How to Make the Best Mimosa or Bellini – or a drink of strawberry

I do not believe in Mimosas or the sweetening of Champagnes and quality sparkling wines by means other than those of the wine maker’s. The idea of adding sugar (in the form of fruit juice or other additives) to a fine Champagne is frankly abhorrent.

I realize that most Americans who want to drink a Mimosa for instance do not much care what quality the sparkling wine is, as long as it has bubbles and is sweet. Inexpensive sparklers are made with cheap ingredients that while not designed specifically to give you a headache, will do just that. (Read post: Champagne headache -Why you don’t get them from Champagne). As a rule, I only drink Brut (sweetness level) Champagnes and sparkling wines. Recently I decided to design my own version of a Mimosa or Bellini. It only requires two ingredients. My version does not require adding a sweetened juice to it at all.

First, purchase a quality Sparkling wine demi-sec, while any Champagne (again demi-sec) will do. NV Schramsberg Crémant Demi Sec or Domaine Carneros 2006 Vermeil Demi-Sec Sparkling Wine are great lower cost alternatives to Champagne with a capital C. Also readily available is Veuve Clicquot Champagne Demi-Sec NV. (Hey, it is not going to be cheap when you use quality ingredients).  With my version, the demi-sec style supplies the required sweetness. Add to this two or three freeze-dried strawberry slices. I recently found these on a trip to Trader Joe’s. This changed the color ever so slightly with just the slightest hint of strawberry taste added to the drink.

Boisson de fraise (Drink of strawberry) -I find this version to be much more elegant, and will help avoid headaches brought on by drinking cheap sparkling wine with added sugar juice.

Best Buy on Dom Perignon – consider the American wineries

Ever since the 1976 wine competition termed the “Judgment of Paris”, when California (still) wines defeated French wines in a blind taste test, the domestic wine industry was forever changed. The resultant test altered the fortunes of Napa Valley wineries and the global wine industry as a whole, as it was revealed that French wines are in fact not unbeatable.

However, for some reason the French have managed to maintain their mystical hold on superior sparkling wine with Champagne. The notion that the Champenoise maintain a one-of-a-kind Terrior is difficult to argue. (Terrior refers to the unique soil including; drainage capacity, mineral content, the slope of the land, climate, as well as altitude and the length of the growing season). The French maintain that while some processes of Champagne production may be duplicated, their Terroir is unique, and impossible to replicate. The fact is that many of the quality sparkling wine makers, here in the US have not only duplicated the process, they may have improved upon it.

The major players in the American sparkling wine market all make their wines in the classic manner, “méthode champenoise”. Some go as far as to say, they are proud of the Terrior where their grapes are grown.

So my question to everyone living in the good “Ole US of A” is have you tried the best of the key American producers. By best I mean the Tête de Cuvée (“Head of the vat” or “the head of the class“). Everyone has heard of Dom Perignon.

However, Dom is merely the most famous of the “Best of” the house of Moët & Chandon. They also make a “Good” (NV Imperial) Better (Grand Vintage), and several other variations including Rosés.

Heck, many of the Champagne houses have made their names synonymous with the word Champagne. Names such as Cristal by Louis Roederer, La Grande Dame from Veuve Clicquot, La Grande Année, Bollinger’s best and Sir Winston Churchill from the house of Pol Roger, to name a few. The point is that many of us have ignored the best of what the American houses have to offer, and this is a mistake.

Oft times the American wineries make Tête de Cuvées that are just as good, and for a fraction of the price, that you would pay for their French counterparts.

One misleading item is how several American houses label their best.

Terms like; LD, which stands for “Late Disgorged” or “Extended Tirage”; are referring to the amount of time that their sparklers spend aging on the yeast. (See this blog site: Champagne and sparkling wine – Aging on the yeast). In addition, the fact is that very few people take time to investigate who these producers are and what they offer for their “Best”.

Wineries such as Domaine Carneros, Shramsberg, Gloria Ferrer, Iron Horse, Argyle, and J Winery all produce top rate Tête de Cuvées. Shop these wineries, on line, the next time you think you would like to drink Dom Perignon.

Check out some of the prices you can expect to pay for, what I consider to be the best value, in “Champagne” here in the United States.

