How are you planning to celebrate the beginning of 2022? Chances are you’ll be reaching for a bottle of sparkling wine. With all the money you saved from not travelling much in the COVID Era, you might want to indulge in a bottle of the best, Champagne.
Champagne is a sparkling wine but not all sparkling wines are Champagne! Only wines from the Champagne region of France, which undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle with of one or more of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier can bear the prestigious label. It’s a time consuming process and the resulting nectar of the gods is in high demand. Hence the expensive price!
Faced with dozens of bottles of Champagne on liquor store shelves you might be tempted to close your eyes and reach for a random bottle. But there’s a better way!
First do what 90 percent of Champagne buyers do: buy Brut Champagne. It is a dry Champagne produced from blends of different vintages.
There are about 100 Champagne Houses and each one has its own style. To keep it simple, there are four basic flavours characteristics. Floral or Fruit: Produced when the wine doesn’t spend much time on the lees, which are dead yeast cells at the bottom of the bottle. These flavours will have a bouquet and an apple flavour and the wine is fresh and crisp.
Yeast, Bread, or Toast: Other houses focus on creating yeasty, toasty, or bread-like characteristics. The longer the house ages its wines on the lees, the more the wine has this “biscuit” profile.
Some Champagnes have only one of these characteristics. Bollinger reveals a yeasty style while Pol Roger is more floral and fruit-driven. Many Champagnes are hybrids and have a mix of both toasted and fruity characteristics.
When choosing a Champagne, you can also consider the body of the wine. Light- bodied wines are low in alcohol (less than 12.5%). Medium-bodied Wines have between 12.5% and 13.5% alcohol. And Full-bodied Wines are high in alcohol (13.5% or greater).
Generally floral/fruity wines are light bodied while wines that are in the Yeast, Bread, and Toast category are medium or full-bodied.
Here are several Champagnes and their characteristics:
Floral/ Fruity
Taittinger ($69.99): Refined and well structured, light bodied. Has a high percentage of Chardonnay (40% with 60% Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier). Gismondi 91 points.
Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial ($77.99): Refined and refreshing, light bodied pear and black currant, lemon curd, and cream. 91 points Wine Spectator.
Yeast, Bread, Toast
Charles Heidsieck ($73.99): Floral and fruity with toast. Medium body. Plums, cherries, mango, apricot and dried fruits plus velvety cream pastry, baked brioche, pistachio and almond. James Suckling 94 points
Louis Roederer Brut Premier ($77.99): One of my favourites! rich and bready, complex, and nutty, medium body, smoke, currant, lemon pastry cream, toast and hazelnuts. 91 points Wine Spectator.
Bollinger Special Cuvée Brut ($89.99): A hybrid! 60% Pinot Noir, full bodied, fermented in oak barrels, complex and rich, creamy, yeasty, and concentrated, citrus cherries, apples, flower, toast, brioche, walnuts, apricots and peaches, intense; 92 points, Wine Spectator.
Veuve Clicquot Brut ($72.99): Medium to full body, 50 % Pinot Noir, honeycrisp apple, peach, plum, pear, cherry, and lemon curd plus toasty brioche and vanilla, rich and complex.
Piper Heidsieck Brut ($57.99): Medium bodied, 50% Pinot Noir, rye bread toast, brioche, hazelnuts, lemon tart, ripe black cherry with spice. 92 points Wine Spectator, Best non-vintage Brut Mundus Vini. Barbara. Philip MW LDB Store’s Category Manager, European, Sparkling & Fortified Wines: “My ‘go-to’ for classic Champagne.”
Make sure you chill the Champagne in the fridge for about three hours. Remove the foil and the cage. Hold the cork and twist the bottle. It should release with a quiet pop so you don’t expel the expensive bubbles or the wine.
Serve in regular white wine glasses with a large bowl so you can really experience the delicious aromas. If you use flutes, you will see the beads of bubbles travelling up further in the glass but you don’t capture the aroma as well. If you use the old-fashioned saucer glasses, the bubbles will be lost rapidly and the glass doesn’t concentrate the aromas. Your choice!
Today’s wines are found in BCL Stores and many private outlets.
Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy, and Uplifting 2022. Cheers.
