Other Sparkling
Many people call all sparkling wines Champagne, but only wine grown and produced in the Champagne region can bear this title. In Germany, sparkling wine is called Sekt. In Italy, a wine can be spumante or frizzante. Both words mean sparkling, but spumante is more fully sparkling.
Sparkling wines are great for starting off a dinner or a tasting. They are also good with Brie (double or triple crème), hard cheeses such as Parmigiano-Reggiano or Dry Jack, mild semi-hard cheeses like Cheddar or Emmentaler, and even mild blue cheeses.
Inexpensive sparkling wines with a slightly sweet taste can work really well with a variety of cheeses.
André Pink Champagne (Blush) from California. $3.47 a bottle at HEB. 9.5% alcohol. It says that they used the Charmat method, so the secondary fermentation took place in a tank before bottling. Naturally fermented. As the name says, this wine is pink. It comes with a new type of screw top that also is like a champagne cork. It fizzes up a lot and the foam stays for a long time. It smells sweet, like a white Zinfandel. It smells like cherries and grapes, like grape juice. It really does taste like it has fruit juice in it. It's hard to tell if it's sweet or not with all the bubbles going crazy. The aftertaste is sweet. It seems too sweet or too fruity. I am not that wild about this, but it is cheap and pretty.
André Pink Champagne and Brillat-Savarin. The aftertaste is too bitter and too mushroomy, but this is still a much better pairing for a triple crème than with the real French Champagne. I think the sharp bubbles help balance out the extremely creamy cheese. It's really not so bad together, but I think the sweet fruit in the wine is too much for this cheese. I liked the Cook's with it better since it was dryer.
Argyle Brut 1998 $19.99 at Austin Wine Merchant. 13% alcohol. "Hand-crafted Fine Wine." Oregon sparkling wine from Willamette Valley. 15% Pinot Noir and 85% Chardonnay. My husband says it has a metallic Champagne taste. Lemons. Yeast. I taste citrus and then the finish is full and creamy. Bright, dry, fruity, apricots, and something fruity. I guess it just tastes like grapes. I can imagine that it does have extra red fullness, even though the color is white, because in the mid-palate, I can almost taste firm light red grapes, like the ones that are almost pink. When I breathe out, I taste intense fruit and high alcohol. On the bottle, it says, "Full flavored wines are possible at lower fruit sugars due to our 45th parallel-maritime climate, hillside vineyard sites, and limited grape yields. Argyle sparkling wines are a refreshingly unique entry into the New World of quality, yeast aged sparkling wines." This wine was fermented in the bottle. http://www.argylewinery.com
Argyle with Brin d'Amour. Creamy, sheepy, herbaceous cheese. This cheese has worked well with Prosecco and Gewurz before. mThe sheep makes a bitter, bile taste at the end. I'm not sure why this didn't work well. The flavors were simply not complimentary. I'd say that the cheese needs a lighter, dryer wine, but this is dry and Gewurz sure isn't light. Maybe the wine would have liked a younger version of this cheese.
Argyle with La Petite Crème. Tiny, drum-shaped Brie type of cheese from Rouge et Noir in Petaluma, CA. This is supposed to be a dessert cheese, it says on the label. I like this ok together. It is not perfect for me since I am not so wild about Bries with sparkling wines, but it blends much better than most. My husband says that it makes a sewer smell in your nostrils when they mix. This is a salty cheese. I think they are good strengths for each other. I like the fruit, salt, cream, and mold together. I would like to re-try this. The only thing really wrong with it is the strange finish.
Contadi Castaldi Brut, Franciacorta, Lombardy, Italy. NV Created in the traditional method of Champagne using Chardonnay and Pino Bianco grapes. $22. Sien Brown from Prestige brought this to our tasting. He had suggested a brie or triple crème with it. I think I did Délice de Bourgogne. I didn't get to take detailed notes on it, but people loved the pairing and the wine.
