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Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere!
New Year is around the corner, and of course, we are all talking about sparkling wines. That little effervescence, the tiny bubbles, they create mood and tell us “this is all good, we got something to celebrate, let’s have fun”.
There is hardly a wine blogger today who didn’t write about Bubbly. Let me join them, and share some recent encounters and (in the spirit of summing up a year) some of the old ones.
My favorite wine store, Cost Less Wines in Stamford, had a Sparkling wine tasting today. Here is what you could try:
Picollo Ernesto Rove Rina Vino Spumante Brut – Italian sparkling wine made in the Gavi region out of Cortese grape. Simple and refreshing, probably could use a touch more acidity. Has apple undertones on the palate.
Champagne Philippe Prie Brut Tradition NV – very yeasty, lots of freshly baked bread on the nose. Probably could use a touch more acidity (either there was something wrong with me, or may be the wines were a bit too warm…)
Champagne Piper-Heidsieck Brut NV – yeast, baked bread, green apples on the nose – very balanced and refreshing on the palate. Best of tasting.
Bagrationi 1882 Sparkling Wine Rouge NV, Georgia – while I had a number of Bagrationi sparkling wines before, this was my first tasting of the Bagrationi Red. This wine is a blend of 4 different grapes. Very nice nose of fresh fruit. Full bodied, with the touch of sweetness on the palate, but only a touch. Very refreshing and very pleasant.
Here are few extra bubbles for you. First, for the full immersion into the sparkling world, visit this Pinterst collection of all things Champagne.
Now, here are the links for some of my past blog posts about Sparkling wines – a 2006 newspaper article and 2011 update to it.
In 2012, I learned how to saber the bottle of sparkling wine with the wine glass. Here is a link to the blog post about it. And here is how professionals do it.
And here are the Champagne and Sparkling wines which are planned to be open on the New Year’s night:
What bubbly will be in your glass? Cheers!
Wine Video: My Personal Sabering Experiment
If you remember my Father’s day post, I mentioned successful experiment in Sabering of the Champagne bottle. Okay, not really a Champagne – it was Cava Rose ( a very tasty one, Marques de Gelida Cava Brut Reserva). As I promised, here is the video for you:
To tell you the truth, once you open a sparkler this way, it is hard to go back to the traditional bottle twisting…
So…yes, you can try it at home! Have fun! Cheers!
Wine Videos: Don’t Do This At Home, Kids
Last week we compared wine video commercials from some of the major Champagne brands (in case you missed that post, you can find it here). Today I’m not asking you to rate the videos. Just watch and learn… or not (one of the videos is definitely giving me an urge to actually try it at home). In these videos you will see how professionals deal (meaning: open) with champagne bottles. This method of opening the champagne bottle is called sabering, and if you never heard of it before, just watch the videos (you can also read about some history of champagne sabering here).
First one is showing champagne bottles being opened in a rapid succession to achieve a world record:
The second video shows how sabering can be done with just a regular glass instead of a sword. While it looks easy and effortless in this video, make no mistake – it does require good amount of skill.
If you will be brave and try it at home, let me know how you will make out! Cheers!
Wine Videos: Big League Sparklers Showdown
Continuing the “sparklers” theme, I want to offer you three commercials from the big league Champagne.
First, a commercial for Veuve Clicquot:
I’m not sure if the next video is really a commercial, it looks more as a tribute by Dom Perginon to Andy Warhol – but in any case it is a wine video:
And last but not least is a commercial for my all times favorite Champagne – Krug:
What the verdict is going to be? Any preferences? Cheers!
Valentine’s Day Food and Wine Experiences
For many years already Valentine’s Day became our “home” holiday. What I mean is that we are not going to the restaurant – instead, we attempt to create the best possible experience at home. This past Valentine’s Day our attempt was quite successful. First, there was a Champagne. Ahh, what so special, say you, a sparkling wine? Well, we don’t drink Krug every day – Krug is our “special” sparkling wine, as both me and my wife fell in love with it 3 years ago, and nothing beat that ever since.