Iron Horse 2002 Brut LD $85 + tax and shipping

1999 Gloria Ferrer Carneros Cuvée Brut LD – $50 +tax and shipping

2005 Domaine Carneros Le Rêve Blanc de Blancs Brut – +tax and shipping

2004 Schramsberg J. Schram Brut $100.00 Club price: $85.00 (Qty discount available) +

1997 J Vintage Brut, LD $65 + tax and shipping

Great Champagne for under $35 – One Exceptional Wine

I have drunk everything on the Total Wine retail shelf and have learned a lot about Champagne. I not only learn a lot by drinking it, but by serving it to others. I’m always interested in finding out what I simply call a “crowd pleaser” (wine so good that almost everyone notices).

Total Wine retails such a wine. As far as I can tell this Champagne is private labeled for them under the name of DeMargerie NV Grand Cru Brut. The origin of it is really Georges Vesselles a small grower producer with a family operation in the heart of the Champagne region.

DeMargerie NV Grand Cru Brut – is a remarkably elegant Champagne for the price. It is 90% Pinot Noir and 10% Chardonnay. For the novice you would be drinking a great Champagne. No, it’s not Dom Perignon, but it’s not meant to be. First, it is a (NV) non-vintage. It is however made from grapes grown in a Grand Cru. Grand Cru grapes rate the highest sale price on the market because the vineyard has been determined to optimize all of the elements required to grow high quality fruit from soil, slope, and even exposure to sunlight.

If you’re a novice just wanting to learn more about, Champagne and sparkling wine try them all. If you would like to start off knowing what a really great non-vintage Champagne can taste like, drink this bottle. Here in Charlotte, I don’t know anywhere you can purchase this bottle except for Total Wine.

Champagne – How to Better Enjoy an Expensive Champagne

Champagne and sparkling wines come in light, medium and full-bodied wines. If you’re not a seasoned drinker of sparklers, you might not know this. This categorization refers to something hard to distinguish to the casual drinker – mouth feel. (Especially when bubbles accompany it).

Champagne by its very nature tends to be lighter feeling in the mouth. The carbonation tends to contribute to that feeling. Full-bodied sparklers tend to inhabit the vintage and prestige vintage levels, and this equates to more expensive.

When however you should have the opportunity to drink a full-bodied sparkler, take the time to savor. These wines are more complex and tend to have more of the earthy flavors associated with yeast, brought on by the additional aging. Toasty nuts and breads can be used to describe the fragrance and taste of such rich, and textured sparklers.

However, there is one thing standing in the way of fully enjoying more expensive Champagnes, and that is temperature. I see nowhere where anyone recommends that you let your Champagne warm in the glass. This simple strategy can help one truly enjoy a premium Champagne.

Look at it this way. Hot numbs your taste buds, as will very cold. Champagnes, particularly the more expensive ones, tend to again be more complex, however nuanced.

Letting the wine warm a little in the glass will help you mine the complexity hidden beneath the chill. The bonus is being better able to manage the intricacies of what you are tasting.

The bubbles will keep the wine from tasting warm. More importantly, the wine should take on a more desirable characteristic that still wine drinkers will enjoy. The fizz will become a secondary element to the mouth feel. Yes, it will taste more like a beautiful very expensive white wine.

Admittedly, this is not for the novice wine drinker. Finding the meatier characteristic in Champagne is definitely for the more experienced wine connoisseur. That said, it could be, a more satisfying way for those who prefer still wine to satisfy their need to experience something new. Wine drinkers who don’t care for the effervescence of Champagne will find that a full-bodied sparkler, allowed to warm in the glass, will deliver a smooth white wine. It helps to fool your perception and I believe delivers the best white wine you can drink.

For this, I prefer Montaudon’s Class M, which I purchase here in Charlotte at Total Wine for just over $50. Other full-bodied Champagnes include Bollinger NV Special Cuvée and G.H. Mumm’s Cordon Rouge NV (a classic Champagne).

Be adventurous, let your Champagne warm a little and you will be rewarded with more of what you’ve heard all those snooty wine aficionados all talk about when they describe a particular wine.

What is a Crémant – in this case the best value in Champagne

Simply put a Crémant is a sparkling wine that is made (in France) outside of the Champagne region of France. It cannot be called Champagne legally but can still adhere to the wine making standards of its well-known predecessor.

I mention this because I have encountered what I consider now to be one of the best values in Champagne available to the American market. (That is as long as you have a Trader Joe’s available to you). Listen I have no affiliation with this company, but they seem able to establish some amazing relationships with wine suppliers in general.

It’s all about price and value. They were the first to supply a competent Champagne for under $20 here in the Charlotte market. (See previous post on “Best Value in Champagne”).

