Here's a bottle capped with a traditional cork stopper. The wire holds it on because the pressure of the bubbles could cause the cork to pop out, wasting the wine or injuring somebody. When you uncork the bottle, you must hold onto the cork firmly with one hand, hold the cork still and grip it, whilst twisting the bottle with your other hand.
The foil is to conceal the air gap between the top of the wine and the cap. This varies and might upset the customer who thinks he is being short-changed. The gold of the foil adds a touch of glamour and class.
A wine label often tells you the wine, the grower, the producer, the country of origin. You might choose one category only (you want wine from France, rather than South America, or Australia, or one of the latter instead of the former, either to match your food, the atmosphere of the restaurant or event, your companion, or your budget.
For the same reasons, you might wish to check and select all categories, from the wine list. If you are in a supermarket you might look at the labels on the bottles on the shelves. In a wine shop you could compare two bottles at different prices.
Lets look at sparkling wines, often ordered as a pre-dinner drink at dinners, cocktail parties, opening night of conferences or the last night dinner, and of course celebrations such as weddings. You can have the full on big bubbles or the teeny bubbles, c r e m a n t (I have to spell the word out with spaces because spell checker wants to change the word to creaming).
Sugar In Your Wine - Let's be brutal
Most champagne is brut, which means dry. You can't taste any sugar. It's only 0-12 g/l (grams per litre) usually 9.
Below that is Brut Nature / Bruto Natural / Naturherb / Zero Dosage meaning 0=3 g/l which has occurred naturally and stays after fermentation, but no d o s a g e (spellchecker wantedisagree is added.
Crémant d'Alsace, Appellation crémant d'Alsace controlée, Dopff, au moulin, Cuvée Julien.
Champagne and Cava
Champagne is the king, Cava is the queen, Prosecco is the Jack. Cava comes from Spain south of Rioja. P r o s e c c o comes from Italy. (I had to separate the letters. Spell checker changed the word to process.)
Cheap sparkling wine from Australia is made by pumping carbon dioxide into it. Don't worry about it. You can't even find it in the UK. It's not worth shipping it across the world. But if you want cheap sparkling wine and you can't tell the difference, it's good for your budget. Big bubbles.
Prosecco - lots of it about. Big bubbles which collapse quickly in the glass, so drink up fast.
Cava is made like champagne and has a fine mousse, smaller bubbles.
I just did a tasting comparison of two Cavas. One was mixed with Chardonnay, popular with buyers because they recognise the name and know what it is. Cheaper, strong flavour of acidic grape or lemon flavour. (Fine for me. Why spend more?)
The other one was mixed with two grapes which most people don't know, to add more flavour, more subtle flavour.
However, taking the reserve cava I compared it with champagne and got different results.
Reserve means reserved in the bottle.
The other Cava was a mix of three grapes, the second two adding flavour, the 'biscuit' aroma, more subtle, less strong acid.
First sniff and sip, the Champagne was strong aroma and fruity. Cava didn't smell of anything much. Yet, second sipping, cava tasted and smelled of nothing, Champagne had no aroma but a slightly lemony, fruity flavour.
Just proves what was discovered years ago by whisky makers, and more recently by wine makers. Your average person can tell the difference between a cheaper wine and a more expensive glass first time around. So serve your expensive wine first. By the time they have reached the second, they can't tell the difference in the aromas and flavours and in any case are too happy to care. (Your wine buffs and sommeliers will know the difference.)
My wine expert says the cava has a rubber smell, stronger but not so nice. I must admit that on third tasting the cava smells aromatic, but Champagne of not so much.
So I am what you might call a cheap date, easily satisfied with the cheaper cava.
I do find you have to leave a gap for your taste buds to recover. Drink water. Then go back to the wine to appreciate the aroma. Like perfume and bad smells, you start to get used to what is in the air and only notice when you are given something new and completely different.
Stop talking, sniff, sip, to enjoy the full effect and appreciate what you are paying for.
Champagne is 12-12 and a half per cent alcohol.
Cava is 11 to 11 and a half per cent alcohol.