It was Krug Grand Cuvee Brut NV. Beautiful effervescent nose, with only a hint, a whiff of toasted apple, yeast and fresh bread – the same lightness on the palate, with perfect balance of fruit and acidity. Yes, I know, I fail to give you a critic-worthy description with lots of different elements of soil, the fruit and more – so you will need to take my word for it – this is The Champagne. Once you try Krug…well, you will continue to appreciate many other sparkling wines, but Krug will be the one you will crave. And if you care for my rating, I will put Drinkability at 9+.
Believe it or not, but Krug was only the beginning of amazing wine experience. The next wine blew me away in many senses. First, it was a realization of a dream. For the long time, I wanted to try Carlisle Zinfandel – consistently high ratings in Wine Spectator, great reviews – many factors contributed into making Carlisle Zinfandel an object of desire. I signed up for the waiting list for the mailing list, I asked around – all to no avail. Then a few month ago I saw a bottle on the Benchmark Wine Company’s web site, priced at about $30 – voila, I got the bottle. Now I just needed special occasion.
Special occasions are easy, right? Valentine’s Day is special enough for us, so the bottle of 2000 Carlisle Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley was opened. The description? One word – “wow”. Beautiful nose of red fruit and smoke (raspberries and blueberries plus a hint of smokiness, to be more precise). Perfect balance of fruit, tannins and acidity on the palate – more playful fruit, eucalyptus, cedar box, spices, tobacco – all components are playing together to deliver an amazing experience.
Here is one interesting note for you. Carlisle web site has a table which is called Drinkability Chart, which lists all the different wines from the different vintages and ideal drinking window for those wines. According to that chart, optimal drinking window for this particular Zinfandel was 2002 – 2005. Well, what can I tell you? If you got a bottle of Carlisle which you think is undrinkable – send it my way, and I will thank you profusely. And just to show you how much I loved this wine, I have to tell you that this is the first time I put Drinkability of wine at 10-! Here is the link to my ratings page – you can judge for yourself.
As you can see, the wines were great – but there was also food. This year we decided to do a Rack of Lamb. Rack of Lamb is a dish which we typically enjoy in the restaurants (especially in French Canada), but it is not that difficult to make at home (once you overcome the sticker shock of a good rack of lamb).
I need a lot of rosemary with my rack of lamb – and this is what we did. A little bit of fresh pepper, and lots of fresh rosemary – with addition of some fresh sage as well. Here is the rack of lamb ready for the oven:
There are couple of techniques which I started using lately when it comes to roasts – and I like the results so far. First one is preheating oven to 500F – temperature is lowered one roast is put in, but it is enough to develop a nice crust. The second one is not using any salt until the roast is done ( so only using finishing salts) – the rationale here is that salt is draining juice out of the meat so it is better to be put on at the last stage. So far I had being very happy with an outcome using these simple rules. After 40 minutes in the oven ( 500F to start, then lowered to 400F), here is the final result:
And here is plated version:
Yes, I know, I should work on presentation – you don’t have to tell me that. But the taste was great, and lamb also paired quite well with the Carlisle Zinfandel – to double the pleasure!
That’s all, folks, for our wonderful Valentine’s Day food and wine experience. It will be hard to beat it next year, so I can only wish tat the next year will be not any worse than this year.
Cheers!
What Is In The Bubbles? – 2011 Version
Yesterday I shared with you my perspective on sparkling wine from 5 years ago. What happened in the past 5 years in the world of bubbly? Champagne is still a Champagne, as invented hundreds years ago, right? I would like to summarize the differences in two words: diversity and abundance.
Of course nobody invented Cava, Prosecco, Sekt or Cremant in the past five years – those sparkling wines had been around for hundreds of years. But never before were sparkling wines so abundantly available in United States – lots of them of a great quality and finesse, rivaling Champagne in taste and even more certainly, in price (average price of Champagne increased by about $5-$10 per bottle, depending on the brand and the actual wine store).
