Champagne

[Jono]

I am not a lover of Champagne....my wife and I actually prefer Astis....however, one Champagne I have found that is actually quite good is Veuve-Clicquot Ponsardin Yellow Label. I find it to be a nice balance...not too dry...not too sweet with a nice flavor....and at an affordable price.

http://www.veuve-clicquot.com/home/u...l/yellow_label

[ratcheer]

My wife and I have always enjoyed Perrier Jouet.

Tim

[RoyalWater]

I don't recall if I have ever drank true champagne, from the designated region of France. I like Extra Dry, hate Brut, and can deal with Cold Duck and Spumante. My go to Extra Dry is Great Western. The best I have drank was Freixenet, which if memory serves is of Portuguese origin.

[craigthom]

It's a Spanish cava, which, if you've never had real champagne, is probably the closest thing you've had. Great for mimosas. I'm guessing you had the yellow bottle, since the black is the brut and is drier.

There are some decent California sparkling wines (Piper Sonoma, Domain Chandon, etc.), but most have nothing to do with champagne other than stealing the name.

A good rule of thumb is that if it says "champagne" on the label and isn't from France it isn't anything like champagne.

Given the wines you've listed you will probably be a lot happier with a demi sec.

As an experiment, if you feel like celebrating a special event with actual champagne the Moet & Chandon White Star may be just the ticket. I like my champagne drier, but to each his own.

[OscarV]

We went with the Taittinger Brut last night.
Beautiful light gold color, bubbles that never stopped and would break the surface in tiny tiny explosions.
Toasty fruit nose, dry but fruity taste.

[Gillman]

I had a number of brands of cava over the holidays and last night, a certain amount of a premium Cordoniu (I think it had the name of a monarch in it). I found the best of it excellent. It was not really reminiscent of Champagne, but more like a very good California sparkler. At the low end it was kind of appley and rough (and I confess I do not like appley Champagnes including some well-known marques), at the high end it was dry, elegant, "chalky" like fine Champagne can be. The top-flight Cordoniu mentioned was superb.

Gary

[TnSquire]

I don't drink Champagne much but when I do it is usually Moet White Star. I have a friend that buys it buy the case so I just drink his. lol.

[craigthom]

Twenty years ago I worked at a big liquor and wine store in Atlanta, and we, unfortunately, got what we took home at cost. I say unfortunately, because the way it worked was that we'd fill out tickets for what we took home, and come pay day the appropriate amount would be deducted. I wasn't making much money to begin with!

I think the only cavas we had were the Cordoniu (regular and deluxe) and the brut and extra dry Freixenet. The Cordoniu was what we drank. A lot. Cost back then was about $5 a bottle (retail was under $10). It was a buck more than the black bottle, but we thought it was worth it.

One new years eve a bunch of us chipped in about $40 each and bought one of every grand marque on the shelf. I readily admit that our ability to distinguish subtle differences vanished pretty quickly, but the Dom Ruinart, at about 60% of the price, was far better than the Dom Perignon. The Roederer was nice, but, since rap was young, it didn't have the name recognition yet.

[jeff]

My wife and I started drinking Martini and Rossi Asti Spumante when we were first married and enjoyed it for several years before venturing further into sparkling wines. We also enjoyed White Star, but now I find them both cloyingly sweet. Neither of us has the taste for sweet wines anymore, except for ports and other digestifs. We have tryed many of the high-end Champagnes; Belle Epoque, Dom Perignon, Crystal, etc. We find that for us, there are severe diminishing returns past say the $35 range. We now focus primarily on California Sparkling wines, most of which are owned in whole or part by famous Champagne houses. Roederer Estate, Mumm Napa and Chandon are a few of our favorites and I would encourage anyone visiting wine country to stop by all of them. Also the "J" winery produces some very nice sparklers. Our QPR favorite is Chateau St. Michelle from Washington State. Very nice wine at $11/bottle.

[barturtle]

I'm a fan of Segura Viudas Cava, the one with the pewter accents on the bottle, mid-$20s last I checked, they also have some lower end bottlings, but I haven't got around to trying them yet. This is a damn good sparkler for the price.

I also like "J" and have a nice Rose I picked up when I visited the winery, but I wouldn't normally justify the price, but then how often do I actually drink sparklers?