© by Nigel Lelew * This Month Its sparkle all the way this morning Ellie ... I thought it was about time that we looked at some champagnes and some fizz ... find out what the difference is ...and then answer that all important question ... is there going to be enough to go round over the millennium! And then ... of course it's a good excuse to break open a couple of bottles here in the studio too! But we have an even better excuse Ellie, to drink Champagne here in the studio toady ... a little bird told me it was your birthday today ... Happy Birthday Ellie! * Champagne and Fizz Don't you think theres a little something extra that comes from celebrating a special occasion by popping the cork on a bottle of fizz! It somehow adds a bit more sparkle. But what exactly is in the bottle and how does it get there ... well all will be revealed! Well lets start with Champagne, and this is where we start getting down to the legal use of names. Champagne is only able to be called champagne if its been made from certain grape varieties and is produced in the Champagne area around Reims in France ... its on a line about 80 miles away from Paris going towards the Luxembourg border. So sparkling wine from anywhere else in the world cannot legally be called Champagne even if its been made in exactly the same way. So the French have the monopoly on Champagne ... and they're particularly protective about it for purely commercial reasons! So what are the grape varieties in Champagne. Well I guarantee there'll be a few surprised people when they hear this. We've talked before Ellie about making white wine from black grapes ... well some Champagne is made totally from black grapes. And what are the grapes that are allowed ... well another surprise ... The king of Burgundy, Pinot Noir ... the darling grape of the new world, Chardonnay and a little known black grape Pinot Meunier a cousin of Pinot Noir. Now Champagne can be made from one, two or all three of these grapes, but they will hardly ever tell you which on the label. But there is a way you can tell ... well partly anyway ... Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs are words sometimes found on Champagne. Literally they mean white from white and white from black. So a Blanc de Blancs Champagne is made entirely from Chardonnay, (white from white), and a Blanc de Noirs is made entirely from a blend of the Pinots ... Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. OK Ellie ... how do they get the bubbles into the bottles then ... ? Sorry that's unfair I know ... but how do the wines become sparkling ... they certainly don't put wines through a Sodastream! Well the first stage to making a fizz is to make a still wine ... one which is fairly neutral, light and highly acidic. So after the base wine has been made in the usual way, the wine is bottled in the characteristic heavy bottles, some yeast and sugar is added to each bottle, and a beer bottle cap, a crown cap, is fitted. That starts another fermentation in the bottle that does a number of things. It gives off that all important carbon dioxide bubbles are then trapped in the bottle, it raises the alcohol content of the light base wine and it leaves an all important sediment in the bottle ... the lees ... which over time gives some of the characteristic flavours to both Champagne and other fizz. But then once the lees have done their job, they need to come out without releasing the bubbles ... people won't pay for cloudy Champagne! ... so the bottles are turned upside down to allow the sediment to settle on the upturned crown cap. The neck of the bottle is then frozen, turned upright, the cap removed and the plug of frozen Champagne with all the sediment in, is removed before the bottle is topped up and as its characteristic cork fitted ... and hey presto ... theres Champagne! The burning question then ... will there be enough Champagne to go around. The answer is most definitely yes, so you don't have to rush out and buy your Millennium bottle now, contrary to some of the scare stories. If there was a shortage, surely most of the high street off-licences and supermarkets wouldn't be offering deals on Champagne would they? There is a slight caveat, however. If you are looking for a Champagne from a particular Champagne house and vintage that's when stocks may start to run low and you'd be best advised to buy now ... but that's only a minority of people who will have such specific needs I would suggest. So that's Champagne Ellie! There isn't a Champagne shortage, so we will all be able to celebrate the Millennium the way we want to ... and finally, Ellie and I will be tasting a Champagne shortly as well as one of the many other bottles of fizz around ... so stay with us! The Tasting Well it's time to pop the cork on a couple of sparklers this morning ... and after last months struggle with a reluctant cork, I decided to chicken out and open these two a couple of minutes ago! OK the first wine we're going to try is actually a sparkling wine from Spain, called Cava. Its made in exactly the same way as champagne, but from completely different grape varieties. OK its Freixenet Cordon Negro in a very distinctive matt black bottle. * Colour Well it's a wonderful pale straw colour ... and the mousse, the bubbles are fairly vigorous, which is typical of Cava * Aroma It's a fresh aroma, with a slight hint of honey * Taste OK lets take a glug ... its full of fizz ... a refreshing kind of acidic fruit taste at first but then the finish turns to a sweeter honey taste that lingers OK so that was a Spanish Cava, Freixenet Cordon Negro, in that matt black bottle, a refreshing fizz with a honey finish from the Co-op at £5.99 which is £1.50 a bottle off the normal price. OK so now's the time to try a Champagne ... and I must admit that it's a value for money champagne from the Co-op which is offered via the 'grey market' with spectacular savings. Now the grey market is something that the Co-op have almost pioneered ... rather than sourcing their Champagne through usual wholesalers here in the UK, they have gone to Europe to supply their wines, from wholesalers in other EU countries and that way are able to offer huge savings ... and it seems to be a regular feature with the Co-op too. OK this wine is Piper Heidsieck Brut Champagne ... it's a non-vintage, which means that its made from grapes from different harvests rather than one particular year ... so lets have a look at this one ... * Colour So lets look at the colour ... again it's a pale straw colour and notice that once its poured the bubbles disappear ... but that doesn't mean that the wine is flat as we'll see. * Aroma OK so lets get the nose in ... it's a very subtle aroma ... with some yeast on the nose. * Taste OK lets go for the all important taste ... and as soon as it goes in the mouth you know that the mousse is still there ... well its certainly a fresh taste with some crisp acidic fruit in there ... it's a soft taste and one which has length ... it lingers on the pallet ... that's a great Champagne and one that wone a bronze medal earlier this year in at the International Wine Challenge. So that's Piper Heidsieck Brut Champagne which the Co-op are offering at £13.99 which is £5 off the usual price which works out at over 25% off ... now do you think they'd do that kind of thing if there was a general shortage of Champagne! ... definitely no...and watch out for further 'grey market' Champagnes at the Co-op in the coming months * Next Month Well next month Ellie we're off to the east of France ... in fact to an area that thinks its in Germany ... Alsace ... and we'll be exploring the particular character that sets Alsace poles apart from the rest of France.
|