You wouldn't think it would make much difference, but it does. For the total inebriated, grinning and singing effect you need champagne. Too much of it, two or three glasses, and without food you, or rather I, will be talking loudly, grinning like a maniac, swaying off my high heels, needing to sit down.
appellation - naming, from appel name (Je m ' a p p e l Angela - I (me/myself) am called/named Angela or I call myself Angela)
Champagne - only made in the Champagne region, nobody else allowed to claim they are Champagne (although some claim to use method Champagnoise, same method as used in the Champagne region)
Controlée - controlled
Crémant - creamy or 'bubbly' French made outside Champagne
de d' French for of, d followed by apostrophe before a vowel
Alsace - region of France and Germany which changed hands from one country to another through history, giving us the word Alsatian where the dogs come from, very pretty architecture, great place to visit as a tourist
au - at the, á is at so it turns to au for at the (masculine word) or á la before a feminine word and here moulin is masculine so it is au
moulin - windmill - and you can see the small red windmill symbol above the name Dopff
cuvée - parcel of wine, a blend, container from one maker
Julien - French male name, English equivalent Julian, the person who did the selection, such as the wine maker or the company's chief taster and blender
Vintage, age, year
Having decided on your preferred wine, you might also, finally, check the vintage. A good sommelier would have checked for you and will present the bottle with a question, "You ordered the 20011, sir/ madam?" Or he will apologise, "I'm sorry. The one listed on the menu was the 2011, but we've run out, so I can only offer you the 2010."
I used to think the sommelier was being pernickety. (The sommelier is the wine expert and man employed by restaurant to buy their stock of wine and explain it to customers and ensure it is served correctly). Later I thought the sommelier was obliged to tell us customers because of trades descriptions acts, to guard against a customer writing a bad review of the restaurant or asking for money back.
Now I know that the year makes a big difference. Firstly to the quality. A year with early rains and storms might mean a ruined crop, half thrown away. The result is poor wine,
and cheap wine because nobody wants it.
More rarely, in the case of old bottles bought for display rather than drinking, it could mean scarcity in a year famous for something else. That could be the start of a famous vineyard, a war or coronation, or the buyer's birthday in a baby boom year. Therefore higher prices are paid by investors hoping eventually to sell on to museums and collectors.
(Recently it was discovered that fraudulent bottles of famous years connected with the American revolution and other dates had been manufactured with fake labels and sold for high prices. This was reported in the trade and in national newspapers. If you are interested you can check that and follow it up on the internet.
(I shall be adding more to this and other posts so come back later. Please follow my posts and link to me on linked or Facebook.)
Maison A n t e c h is the maker (family of A n t e c h) in Limoux - they sell more than a million bottles. £11.95, c r e m a n t (sparkling wine not made in France not champagne, not with another name such as Clairette or Blanquette, sold by Berry Brothers of London.
Berry Brothers have a shop near Green Park and Piccadilly in London and an on line trade business (read trade and retail info on the internet). Berry Brothers run tastings of several kinds, from trade walk around events to seated dinners for the public. I have been to several.
Glossary
Blanc - white
blanche - white, make white, girl's name
Blanquette - small white berry / grape - e t t e is feminine for small in French where nouns are male or female, just as in English ships are known as she, especially but not exclusively those with feminine names such as QEII
brut - dry
Champagne - from the region of Champagne
Clairette - Clairette grape, local to the South of France
c r e m a - cream
c r e m a n t - creamy on top like espresso coffee, a sparkling wine from any region other than Champagne but made in the same way (except for Clairette de Die and Blanquette de Limoux which are allowed to have their own distinctive name)
de - of (French)
Die - name of a village north of Marseille
d o s a g e - dose - small amount added
Limoux - a place name, a particular village, if you are interested see map of Languedoc (tongue of Oc - Languedoc is their language, Occitan are the people, SE from Toulouse towards N a r b o n n e (Spell check wanted to turn that into carbine)
maison - house, nowadays often the company name
nature - natural, nothing added
par - by
produit - product
Gascon/ Gascony from the Spanish border to the Gironde including the left bank of Bordeaux (border with waters or eaux; eau is French for water, add x for plural)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker and author.
