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KITCHEN NOTES

A FIZZ FOR
EVERY FESTIVE
OCCASION

Thought you couldn't beat a glass of champagne? Think again. In her latest report from sommelier school, our wine editor Emma Sleight discovers the new festive fizz on the block, just in time for the party season

Charge your glass

 

Everyone from Winston Churchill to Coco Chanel has waxed lyrical about champagne. Yes, we all know it's fabulous – that's why it has the price tag to match. But if sommelier school has taught me anything, it’s that we need to explore other bottles that offer champagne sensations on a Babycham budget.

There definitely is something cooler and sexier about drinking wine with sparkle. Maybe it’s the special shape of a delicate flute, or the thrill of drinking from a saucer with the ever-present threat of decadently drunken spillage. So, what exactly is the sparkle? Sorry, Dom Perignon, it’s not stars, it’s the slightly less romantic dissolved carbon dioxide.

Sommeliers are taught to measure effervescence in sparkling wine. Technically that means watching the abundance, speed and dispersion of bubbles in the glass, but conceptually it sounds like we’re trying to capture the feeling of sparkling wine in a sensation: vivacious, lively, fun.

Basically, the key to clocking good quality fizz is all in the bubbles –

excellent stuff will have a continuous, steady stream of fine bubbles. If your sparkler hisses with all the aggression of a freshly poured 7UP, then chances are it’s not vintage Bollinger.

The difference is all in the second fermentation (where the bubbles are formed). The longer (and more costly) traditional method, or the champagne method, is used to make cava, English sparkling wine and champagne. Prosecco’s second fermentation happens using the charmat method, in a giant pressure-sealed tank, whereas every bottle of champagne is coddled through a complex ageing process chock full of deliciously esoteric French terminology. It starts with assemblage (blending the wine) before the liqueur de tirage (sugar and yeasts) is added, sealed under a crown cap (same as a beer bottle top) and laid to age while the yeasts decompose. Fun party trivia fact: this is also called ‘ageing on the lees’ and gives wine a biscuity, yeasty note.

The bottles are put in pupitres (racks) to be riddled (turned) daily before those yeast deposits are removed and the wine is

topped up with liqueur d’expédition – a liquid that determines the wine’s final sweetness. Suddenly those extra pounds for a glass of champagne don’t seem so frivolous after all, right?

The sweet spot
When it comes to fizz, dry doesn’t, irritatingly, mean dry. The driest fizz will be labelled brut nature, which means it’ll have no residual sugar. I like to apply the Mary Poppins approach of “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” and go a step or two up to extra brut or brut, where there’s around 12g of residual sugar per litre. Next up on the sweetness scale is, confusingly, extra dry followed by dry, which has 17-32g of residual sugar. Beyond that you’re in the demi-sec of dessert champagne and one step away from a doux, which can contain upwards of 50g of sugar per litre and will basically be like drinking a delicious boozy syrup.

Sparkling substitutes
Prosecco: I’m all for a drink that people actually crack open midweek rather than leave to gather dust. Fruity, best drunk young and more pocket-friendly than champagne, it’s

unsurprising prosecco is the UK’s favourite. Stock up on everyday fizz with our green apple-rich Conte Priuli Oro.

Crémant de Bourgogne: this refined Burgundian sparkler is my drink of choice when champagne is off the menu. Keep a few bottles of La Cave des Hautes Cotes on hand for a dinner party. Guests won’t know what it is that they’re drinking, but they’ll like it!

Cava: always seems to get lumped in with prosecco, despite being made using the traditional bottle second fermentation method. Put it to the taste test with a bottle of our refreshing Brut Cava Prestige.

English sparkling wine: snapping at champagne’s heels, English vineyards had a bumper harvest thanks to our long hot summer, so watch out for the 2018 bottles to come. While you wait, brush up on your local knowledge with the cherry-rich Digby Fine English Leander Pink.

Find your fizz

ADD SOME SPARKLE

Too good to save for special occasions
£45
Go cava crazy with our party case
£66 for six
A truly fab fizz from Hampshire
£35
Try something new from New Zealand
£81 for six

Photographer: Nassima Rothacker / Hair and make-up artist: Lindsey Poole / Props stylist: Wei Tang

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