Charles de Fère, Jean-Louis Blanc de Blancs Brut $7.49 at Grapevine. 11.5% alcohol. "Cuvée Jean Louis has a beautifully delicate floral bouquet, is perfectly balanced on the palate, and has a long-lasting sparkle." This winery was started by an old Champenois (Champagne) family, and based in Nuits St. Georges of the Burgundy region of France. This is supposed to be similar to Trocadero -- same low price with lots of fruit. It smells very fruity and yeasty, kind of like rotten apples. Tasting it, it seems tarter, but it is still full-feeling. Dry finish and then pear and apple aromas with a certain saltiness that reminds me of Riesling.
Charles de Fère with Crottin de Chèvre. Canadian fresh goat cheese, very lemony. Pretty good together. I lose the fruit in the wine. The lemony cheese overpower. Something tastes bitter. I think a lighter goat cheese would have been better.
Charles de Fère with Idiazabal. Smoked sheep's milk cheese from Spain. I had no intention of pairing these two together. I thought I was pulling out a Pecorino Toscano, but it was Spanish -- and smoked. It is ok at first. Then it dwindles down into something dirty-tasting. The wine doesn't really bring out the sweetness of the cheese like it should, and the rustic-flavored cheese kills the delicate fruit in the wine. The nasty finish lingers up to 5 minutes if you don't clean your palate.
Chase-Limogère Brut, California Sparkling Wine. $6.99 at Grapevine. It is from Madera, CA. 11.5% alcohol. On the label, it says that it is a careful combination of classic French production methods and the outstanding grapes of CA. Finished in the traditional French manner with a very dry brut dosage, this carefully balanced cuvée succeeds in honoring its French ancestry. This wine has aggressive bubbles and a crisp apple and pear taste, with a little bit of nuts. It is nice and fresh, medium-bodied. It is cheap and tastes a little cheap.
Chase-Limogère Brut with Amsterdam Reserve, aged Gouda. This cheese has been sitting on the board and needs to be eaten, so I'm going to try it with this wine. I know it will be way too strong for the wine, but it might be nice with the tart apple flavors in the wine and the nuttiness of the cheese. Wow, I kind of like this together! This wine cuts back on the salt in the cheese. I like this a lot. It tastes lightly nutty and fresh. I think a younger gouda would be best texture-wise, but this is ok. The bubbles in the wine tame the cheese a little. I lose some of the fruit flavors in the wine so it is almost like club soda, but it's still very good with the cheese. It tases tart and nutty. It's yummy. I might consider something similar for a tasting, like maybe a Montasio and a Prosecco.
Chase-Limogère Brut with Palhais Portuguese fresh goat's milk cheese marinated in olive oil and herbs. Why not? Wow, this is excellent. These cheap Champagnes work really well with cheeses. I don't know why. This is delicious. The oil in the cheese really mellows out the tart brut wine. The goat cheese is tangy with some herbs in the oil and then peppercorns, and then the wine is tart and bubbly to cut through the oil. Yum. This is excellent. I love the texture of the bubbly wine with the crumbly goat and smooth oil. It is great in your mouth, and the flavors blend really well.
Cook's Extra Dry California Champagne $5.99 at the Shell Station. 11.5% alcohol. Secondary fermentation before bottling. It bubbled up a lot pouring into the glass. It smells a little metallic. It is very fizzy with sharp bubbles. I guess this would be one of those sparkling wines that has bubbles like a soft drink. I don't know what fruit I taste. Maybe lemon or oranges -- citrus fruit. It would be good mixed with orange juice. It is tart. It is hard to tell how much sugar is in it with all the crazy bubbles going on. It is definitely not a creamy wine. It does have a bitter finish, which I read was a sign of cheap wine. I don't care. It was 5 minutes till no more alcohol sales, so we got this for after Thanksgiving. It is exactly what I wanted -- a sparkling wine that was cheap and decent and that I didn't have to worry about analyzing. This wine is supposed to be as good as the finest French Champagnes. This Extra Dry is a "semi-dry" wine, which doesn't make much sense. It is supposed to have a mild floral character with notes of fresh apple and pear. I got citrus, though. I guess I can see sour apples, but not pears.
