Festive fizz! Print E-mail
Written by Carolle Doyle, 2005   
What, I wonder, did we do before Dom Perignon invented champagne? All the milestones of our lives are seen through a glass of bubbles, for nothing else has quite the same festive ring about it. What wedding is ever toasted in anything but sparkling wine? Ships are launched with it and sporting victors send great, spuming fountains into the air. Those bubbles speak volumes to us, for every 'pop' of a cork is a celebration of the heart.

Sparkling wine doesn't just mean champagne, of course, because every wine-producing country makes the bubbly stuff too, but only that small, northern part of France can claim to make champagne. At its best nothing can really beat each toasty, finely-frothing mouthful, whether that be Krug or Bollinger, Roederer or, indeed, Dom Perignon itself. At its worst, however, champagne can be sour and thin. In between are some fine champagnes and some reasonable ones that do not break the bank.

Champagne comes from the province that bears its name in north-east France around the two centres of Reims and Epernay. Centuries ago fermentation would often stop in these cold northlands and not begin again until the warmth of spring. The refermenting wine shattered flimsy 17th-century bottles but with the coming of sturdier English bottles, a new wine was born and it was sparkling.

Even though the abbot of Hautvillers, Dom Perignon, was credited with inventing this sparkling wine in the 17th century, the serious business of making champagne that we would recognise today was pioneered by a woman, the widow (Veuve) Cliquot at the start of the 19th century.

Champagne is made by the methode traditionnelle, which simply means that the wine goes through a second fermentation in the bottle which, in its turn, produces bubbles. It is helped by the addition of a liqueur de tirage, a dose of wine, sugar and specially developed yeasts, to aid refermentation. After this second fermentation, the champagne is then disgorged once more into its final bottle and corked. The process is complicated, which is why even a cheap champagne will cost far more than its still wine equivalent.

It is the fat, green grapes of Chardonnay and small, black grapes of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier that are blended together to produce that classic, biscuity aroma of champagne. Blanc de blancs is made from Chardonnay alone, while rosé champagne is usually made by adding red wine rather than letting the colour leach out of the skin of the black Pinot Noir grapes as one would for still wine.

English version

Champagne producers make much of their chalk hills and cool climate, but of course, there are chalk hills sharing the same cool climate just across the Channel. Our British sparkling wine, made in the same methode traditionelle, is lovely stuff. Nyetimber vineyard stretches across the rolling downland of West Sussex and produces sparkling wine made in the same manner and with the same grape varieties as the Champenois. It is, quite simply, very fine wine indeed and regularly sweeps the board for gold medals at international wine competitions.

It took an American couple, Stuart and Sandy Moss, to think up the idea of making this classic wine in England. They bought the ancient manor of Nyetimber exactly 1,000 years after it was recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 (Nyetimber meaning "new timbered house") and made their first vintage in 1992. It was a vintage that rocked the wine-making world, for they took it to Paris where it came top of a blind tasting of sparkling wines.

It's a reputation that has grown, not through any marketing or advertising hype, but merely because the wine itself is so very good. This is the wine that the Queen chose for her Golden Wedding celebrations. The Mosses sold Nyetimber to songwriter Andy Hill of Bucks Fizz fame in 2001. He and his wife Nicola are equally passionate about the wine as, indeed, they should be.

If Nyetimber has taken on the Champenois, then the Champenois themselves have taken on the New World. The great houses of Champagne have spread their wings far beyond the borders of Epernay and Reims. California has become a second home to many. Charles Krug set up a winery in the Napa Valley in the 19th century, Domaine Chandon presides over its sparkling wine cellars and a superb restaurant, and as for Mumms, it has sent its sparkling wine from the sunny Napa Valley all over the world.

Spanish style

These Californian wines are champagne in everything but name, yet the trinity of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are not the only grapes that can be made into sparkling wine. Spanish cava may be made by the same methode traditionelle but the grape juice that lies in the vats is usually a blend of the native Spanish grapes, Macabeo, Parellada and Xarello.

Parellada is the most aromatic of these vines, giving a slight lemony fragrance, but cava is not a sparkling wine that is noted for its aromatic qualities. Yet it is cava's very neutrality that makes this my first choice when looking for a great party wine. Whenever I want to serve sparkling wine by the case rather than the bottle, I always choose a good cava, knowing that everyone will like it.

Somerfield's cava has just the fine bubbles and clean flavour that you should look for, being made from the fruit of 15-year-old vines that have delved deep down into the soil for nourishment without automatic irrigation that can make the fruit insipid.

Not all cavas are made from purely Spanish varieties, for the Marques de Monistrol cava seleccion especial rosé is the most luscious strawberry pink and is a blend of Pinot Noir and the local Monastrell grape. The Monsitrol Estate has been owned by the same family since the 17th century so generations have grown up with wine-making in their blood. Try this, for it is a wine of great delicacy and style where all the delectable flavours of the grape shine through and is my choice for a summer celebration.

In Italy it is the Muscat grape that gives us that most well-known of Italian sparkling wines, Asti. Its most famous brand, Asti Spumanti, is sold by the million cases around the world. Asti itself is named after the province in Piedmont hard up against the Alps where this sparkling wine is made.

Sweet and light, low in alcohol and completely frivolous, I have always loved Asti and I always will. There is something quite irresistible about that perfumed aroma of muscat grapes and although wine snobs may look down their noses at this most festive of wines, it is far superior to a thin champagne at twice its price.

The producers of Asti keep the partly fermented juice in pressurised steel tanks called autoclaves at low temperature until it is needed, at which point it is finished, bottled and shipped. Asti should be prized for its freshness and youth rather than looking for a depth or complexity that simply is not there. Moscato d'Asti has more subdued bubbles but, to me, it has an ethereal quality that ranks it in my top favourites.

There was a time when champagne itself was every bit as sweet as Asti, for the first dry (Brut) champagne wasn't produced until 1874. Decades later, during Edwardian times when our forefathers drank champagne (rather naughtily out of showgirls' slippers!), the wine that they drank was sweet. Sweet (Demi-Sec) champagne is still made, but in the UK we seem to have lost the taste for it.

Champagne shouldn't be a wine simply for toasts or as an aperitif; choose wisely and you can find a champagne to take you right through dinner. Claude Taittinger has produced just such a champagne, and although it is still described as dry, it has a richness and smoothness that makes Taittinger Nocturne a wine to linger over.
 
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