Diversity is another phenomenon in the world of sparkling wines – each and every category of the sparkling wines, including Champagne, has a lot more brands and styles widely available in many wine stores. Talking about Champagne, have you heard of Growers Champagne five years ago? I’m sure you did, if you are in the wine trade, but very unlikely if you are not. As we discussed before, majority of the Champagnes is produced by few big Champagne houses. For the most cases, those Champagne houses are not growing their own grapes, they are buying them from the growers. Some of the growers are also started making Champagne, which can be very distinctive and of a very good quality – I mentioned my experiences with Growers Champagnes a number of times before (you can find old posts here and here). Also increasingly available French sparkling wines made outside of Champagne appellation – they are often called Cremant and you can easily find Cremant de Alsace, Cremant de Bordeaux, Cremant de Bourgogne, Cremant de Jura, Cremant de Loire in many wine stores around you.
Going outside of France, more and more sparkling wines are made all over the world. While Italy, Spain, Germany and US where always on the bubbly’s map, during the last couple of years I was able to taste sparkling wines from Argentina, Australia, Georgia (Georgian Sparkling wine, called Bagrationi, was our favorite wine during blind tasting, beating out classic Champagne and many other – you can read about it here), South Africa, Switzerland and Uruguay. Next to this geographic diversity is number of grapes used nowadays for production of the sparkling wines. Traditional Champagne, as well as many of the Cremant wines and sparkling wines made in US and Italy, are made out of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – however, in addition to this short list I tried sparkling wines made out of Chasselas, Chinebuli, Gamay, Malbec, Shiraz and Vidal (here is the post). A number of sparkling wines were also made using natural and biodynamic methods – I had a number of outstanding French sparkling wines made from Gamay (here is the post). If you are interested in this particular category ( natural Sparkling wines), I would highly recommend checking PJ Wine web site, which boasts excellent selection.
No matter what you are celebrating, there is always a special bottle of sparkling wine waiting for you. There is also nothing wrong with celebrating just another day. But considering that tomorrow is a New Year, make sure you have a good supply of the bubbly – no matter where it is from or what grape it is made out of, it is guaranteed to make your moment special. Happy New Year! Cheers!
What Is In The Bubbles? – 2006 version
In the past, I wrote a few wine articles for one of the local newspapers here in Stamford – Stamford Times. As right now it is a champagne times all over the place, I thought this post about bubbly, written in 2006, still make sense. So here it is in its entirety, and I will give you 2011 perspective in the next post. Happy reading!
What is in the bubbles?
What is one type of wine a lot of people will be reaching for very shortly? If you said “champagne” – you are right. If you said “sparkling wine” – you are right too. As New Year rapidly approaching, one of the traditions of celebration is having a glass of “bubbly” with the toast to the health and happiness in the arriving year. Where this tradition is coming from is hard to tell, as ever since champagne was invented, it very quickly became a symbol of celebration – a new ship, a new house, a wedding and all other significant events all call for champagne on the table.
Let’s take a look at the history – what is champagne and where did it come from? As many other prominent discoveries of the past, the discovery of champagne is largely a result of an accident. Champagne as we know it came from France, and as majority of other French wines, the name of the region where the wine is produced became the name of the wine. Champagne region is located in the northern part of France. One of the characteristics of that region is cool weather – the mean annual temperature is only slightly above 50°F, just a minimum necessary to allow grapes to ripen.
At the same time, the advantage of the cooler climate is that it allows grapes to ripen slowly, thus gaining more flavor and adding complexity. When grape juice is becoming a wine through the process called fermentation (by adding yeast to the grape juice), constant temperature is very important for the overall success. If the temperature drops too low, the fermentation would stop. Once the temperature rises, if there is any residual yeast left, fermentation will start again. If the wine is already bottled, this so called secondary fermentation will take place inside the bottle. Those wonderful refreshing bubbles, which we adore so much in our champagne, is nothing but carbon dioxide, which is a normal byproduct of fermentation process. If takes place during first fermentation, all carbon dioxide will go out in the air. At the same time, when secondary fermentation takes place in the closed bottle, the carbon dioxide has nowhere to go, thus it stays in the bottle and becomes a wonderful fizz we all enjoy. Thus thanks to the Champagne’s weather helping to “spoil” bottled wine, and someone’s imagination, we received a gift of great taste called champagne. Who was that “someone”?