This new discovery for me while technically not Champagne, drinks like a  good one. Though not extremely complex, it exhibits all the qualities of a nice Champagne.  I have ignored this wine in the past because of its price point. I thought I knew that I couldn’t find anything good to drink at $10. I was wrong.

If you want to drink a good non-vintage Champagne but don’t want to pay a Champagne price purchase N.V. Blason de Bourgogne Crémant de Bourgogne Blanc de Noirs for $10.99. Any questions?

Champagne – What does Brut mean?

The sweetness of Champagne depends on the amount of sugar added at the end of the production process. There are six recognized degrees of sweetness:

¤       Extra Brut – no added sugar, bone dry

¤       Brut – very dry to dry

¤       Extra Dry – dry to medium dry

¤       Sec – slightly sweet

¤       Demi-sec – medium sweet to sweet

¤       Doux – very sweet, a dessert style champagne

Best Value in Champagne

An oft-asked question to me is what is the best value in Champagne. Obviously, no one wants to spend more than they have to, to enjoy a quality wine. Who can blame them. This is one of the reasons I taste almost every (domestic) sparkling wine I find available in the retail market here locally (Charlotte, NC). In truth, most of the best values are in domestic sparklers. The domestic sparklers that I recommend will stand up to discerning real Champagne drinkers. If you are a novice and want to try something less expensive than those I recommend, by all means. However, if you want to know what passes for NV (Non-Vintage) quality Champagnes that are reasonably priced then here you are:

$29.99 (on sale) J Vineyards “J Cuvée 20″ NV Brut Sparkling Wine at various wine shops is the best of the best when you can find it on sale. My favorite and a real crowd pleaser. Wins my blind tastings even matched against NV Champagnes.

$18.99 Henry-Detaly Champagne NV- Brut at Trader Joe’s – an authentic Champagne.  Very competent at this unbelievable price. I hope there’s a Trader Joes near you. (November 2011 – No longer available in Charlotte, NC Trader Joes)

$23.99 River Road Brut Russian River Valley Clara’s Cuvée at Total Wine – This sparkling wine is a classic. It is a quality American Sparkler that compares well with most all NV Champagnes.

($14.99 & up) Gruet NV blanc de noir Brut New Mexico Make sure you get the blanc de noir. My least favorite of the group but seems to get better as the vines age.

Champagne – How retailers can give it a bad name

Another way that sparklers get a bad rap is in their storage. Champagne and its quality sparkling wine competitors are very sensitive to temperature and light. More so than still wine.  You can find countless sites on the internet that tell you how to store Champagne. Paying attention to ideal temperature, avoiding temperature extremes, and shifts in temperature are all addressed and easy to find. However, most of us buy it and drink it. People who collect wine know how to store wine and don’t need any guidance. In my experience, there are only two categories of people that need guidance on storing Champagne.

The first are those who were given that bottle of Dom Perignon, for an anniversary and save it. They are not collectors and don’t have a proper place to store it. They put it in a closet or some old wine rack where they have some other wines. No problem, save for the fact that they keep it there for ten years. When they finally drink it, they wonder, “what’s the fuss all about”. Again, this group could profit by a trip to the internet. 

The second group falls into the unsuspecting victim category. Through no fault of their own, they purchase from a retailer whose primary business is not that of a wine store. (It has been my experience that most wine stores move there Champagnes and sparklers enough to avoid the damage that comes from storing the wine outside of controlled conditions). Purchasing sparklers from a large retailer like a Wal-Mart (yes they sell Champagne) or some grocery stores, where the stock does not move very fast can be disastrous. Sitting on a retail shelf under florescent lamp lighting is just OK, if it’s not for an extended period of time.

How the particular retailer moves their stock of sparklers can be critical to the quality. Only the most specialized wine retailers keep wine coolers and then most of them only keep their most expensive Champagnes inside. Their redeeming feature, if you will, is that they move their stock through sales, and the stock moves relatively quickly. Sparkling wines are more sensitive to light and temperature. Make sure you know the retailer and hopefully you can at least make some assumptions on how their stock moves. Hint: Dust on the bottle – not good.