Cook's Extra Dry with Brillat-Savarin. Salty, creamy cheese. These are good together. The cheese makes the wine taste sweet. I get a kind of rotten fruit taste afterwards. I think that's the bitterness of the wine. When I don't eat the rind, I don't get so much of a weird aftertaste. This is really good, though. I think I like this cheese with more robust bubbles like this.
Cook's Extra Dry with HEB Extra Sharp New York Cheddar. I figured these might go together since they are both so cheap. This cheese is sharp, but with not much of a finish. It seems sort of scattered. Usually I like this cheese a lot for the price. This is pretty good together. I think this cheese, since it isn't so crumbly, feels better in the mouth with the sparkling wine. The cheap cheddar also brings out sweetness and fruit in the wine. I think they are good together because both the cheese and the wine have a bitter finish, so they seem right together, like, they make the bitterness seem ok. Plus, they are both really cheap, so you can go along way with a $3 block of Cheddar, a box of Saltines, and two bottles of Cook's.
Cook's Extra Dry with Parmigiano-Reggiano. I like this together, except for the bitterness in the wine. I am not so crazy about the grainy mouth feel of the Parmigiano with the bubbles. It's not blowing me away, but it's alright. They don't do much for each other.
Darwin Estate Chilean Sparkling Wine Brut Austral $20 at Vino 100 12.5% alcohol. It tastes like apples and peaches. It is super creamy and rich with not too much of a bite. Darwin Estate comes from the celebrated Maipo Valley vineyard. This wine is a blend of of a variety of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. The "Chilean Method" of vinification is used to make this wine. (I haven't yet found out what that method is.) This estate pays tribute to Darwin, the famous naturalist whose travels throughout Chile between 1834 and 1836 contributed to his research into the evolution of our world. Imported by Champagnes and Chateaux in Manhasset, NY. I discovered this wine at a Bellydance and Bubbles event (where I taught belly dancing to ladies drinking sparkling wine.) This was by far everyone's favorite sparkler. It has such a unique fruit profile and smooth, relaxed bubbles.
Darwin with Asiago. Very good. The cheese is mild enough to let the gorgeous fruit flavors in the wine shine through.
Darwin with Triple Cream Cream Cheese. This is a very mild cheese, but sometimes that is what a wine like this needs. The creaminess and richness of the cheese mirrors these qualities in the wine. It's a good pairing. I tried to put some peach preserves with the pairing, but they sucked away the fruit from the wine.
Fallegro Vino da Tavola Bianco, Gagliardo, 2002 $14 at Central Market. This is produced in La Morra in Piedmont, Italy. It is very very lightly frizzante. I researched on line, but can't figure out what grapes are in this wine. It is straw-colored, barely visible bubbles, 11.5% alcohol. It has a light, almost vegetal, yeasty smell. Dry and crisp, minerals. The finish is fruity, maybe pears, and then a little bitter and dry. I don't know what to make of this. It's really good and I keep drinking it, but need to slow down. It is very pleasant and refreshing.
Fallegro with Garrotxa, hard goat cheese. Not good at all. The nutty, earthy flavor of the goat is too much for the light wine.
Fallegro with Swiss. This is not so bad. The light sweetness of the cheese blends well with the wine. I think that the wine makes the cheese taste a little more interesting, brings out a milky flavor. This is good. They are about the same intensity.
Fallegro with Asiago Fresco. This cheese is so full and tangy, for a fresh cheese. I feel like it overpowers the wine a little. There is some bitterness. It's not so bad, though. The wine brings the cheese down a little so that it is not such a butter bomb.
*Fallegro with Mozzarella di Bufala Frescolina I love it with this Fallegro. Yum! This is an excellent match. Both are light, minerally...I can't decide which I like better. The cheese has some lactic acidity, and the wine has the tart fruit to match. This is heaven. It is pretty subtle, so some might think it's dull, but I like it. I want this for breakfast every morning! I think it would be excellent with some strawberries.