History often calls a French monk, Dom Perignon, an inventor of the champagne. In the late 17th century, Dom Perignon was a cellarer at the abbey of Hautvillers, near Epernay in Champagne. Dom Perignon also was a great winemaker, who mastered making practically a white wine from the black grape ( Pinot Noir). He also advanced the art of blending ( mixing wines from different vineyards and/or vintages) to produce wine of consistent qualities. Blending is one of the cornerstone processes in making of the champagne. Interestingly enough, Dom Perignon worked hard to prevent the fizz in wine, which was at a time considered a sign of the poor winemaking. Nevertheless, the name Dom Perignon literally became a synonym of the great champagne. It is also suggested that there is a famous phrase which belongs to him – “Come quickly! I am tasting stars! – he said at the first sip of champagne.
Let’s talk about some of the characteristics of the champagne. First, there are 3 types of grapes used in champagne’s production – chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Next, there are 2 main categories of champagne – non-vintage (usually the letters NV are added to the name) – blend of wines from the different vintages, and vintage, when only wine of single vintage is used. There are usually only few vintage years in a decade, so the majority of the champagne consumed is a non-vintage ( NV) variety. One more classification is based on the types of grape used in the blend – most of the champagne are a blend of different grapes, but if only Chardonnay grapes had being used, the champagne will be called Blanc de Blancs, and if only Pinot Noir is used, the champagne is called Blanc de Noir. Lastly, there are different levels of sweetness found in champagne, which is also put on the label: if the label says “Brut”, it is very dry, Extra Dry – less dry, Sec – sweeter, Demi Sec – medium sweet, Doux – sweet. Interestingly enough, most of the champagne produced before 1850 was sweet. Majority of champagne produced today falls into brut or extra dry categories.
Similar to the other wines from France, there are thousands producers making champagne. At the same time there are currently 26 Champagne Houses, known as Grand Marques – they are making most of well known champagne in the world. Some of the most popular names from that group include Bollinger, Charles Heidsieck, Krug, Moet & Chandon, Mumm, Perrier-Jouet, Salon, Tattinger and Veuve Clicqout. Is there champagne made outside of France? Of course, but it is not called champagne. In majority of the cases, only the wines produced in the Champagne region in France are called champagne. Sparkling wines, which are produced using the same winemaking techniques, are made in the different parts of the world – Cava in Spain, Sekt in Germany, Spumante in Italy, Sparkling wines in California. Some of the well known sparkling wines producers in California include Korbel, Schramsberg, Iron Horse, Mumm Cuvee Napa.
How champagne is served? It is served cold, best temperature being in the range of 43°F – 48°F. Most appropriate glasses for champagne are flute- or tulip-shaped. Do not serve champagne in the wide open glasses – this only leads to champagne going flat in no time, losing all of it’s refreshing fizz.
What is champagne served with? First, champagne makes great aperitif – great way to start an evening with friends. When it comes to food, similar rules apply as for matching any other wine and food. Champagne represents light and refreshing wine, thus it would be best paired with similar type of food, meaning being light. Shellfish, oysters, seafood, poached salmon all would do great. Also sushi is definitely not to be forgotten. And, yes, of course, the classic combination – Champagne and Caviar.
As John Maynard Keynes said, “my only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne” – let’s not make this mistake! Get the friends together, open the bottle of bubbly, and celebrate – New Year, new child, a new beginning! Happy New Year! Cheers!
Celebrating Global #ChampagneDay
Yesterday the world of wine social media celebrated 2nd Global Champagne Day, honoring one of the most special beverages – French Champagne. Here is how we celebrated it:
Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV was good, but not special in any way – nice fresh creamy bubbles, good acidity (Drinkability: 7). Louis Roederer makes one of the most famous Champagne in the world – Cristal, but this one of course was a standard non vintage version.
