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Is Champagne a Must on New Years Eve?

Maybe Not?

Ask anyone “What is THE DRINK to welcome in the New Year: the one wine that you should open at the stroke of midnight?”  And most everyone will tell you immediately…Champagne.  Yup, admit it, that’s what you thought too.  So here is the question we asked ourselves: “Is spending a small fortune for a quality French Champagne really worth it?”  We suspect that the wine snobs among us will say yes with immediacy and a certainty that will make your head spin.  But for the rest of us, there are definitely viable alternatives (even those who thought Champagne was the only answer).

First, the fact is that there is no magic to being Champagne, other than that the grapes were grown in the Champagne region of France.  If not grown in the Champagne region of France, the same exact wine made anywhere else (even in other regions of France) is called sparkling wine.  Any sparkling wine can be good, so in that regard there is no magic to being called Champagne.

Second, this is not to say that Champagne should not be what you drink, only that there are excellent alternatives that you should consider, especially if price is an issue.  So instead of buying cheap Champagne because you think you have to, we’ll tell you about those alternatives. 

OK, so with that said, let’s get started.

Let’s talk about what we wanted to accomplish for our readers.  Our intent was not to try every Champagne available this year and tell you about all of them, nor was it to taste one or two and give them a review.  What we want to do, is help you have a most satisfying “taste of the bubbly” this New Year’s Eve.  And prove to you that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get quality.  So we tried several different sparkling wines which we felt were typical of the style.  What we found might just surprise you.

We tasted a French Champagne, a Sparkling French Brut (Champagne from France that is not from the Champagne region), a Spanish Cava, and finally an Italian Prosecco. 

There were 6 of us involved in the tasting.  The bottles were all covered so no one knew what we tasted (called a “blind tasting”).  Then we compared what we liked and didn’t like about each.  We liked the Champagne the least and considering it was about 4 times the price of the others, this was in fact good news.  After all, why pay more than we have to, especially if we can get better taste for less.

At first tasting, it was split equally between the Prosecco, the Cava and the Sparkling Brut, but upon second tasting, the Prosecco and Cava began to separate themselves from the crowd. 

Here’s our composite review:

• The Champagne was bland with an unpleasant aroma compared to the others

• The Sparkling Brut had a lemon citrus flavor that was quite pleasant.  It was easy to drink, but offered nothing outstanding that made us want to buy more.

• The Cava had slight sweetness and more flavor than the others which made it quite attractive

• The Prosecco was soft, elegant and refreshing.  It had a lime taste that stayed with you after you were done with the tasting (called the “finish” and is a good thing in a wine).  And most important, the more time it was exposed to air, the more it grew on all of us. 

By the end of the night all but one of us agreed the Prosecco was the best.

Ok, now what does this mean?  You don’t need Champagne to drink a good sparkling wine.  As we said, French laws mandate that only wines made in the region of the named city can be called that wine.  Thus only France makes Burgundy and Bordeaux, while the rest of the world makes Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon which are basically their equivalent.  So Champagne is sparkling wine that comes from the Champagne region of France, everything else is sparkling wine.  Other then that one distinction, they are interchangeable. 

But wait, we saved the best news for last!

The Champagne which none of us liked cost 4 times more than the other bottles we tasted.  The Prosecco, our number one in the tasting was less than $10 and we’ve had many Prosecco equally as good for about the same price.  The Cava and the French Brut were also about $10.  There certainly are alternatives to Champagne.  Based upon this tasting, Prosecco gets our suggestion for New Year’s Eve.

So why pay the extra dollars for the name, especially when in a blind tasting, it was clear that other countries (even other parts of France) make sparkling wines that equal Champagne.

~WA