Gruet Rosé Brut NV 12% alcohol. $11.99 at Austin Wine Merchant. Méthode Champenoise. This nearly garnet Rosé is aged 24 months en tirage. It has a lovely, bright floral bouquet with hints of strawberry, raspberry, and cherry. On the palate, it is rich and fruity in a dry, Brut style. The flavor of berries continues on the palate, revealing more strawberry, raspberry, cherry. Production is limited to 5000 cases per year. This wine is fun because it's not just a bunch of dryness, but also has such wonderful berry flavors. It also seemed pretty mellow for a brut, probably because of all the berries. I don't know if it is 100% Pinot Noir or what. I found that Gruet also makes wines in France (different people, but same family), and their rosé is mostly Pinot Noir.
Gruet Rosé with Tour de Marze Brie. This was kind of plain as far as pairings go, but really good (cream and berries) and also looks really pretty together. I love the berry flavors in the wine and the tart milk in the cheese.
Lambrusco Bianco Cubista, Ca' De' Medici. $9.99 at Grapevine. 7% alcohol. This is from Emilia in Italy. It is a semi-sparkling white wine. I was looking for a Prosecco, and they were out of my brand, so they showed me this. It is a Blanc de Noirs style from Italy made from red Lambrusco grapes. It is not supposed to be sweet, but rather more along the lines of Prosecco, except lighter since it is lower alcohol. http://www.roseimporting.com Lightly sweet, sweet pear and apples, floral flavors. Frizzante wine, so it's not overly bubbly. It is very pleasant. It reminds me of apple cider, but it is also kind of dry. The finish is so fruity. It's really interesting. Overall, this light little fruity, dry wine goes with just about everything.
Lambrusco Bianco Cubista with La Tur. Salty, animaly, creamy, buttery cheese with a tart little wine. It's nice together. Both are light. They aren't an exact match, but they blend well. The salt and the fruit are good together. They don't do a lot for each other or change each other, though. The crisp wine is refreshing after the full-creamy cheese. The textures are nice together.
Lambrusco Bianco Cubista with Ricotta Salata. Salty and crumbly sheep's milk cheese. The cheese makes the wine taste sort of rotten. These textures are so dry, they aren't so interesting together texture-wise. My friend Brad likes it a lot together. It makes the cheese sweet. They also create a light, nutty taste together.
Monmousseau Cuvée J.M. Blanc de Blancs Brut from Touraine in France AOC Touraine $11 at Grapevine. 12% alcohol. It is made in the méthode traditionelle from Chenin Blanc grapes. Very good. I didn't get to write notes about it right away. It is tart, full, fruity, and very pleasant with delicate, fine bubbles. It is especially good for the price. Touraine is in the Loire Valley, near Cher. The terrain is influenced by minerals, which give it its acidity. They clay and the mild winters lend it a fruity flavor. It undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle, which creates the soft bubbles. http://www.monmousseau.com
Monmousseau with Brillat-Savarin. This cheese was excellent with the wine so long as you don't eat the rind. The rind tasted rotten with the wine. Otherwise, the paste was delicious. I liked that the wine was tangy right along with the lactic tang of the youngish triple crème brie. I also liked the cream and salt with the sharp little bubbles. It is nice on the tongue.
Piper Sonoma Blanc de Noirs, Méthode Champenoise $14.99 at Grapevine. 12% alcohol. This is the Piper wine from Sonoma county. Patrick and I tasted this at Grapevine on Valentine's day. This wine was a little livelier and heavier than their Chardonnay sparkling wine. This is made in the Méthode Champenoise. Grapevine had this at a Valentine's Day tasting. It is fuller and fruitier than their wine with Chardonnay. This one is made with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes from Northern Sonoma county where it is cool. The cuvées are blended with reserve wines aged in large oak foudres, which adds depth and complexity to the wine.This adds depth and complexity. I liked both this and the one with Chardonnay. It is tart, smooth, and crisp, but also has a fruity aftertaste. I can't tell what fruit it is. It tastes like green apples and flowers maybe. It is also citrusy, like lemons and limes. It is pretty bubbly.