Champagne Chartogne -Taillet Cuvee Sainte-Anne, a growers champagne, was outstanding – yeasty, with a lot of fresh bread and toasted apple notes, refreshing and complex at the same time – this was not a simple thirst quencher, but a thought provoking wine. (Drinkability: 8).
How did you celebrate the Celebration Wine?
Champagne Blind Tasting – Don’t Try That At Home?
The idea was born – blind champagne tasting. It’s going to be fun! Well, blind sparkling wine tasting, to be more precise. The date was set, menu decided upon. Everybody have to bring a bottle of sparkling wine, which is expected to be of reasonable quality. No, it doesn’t have to be from Champagne only, anywhere in the world is good – with some notable exceptions. For instance, sparkling Shiraz was not welcomed.
All precautions had being taken to ensure that tasting will be blind. All bottles placed into the paper bags, and taped on top. We ended up with 9 different sparkling wines (mistake number 1 – too many). The simplest challenge was to have enough glasses as we adamantly resisted the idea of plastic, so we had to split tasting into two groups, 5 and 4 wines – mistake number 2 stemming from mistake number 1 – all wines should have equal time to breathe, even sparkling.
There we went with the tasting. Wine #1, #2, #3… Break after #5 to move glasses, open 4 more bottles, pour and continue. I think the biggest challenge was the fact that differences between sparkling wines (in general) are often very subtle, and it requires highly trained and sophisticated palate to pick them up. For most of us, we would probably stand at least some chance if we would take extended time to assess the quality of the sparkling wine. Typically white or red wine is “in your face” from the moment you smell the wine. Sparkling wine usually is not. Therefore, you need to reflect on each sip of sparkling wine a lot longer to assess its qualities. If you are moving too quickly, those sparkling wines are becoming almost “all the same”.
Anyway, here is the list of sparkling wines we had at the tasting, in the exact order as we tried them:
- 2006 Bodegas Carrau Sust Brut Nature Vintage, Uruguay
- Franciacorta Bellavista Cuvee Brut, Italy
- 2006 Jacques Germanier Blanc de Blancs Brut Millesime Grande Reserve, Switzerland
- Champagne Gosset Brut Excellence, France
- Champagne Thierry Triolet Brut, France
- 2007 Bagrationi Royal Cuvee Brut Vintage, Georgia
- 2007 Graham Beck Brut Blanc de Blancs Premier Cuvee, South Africa
- J Cuvee 20 Brut, California
- 1998 Champagne Gosset Celebris Brut
Can you guess the winning wine? I would be surprised if you do (no, it was not the one from Uruguay if you went with the most odd choice). Actually, at the first vote we had a tie with 3 wines getting the same number of points, so we had to re-taste that group and then vote again to come up with the winning wine. And the winner was…wine #6, 2007 Bagrationi Royal Cuvee Brut Vintage from Georgia (yes, we were also very surprised).
This wine was the most interesting of the pack with unusual zesty citrus notes, good acidity and good balance. J Cuvee 20 and 2007 Graham Beck (California and South Africa!) were close runner-ups (they were in the group we had to re-taste), and it is interesting to note that all three were more fruit forward than the other wines in the tasting.
Now, from the prospective of “mistakes” I mentioned before, here are few of my personal disappointments:
Wine #5, Champagne Thierry Triolet Brut, is a Growers Champagne. I had a pleasure of tasting that wine on the second day, and it opened up a lot more, showing fruit and creaminess. It probably wouldn’t be the winner of the tasting, but I’m sure it would fare better given enough consideration.
Wine #9, 1998 Champagne Gosset Celebris Brut was the only Vintage Champagne in the tasting. It definitely didn’t get enough time to show off all its beauty. By the end of the evening it opened up enough to show off typical yeasty flavors of the vintage champagne, and it became a lot more appealing, at least to my taste.
Oh well, it was definitely a fun exercise! Should you do the champagne blind tasting? May be not. Should you enjoy a glass of champagne instead? Absolutely. Don’t wait for a special occasion, simply celebrate life as it happens. Any day is a good day for a glass of champagne. Cheers!
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