Hopefully the holidays found you well and you found the sparkling wine easy enough at the stores. I love sparkling wine, and if you're a wine drinker, you might too.
I used to be one of the people that thought sparkling wine should be reserved for a special occasion. And then I realized that there are plenty of amazing sparklers out there that don't break the bank, cost the same as any other bottle of wine I would be buying, and can be paired with a large variety of foods. And then I met a friend who is a self proclaimed sparkling wine lover. And I thought...what are we waiting for??!?
Let's get into the types of sparklings so we can properly identify them and you can drop some knowledge at your next party.
Firstly, and most importantly, not all sparkling wine is Champagne. But all Champagne comes from France
****cue the scene from Wayne's World when they're in Benjamin's high rise condo****
(side note, Wayne's World is a movie from 1992 and it happens to be my favorite. Perhaps this scene is what originally perked my interest in wine...at such a very young age.)
Ok so Champagne is a region in France. They make sparkling wine. In France they will name wine by the region. You may be familiar with other French wines-Bourdeaux, Cote du Rhone, Burgundy. These are all wines named after the area in which they are produced. So the Champagne region makes a sparkling wine, and they call it Champagne.
Each house can call their Champagne whatever they like...Veuve Cliquot, Dom Perignon, etc. The big take away here is that any sparkling wine made outside of the Champagne region is NOT Champagne.
It's not your fault if you didn't know that; the wine stores all over this country love to label all sparkling as 'Champagne.' And I guess it's easy to classify all the sparklers as one name.
Some sparkling wine made outside of the Champagne region will be a Cremant. An amazing wine; usually a cheaper option on wine menus so I will always order a glass (you should too).
A sparkling from Italy is typically Prosecco. We all know this from our mimosa days I'm sure. Prosecco tends to be a bit more floral, as opposed to Champagne which can be more biscuit-y and yeasty. A bottle of Prosecco will usually run you $12-$16, compared to Champagne $30 & up.
A sparkling from Spain is typically Cava; this tends to be a bit more citrusy but still great on its own, in mimosas or cocktail spritzers. And the price is approachable too at $14-$20.
Bottom line is, please stop calling all sparkling wine Champagne. The wine lovers, sommeliers and especially the French hate it when you say that. If you are unsure, call it sparkling until you can read the label and determine what it is.
There are so many other options of sparkling wine, and so many nuances we didn't get it to just on the ones mentioned here today. In regards to keeping these posts simple and brief, we'll save all of that for another day.
Cheers!
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