Your humble narrator attended a New Year’s Eve party recently, and made sure to bring plenty of sparkling wine to ring in the new year.
While everyone has heard of Champagne, the most famous of the sparkling wines, there are plenty of others.
Sparkling wines have been around for centuries, but the early attempts were prone to violent ruptures of the glass bottles. It was not until 1836 that a French Pharmacist determined the exact amount of additional sugar needed to be added to each bottle for the correct amount of carbon dioxide to be produced during secondary fermentation in the bottle.
Since then, the Champagne region of France has remained the king of sparkling wines, but bubbly can be produced pretty much anywhere that wine grapes are grown.
Among the French sparkling wines, your humble narrator prefers the Crémant de Bourgogne, made using the same methods as the more famous Champagne, but from grapes grown in the Burgundy region instead of in the Champagne region. Without the name-recognition of Champagne, the sparkling Crémant de Bourgogne wines are every bit as good, but usually half the price.
The Spanish make a sparkling wine called Cava, using the same production methods as Champagne, but substituting native Spanish grapes such as Macabeu and Parellada, instead of the typical Chardonnay grapes used in France.
The Italians are famous for Prosecco, a sparkling wine made from the Moscato grape that is perhaps best known for being significantly less expensive than Champagne, largely due to a more industrialized production process that performs the secondary fermentation in giant steel vats instead of in each individual bottle.
Lest you think that sparkling wines were solely the preserve of the old-world wine countries, despair not, gentle reader, as we produce plenty of sparkling wine right here in Canada.
Your humble narrator’s favourite Canadian sparkling wine is the Cipes Brut from the Summerhill Pyramid Winery in the Okanagan Valley of BC. The Cipes Brut was a pioneer of sparkling wine in Canada, with their first release in 1992, made from 70% Riesling, 20% Pinot Blanc, and 10% Chardonnay.
The Cipes Brut is made in the traditional Champagne method, with a secondary fermentation occurring in each bottle, with the cellar workers slowly rotating each bottle by hand over several months to coax out the yeast sediment from each bottle before being disgorged and rebottled.
Despite the labour-intensive production method, this bottle retails for around $30, and is your intrepid liquor reporter’s go-to sparkling wine, with notes of apple and pear on the nose, followed by a toasty finish from the time spent sitting on the lees.
Looking towards the center of the universe, the wineries of Ontario boast dozens of examples of sparkling wines. Faithful readers may recall your humble narrator’s ongoing infatuation with the Tawse Winery from the Niagara peninsula, perhaps better known as the unprecedented four-time winner of the Canadian Winery of the Year award.
The Tawse Winery is best known for their Bordeaux-style blends, but they also have loyal followers of their sparkling wines. With a Riesling-based sparkling wine in the $20 range, and a Chardonnay-based sparkling wine in the $26 range, both wines are bargains when compared to their French counterparts.
Your humble narrator prefers their slightly more expensive sparkling wine made from a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Gris. Spending a full 12 months on the lees (dead yeast cells) after secondary fermentation has completed lends notes of toast and minerality to the finish.
Those who prefer a more crisp and floral sparkling wine will prefer the less expensive Riesling-based sparkling wine, which is bursting with apple and citrus flavours.
Whatever your pleasure, pick a Canadian sparkling wine for your next celebration. In fact, buy two, as they tend to be half the price of their French equivalents!