Piper Sonoma Blanc de Noir with Caprino goat cheese from Italy. This is really good, though a little bitter. Still, it's really good. I like the citrusy cheese with the creamy aftertaste and texture with this tart wine. It's nice. The textures and tartness are perfect together. It's almost a little too tart, though.
Piper Sonoma Blanc de Noir with Vermont Mascarpone. This cheese is so creamy and sweet. It really tastes like butter. I like this because the butter flavor (and, I mean, it really tastes like butter -- the butter of your dreams) lasts through the wine. The wine may be a tad too bubbly and tart for it, though. I lose some of the sweetness of the cheese. The acidity of the wine cuts it a good bit.
Piper Sonoma Brut $12.99 at World Market 12% alcohol. Sonoma County. It has a light, yeasty flavor with some vanilla and a creamy texture. The fruit seems to lean more towards apples. Piper Sonoma Brut is made from classic Champagne grapes, hand picked from cool vineyards of northern Sonoma County. Unlike most sparkling wines, Piper Sonoma is kept in French oak. Each year, cuvees are blended with reserve wines aged in large oak foudres to add depth and complexity to the wine.
Piper Sonoma with Truf. Truffle goat cheese from Piedmont. Not so great. The truffles are too earthy and mushroomy for this delicate wine. It ends up tasting dirty.
Piper Sonoma with Trugole. Very good pairing. This cheese is a lot like Asiago, but more floral, fruity, and grassy. Putting the cheese with the wine really brings out the yeasty flavors in the wine and a nutty floral flavor in the cheese. The cheese makes the wine less dry and fuller-bodied.
Roederer Estate Brut Anderson Valley NV (Tasted in 2005) $16.99 at World Market. This wine comes from the cooler growing area north of Sonoma and Napa, Anderson Valley. Lots of fog. The wine was described to me as being creamy and spicy. The World Market website, http://www.worldmarket.com describes it as follows: "It's racy, dazzling and delicious. Pear and tart apple aromas float out of the glass on a stream of finely beaded bubbles. Crisp citrus flavors are very refreshing. Seductively complex with a clean, bright finish." This description sounds more accurate than what the shelf talker said. It is a very bright, tart, zingy wine. Tiny bubbles. Nose of Granny Smith apples. It tastes yellow and green to me, and I was expecting it to taste orange and tan. Very smooth, great fruit on the mid-palate. I get some toastiness, and then the very final finish is pretty tart, but not bitter at all. It lasts for a long time. This wine makes me want goat cheese.
Roederer Estate with Beaufort. This little Beaufort is France's answer to Brie. It tastes a little more like a mountain cheese, though. It had a very strong fruity and nutty flavor. This is alright, but then the finish is off. I lose the wine and just get a bunch of fermented fruit flavors from the cheese. It's still not bad, though.
Roederer Estate with Brie de Marze. I keep trying to put a "Champagne" or other sparkling wine with Brie. I only have luck when I do a super mild Brie with a tender crust. This wasn't so great. I need a toastier, stinkier wine (probably French, like Taittinger.) I love the cream with the bubbles at first, and then the finish is a little bitter. It gets an honorable mention, though. I'd love to try this same cheese with a French-born sparkler. My husband said, "This works because the wine kills the taste of the cheese." He thought the cheese was too buttery. Yes, I would like to try this again with a toastier Champagne -- a perfect pairing for butter!
*Roederer Estate with Vintage Irish Cheddar. This Cheddar is so tangy and milky. It adds to the wine what I kind of wanted -- a little more creaminess. The wine is creamy, but it is so brut and tart, I feel like I lose some of the cream. The cheese brings in the missing element. Together they both taste very bright and happy. The wine brings out a nuttiness in the cheese. It's not a perfect pairing in that the cheese is kind of clumsy compared to the wine and the textures are not so great, but the flavors are good.
