For Champagne Bubbles, Smaller Is Better

Roland Piquepaille writes "During this holiday season you don't need a special occasion to drink champagne. You can do it everyday, providing you use moderation and common sense. But did you know that champagne taste better when it has tiny bubbles? This is the result of a very serious study published by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and more recently found by the Discovery Channel. And why do you think champagne taste better when carrying smaller bubbles? The answer is pretty obvious. More bubbles are releasing the champagne's flavor and aroma into your mouth. This summary gives you more details. In the mean time, let's all drink champagne!"

Comments

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only Champagne if it's bottled in Champagne, France. Otherwise, it's sparkling wine.

Re:Actually...

[phayes]

Due to a French court decision a few years back, it is now illegal (in europe & other countries that respect "l'Appelation d'Origine Controlle" or AOC that you see on most european wines) for wines grown outside of the region of champagne that use the secondary fermentation process to say so on the bottle. According to the Champagne winegrowers association the mere mention of the use of "methode champenoise" even if it is in small print on the back lable was enough to confuse the public into thinking that it came from Champagne (& was thus protected by the AOC).

This happened around the time Rambus was trying to litigate the rest of the world into submission instead of producing a better product & letting the market decide. Draw your own conclusions, but this was when I stopped buying champagne.

Another thing that turned me off champagne is that 90% of the champagne that is produced is what is called a "Vin d'Assemblage" or fabricated wine. Most wines are the product of a single year & region. This is why you can see both the origin (AOC again) & the year on the bottle. However, this is not usually the case for champagnes. Just before the wine is ready for the secondary fermentation it is tasted. To eliminate the differences in taste from year to year, wine fom different years (& often sugar) is added so that the champagne will have a predictable taste.

So, unless it is an exceptional year, wine from champagne does not have a date on the bottle. As they are fabricated wines, they age badly & must be dunken young.

Champagnes that DO have a date (Called Milesime in french) ARE exceptional. Unforunately they also sport a price tag to match. You can leave these bottles in a wine cellar & they get better & better -- to a point as really old champagnes loose their C02.

There are a lot of really excellent sparkling wines out there that are cheaper than most champagnes. My personal favorite is the Vouvray Petillant from the Loire valley region in France. These are not fabricated wines, so some years are better than others, but in 1990 I put a case of 12 bottles away to be opened on new years eve 2001. There were other "champagnes" served that night, including some very expensive bottles but none was as fine as the Vouvrays & the case of 12 was cheaper than a single bottle of the good "Real Champagne".

Re:If only

[fastidious edward]

If you buy from a good wine shop they should know. Not only do small bubbles enhance the tastes, they result in a creamy (rather than fizzy) texture which is most welcomed by the back of my throat as well as the taste buds, the stomach and the mind.

If you want fizzy wine to be 'a bit different' to get drunk on choose any cheap plonk (Cava fits the bill well and is also tasty), if you want a decent champagne you can get this for ~USD35 at a specialist wine shop or specialist (staffed by those who are passionate about wince, rather than in-between semesters or on remand) wine section of a shopping mall. Non-champagne sparkling wines are also improving in quality (And sometimes are excellent), but don't expect anything too cheap, if it is cheap it'll get you drunk but won't be the amazing experience good champagne can be.

Don't follow the big names either. For example Bollinger only starts getting good well past USD70/bottle, a lower priced bottle can be just as good at much less cost.