Your favorite bubbly at < $15.01

[wondersofwine]

Bucko,
Thanks for reposting your notes. The Chandon Blanc de Noir is one I've enjoyed in the past although I don't drink much sparkling wine.

[Innkeeper]

The sometimes credible Matt Kramer has an interesting piece in the 11/30/03 WS. In it he maintains though having tried many, he never liked Prosecco out of a bottle. Then one day in recent years he was served bulk Prosecco in a restaurant in Venice. It was drawn by tap, and served like draft beer. Was he impressed? The long and the short of it is that he is moving himself and his family to Venice for seven years!

[Thomas]

I suppose that's a good enough reason to tack onto accepting the post of a new location by the magazine for which one works...

[Tyrrell]

On New Year’s Day I had a crew of friends over to taste sparklers for my big event. We were too busy enjoying ourselves to take good notes but I’ll post what I remember. So here they are in order of increasing preference.

Freixenet Brut (Pava), perhaps you have to be around my age to recall this phenomenon but in the late 70’s and early 80’s there was a type of candy that was sold called “pop rocks”. Children would put a sort of sugar dust on their tongue that would, after being exposed to the child’s saliva, explode. I recall the experience of small painful explosion’s happening on my tongue as novel and sickly sweet but not particularly pleasant. Apart from the lack of sweetness we found this drink to be very reminiscent of pop-rocks. We used a cup of it for the cheese fondue, the fondue turned out to be the best that I’ve ever had. I’m tempted to say it was good because we let it sit in the warm fondue pot for hours and let the flavors blend rather than because we made it with liquid pop-rocks but you never know.

Domaine St. Michelle Cuvee Brut and Blanc de Blanc (Washington State), both of these had small yet ferocious bubbles. The blanc de blanc tasted fresh and crisp the Cuvee brut was more complex.

Centraire Brut, This one was mysteriously labeled “France” no matter how many times the bottle was examined it obstinately refused to give further clues as to its origins. This was another blanc de blanc. I thought it to be a bit more balanced than the St. Michelle. We opened this one up fourth and we came back to it about an hour later to compare it to our last bottle. We found that after letting it have some warmth and some time to become less bubbly it became thoroughly unpleasant.

Marquis de Perlade (Alsace), another blanc de blanc this one … was the last bottle of the day and was therefore served to the least sober collection of guests. It was our third all chardonnay wine and it was everyone’s favorite of the three. It may have tasted a bit better than the French wine of unknown origins but far more impressive to us than the taste were the bubbles. They (the bubbles) were smaller and less aggressive.

Col Vetoraz Valdobradene (Prosecco), this was the first bottle we opened and universally the favorite bottle of the day (thus hindering any attempts to create a sense of mounting excitement). The bubbles were as good as or better than the Marquis de Perlade and it had a complexity that we all preferred. This wine also had a small hint of sweetness to it which made me doubt my choice of stocking up on Bruts.

[wondersofwine]

What a fun way to involve your friends in your wedding plans! I think Prosecco would be a hit with the majority of your guests.

[Kcwhippet]

For New Year's Eve we decided to go with California sparklers. We had the Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noir and the Pacific Echo Brut - both were about $17. Case discounts usually run 10% with 20% for multiple cases, so both of these would meet your criteria.

[Georgie]

I've been buying Il Fae Prosecco for $7.99 a bottle. It was a hit at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Not very sweet, just really refreshing and fun to drink. Can't beat the value.

[winoweenie]

My rowdy crew went thru a case of Mineotti Prosecco before getting into some serious wine . Have to say it takes a whale of a lot larger outlay of capitol to get more enjoyment from a bottle of bubbly. WW

[dananne]

Anne and I have fallen in love with Gruet, which we're picking up for about $16, prior to case discounts. We've had the Brut and the Brut Blanc de Noir, probably preferring the latter a bit.

The Cristalino Extra Dry Rose Cava is, IMHO, a steal at $5.99. Also, we've enjoyed a few bottles of Zefiro Prosecco recently which have refreshing peachy flavors (runs about $10).