Schug Rouge de Noirs Sparkling Pinot Noir $22.49 at Grapevine 12% alcohol. Gorgeous dark salmon color. It has a little tinge of orange, but otherwise looks like a dark rosé. It smells a little earthy like a Pinot Noir, and then shows off a lot of bright, rich berry aromas. I even smell something like vanilla or cookies. Cherry and vanilla. On the palate, it is very dry and with a creamy texture. Bitter finish that, at first, is off-putting, but later it mellows out. This wine was fermented in the bottle and hand-riddled. It is delicate and dry like a Blanc de Noirs, but with a richness and intensity and brilliant color that surpasses those of Blanc de Noirs and Rosé alike.
Schug sparkling Pinot Noir with Brie, Tour de Marze. Way too bitter and mushroomy with the rind on the cheese. This Brie is older than I usually buy it, so it's a little too bitter, even with the rind cut off. It's ok rindless with the wine, but not perfect. No, I take that back. There is a really bad bitter aftertaste.
Schug sparkling Pinot Noir with Fol Epi. Very mild Baby Swiss cheese from France, but quality Baby Swiss. OK together, but they seem somehow mismatched. The bitterness comes out too much in the wine, but they are otherwise ok. I just don't think the cheese shows off the fruit in the wine much.
*Schug sparkling Pinot Noir with P'tit Basque. Mild, super creamy tasting sheep's milk cheese from the Basque country. Delicious! I like this because the cheese is a little tangy and has that sheepy edge that goes nicely with the bitterness on the finish of the wine. I also like how palate-coating the cheese is, making it a perfect match for the creamy wine -- creamy at first and then it cuts into the fat of the cheese. It's very much a berries and cream pairing. It's best to eat a big piece of cheese for this pairing.
Toso Brut, NV $8 at World Market on sale. 12% alcohol. From Mendoza in Argentina. Estate bottled by Pascual Toso Estates. Pascual Toso was founded in 1890 by an Italian immigrant originally from Piemonte who eventually created the 740-acre main estate in the eastern part of Mendoza called Maipú. It is made from Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc. Yellow colored sparkling wine. It is a little floral and kind of tastes like macadamia nuts. It does have some residual sugar going on in it that really brings out the fruit. It doesn't taste so brut or biscuity, but it is really nice and easy to drink.
*Toso with Fleur Verte. Boy was this good! I nearly drank the entire bottle of wine and I couldn't hold back from the cheese. I loved the soft, floral wine with the flowery and herby cheese. The textures were good together as well; the wine feels soft on the tongue, which matches the cheese's creamy texture. I also liked that the wine had enough fruitiness going on to hold up to the plant flavors in the cheese.
Trocadero Brut, Tête de Cuvée Blanc de Blancs $6.99 at Grapevine 11.5% alcohol This is made by jean-Paul Trocadero out of Chardonnay grapes. This family moved from Paris to Savoie after the Napoleonic wars. Jean-Paul Trocadero enhanced the flavors of the sparkling wine that they were drinking in the region and made it fruiter with a fuller bouquet. I brought this to my best friend's going away party. We had a toast and everybody assumed I had really spent a ton of money on Champagne. I told them that it was $6.99. They misunderstood and actually believed that this wine cost $69.99! It was very nice and easy to drink. This wine is very lemony and a little bitter. It is light and dry. At the end, there is a taste of fruit, but it's mostly citrus fruit. It is still fruitier than many, but not as fruity as one that is not Blanc de Blancs.
Trocadero with Chabiquet. Creamy, fresh goat cheese, not too acidic. The wine washes the cheese out, but it's good. I like how the sparkling wine is so fruity and the cheese is fluffy and tangy. The cheese is a little bitter at times, too, like the wine. It's good. Nutty together.
Trocadero with Selles sur Cher. Super nutty, goaty, sharp, salty, creamy almost bitter cheese. Awful! It tastes like opening up a bad garbage can.