for bone-dry wines labeled “extra dry” or “brut nature.
” You may have a sentimental favorite from a first date or family celebration. My own list of favorites is too long — I only wish I could afford to drink champagne more often. .
Here is a good choice that’s available in New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlets: Three and one-half stars Champagne, France, $73. Light and delicate, this wine shows white flowers and an appealing herbal note. The Taittinger vintage 2015 ($120) is a turbocharged version, with similar flavors but greater depth and complexity.
ABV: 12.5 percent. BW: 830 grams.
(Three stars: Extraordinary — an exciting wine that stands out from others in its class. Fist-pumping, table-thumping good.).
