{"id":2344,"date":"2023-04-28T17:54:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T17:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2344"},"modified":"2023-04-28T18:00:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T18:00:59","slug":"champagne-vs-the-rest-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2344","title":{"rendered":"Champagne vs. the Rest of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sparkling wine is made almost everywhere that grapes are grown.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had sparklers from France (Champagne, the Loire), Napa Valley, Sonoma County, South Africa, Australia, Long Island and Brazil (yes, Brazil).\u00a0 But only the sparkling wines of the Champagne region in northern France can be called Champagne.\u00a0 Real Champagne can only be made from three grapes, one of which is white (Chardonnay) and two reds (Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier).\u00a0 Any sparkling wine that has pretentions of real Champagne must be made by the <em>m\u00e9thode champenoise<\/em>, with still white wine double fermented in the bottle.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/20190917_175744.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2345 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/20190917_175744-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"190\" height=\"338\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So when you\u2019re looking to buy a bottle of bubbles, which one should you choose?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why are you buying it?<\/strong> If it\u2019s to drink by the pool on a hot summer afternoon, there\u2019s no sense spending big money for a great wine.\u00a0 There are many California sparkling wines that are affordable and quite good, <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1347\">Domaine Chandon<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=349\">Domaine Carneros<\/a> being the best known.\u00a0 On the other hand, if the purchase is for a romantic dinner or a big celebration, go for the real stuff.\u00a0 It will cost you more; it\u2019s hard these days to find any Champagne for less than $40, but that\u2019s what romance and celebrations cost.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Where are you?<\/strong> If you\u2019re in Italy, drink Prosecco.\u00a0 In Spain, order the Cava.\u00a0 In Germany, it\u2019s Sekt.\u00a0 In other words, do what the locals do.\u00a0 Note that in California and Long Island, the people there do drink imported Champagne as well as the local sparkling wines.<\/li>\n<li><strong>How much do you want to spend?<\/strong> As mentioned, real Champagne doesn\u2019t come cheap.\u00a0 But there are also many American sparklers that are fairly expensive.\u00a0 For example, a bottle of Domaine Carneros Le R\u00eave can set you back up to $125.\u00a0 And, without mentioning names, there are some wines with bubbles in them that are very cheap but aren\u2019t even worth the ten bucks or less that you\u2019ll pay for them.\u00a0 So be reasonable, set your price point and then buy accordingly.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Have you tried them?<\/strong> Just because a wine comes from Champagne doesn\u2019t guarantee that you\u2019ll like it.\u00a0 We like most that we\u2019ve had, but there are some that just don\u2019t tickle our palates as much as, say, a Sparkling Pointe from Long Island.\u00a0 Wine tasting rule #1 is <em>know what you like<\/em>: If there\u2019s a sparkling wine you particularly like, by all means buy it.\u00a0 If your intent is to impress your friends with your wine expertise (never a very good idea), you\u2019d better try it first.\u00a0 There are gems at relatively low prices and there are expensive Champagnes that, to our tastes, just aren\u2019t worth the expense.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s a good idea to experiment, just to find out which is which.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do you remember what it\u2019s called?<\/strong> That\u2019s wine tasting rule #2.\u00a0 If, say, you were at a party and the host poured you a glass of something that knocked your socks off, ask what it is so you can buy it yourself.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not good at remembering names, write it down.\u00a0 A name like <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1476\">Tribaut Schlosser<\/a> doesn\u2019t exactly roll off the tongue and there\u2019s a good chance you wouldn\u2019t be able to pronounce it to the store clerk from memory alone.\u00a0 (By the way, it\u2019s Tree-boe Shlahs-er.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sparkling wine is made almost everywhere that grapes are grown.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had sparklers from France (Champagne, the Loire), Napa Valley, Sonoma County, South Africa, Australia, Long Island and Brazil (yes, Brazil).\u00a0 But only the sparkling wines of the Champagne region in northern France can be called Champagne.\u00a0 Real Champagne can only be made from three &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2344\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Champagne vs. the Rest of the World<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}