Champagne headache (Why you don’t get them from Champagne)

When I ask people about Champagne they often, and I mean often, reply, “I don’t like it because it gives me a headache”.  “Oh really”, I reply, “and what Champagne were you drinking when you got this headache”?  Invariably the reply is “I don’t know I was at some wedding”. Well then most likely, you were not drinking Champagne. Just because it had bubbles in it didn’t make it Champagne. Quite the opposite, you were probably drinking what I would call a “headache in a bottle”. People do not often spring for Champagne at weddings, for obvious reasons. The reasons are so obvious I’ll state them for you. First would be the cost factor, and second that most people cannot tell the difference. (I give an example in an earlier posting of some very well to do people doing that exact thing here in Charlotte).

Bubbles translate out to celebration and fun. This actually dates back to the coronation of Hugh Capet being crowned King of France in 987 at the cathedral of Reims, located in the heart of the Champagne region. He started a tradition that brought successive monarchs to the region—with the local wine being on prominent display at the coronation banquets. The early wine of the Champagne region was a pale, pinkish wine made from Pinot noir (the bubbles came later).

When the bubbles did come, it was by accident and the wine makers tried to get rid of them. Then someone actually tried to taste it and discovered that they might be on to something. What’s funny is that Dom Perignon is credited with the discovery and with the following quote, “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!” The fact is that he tried most of his life to get rid of them (the bubbles).

Dom (I called him that) spent much of his life setting the groundwork for making Champagne a wine that will not give you a headache. He was a perfectionist and implemented such rules of winemaking including; aggressive pruning, dictating that vines should grow no higher than 3 feet and produce small yields. Harvesting was to be done early in the morning, when it was very cool, and that every care should be taken to keep the grapes intact. Grapes that were bruised or broken were rejected. He desired the grapes to be pressed as quickly and efficiently as possible to minimize the possibility of the grape skins leaching into the juice. He demanded a distinction be made between the different levels of pressings. The first press was to be done completely by the weight of the grapes on top of each other producing the highest quality wine. (This first pressing is used in the making of all quality Champagnes). His emphasis on limiting skin contact helped to produce truly white wine from red wine grapes.

The aforementioned obsession to make the best wine possible formed the basis for making Champagne. Think about it, a gentle pressing of the grapes is the juice used to make the still wine. This is the equivalent of extra virgin olive oil. Limiting the impurities that make the base wine along with all of the care and handling of the grapes form the basis for the rules and regulations on how Champagne is made. No wonder it costs more. In subsequent blogs I will write about the grapes themselves.

Headache in a bottle wine starts with cheap wine (the cheapest) sugar and bubbles that are either injected like soda or made in a vat. So remember if it did not come from a 90,000-acre region in France called Champagne you may be drinking an inferior product, in my opinion designed to “give you a headache”. Please visit again and learn more about the best wine in the world.

Champagne and sparkling wine – Aging on the yeast

The amount of time that a Champagne/sparkling wine spends on the yeast will, to a great degree, determines the quality of the finished product. Of course, the primary reason for this second fermentation is to create carbon dioxide (bubbles). However, the longer the yeast is kept in the bottle during this process the more complex, the more character, and the smoother it will be. For example, Argyle winery in Oregon has been able to deliver some high scoring sparklers based on extended aging on the yeast. Argyle provided the first American sparkling wine to score a 94 in Wine Spectator’s annual blind taste test. Their 1997 sparkler achieved this with lengthy aging (10 years). If we concede that, the quality of American sparkling wines do not equal that of “Champagne” it would seem to me that extended aging on the yeast could narrow the gap. Generally speaking, Champagnes are aged 15 months to 3 years for non-vintage, 3 to 4 years for vintage, 4 years and beyond for the Tête de Cuvées.

While most of the quality American sparkling producers adhere to these standards, it is still clear that no matter who is producing the wine, extended aging on the yeast is one way to deliver a higher quality sparkler.

It also makes sense that you can take any non-vintage Champagne or sparkling wine and make it better by extending the amount of time that it is aged on the yeast. Montaudon’s Classe M Champagne first introduced me to this concept. There is no mention on the label of a year and therefore they are probably blending several years of their reserve wines. Yet given the quality of this particular Champagne it does not strike me as unreasonable that it is aged on the yeast longer than a standard non-vintage. (Montaudon does not advertise how they make their wines).

Simply stated; take a non-vintage Champagne or sparkling wine and leave it on the yeast as long as you would a Prestige vintage. I am intrigued enough to purchase a new bottle I just spotted on the shelf the other day. Domaine Chandon Etoile Brut, from California, says on the label aged five years on the yeast. I can’t wait to do a tasting, of this non-vintage (aged like a prestige vintage) sparkling wine this weekend and report.