This is the weekly colum
This column runs on Wednesdays in most markets—Christmas Day in 2024. If you have not secured your wine before now, no chance today. We can, however, look forward to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Sparkling wines are stars of New Year celebrations. Statistics indicate roughly 25 percent of all Champagne is sold between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Something like 360 million glasses of sparkling wine are consumed on New Year’s Eve.
People who don’t usually drink sparkling, drink sparkling around the New Year celebrations. On a more sobering and serious note, New Year’s Eve statistically is the most drunken night of the year, with sparkling wine playing a major role. The unfortunate quip is “New Year’s Eve is amateur drunk night.”
Enjoy wine in moderation so you can be around for the next annual celebration. With that in mind, a primer on the types of sparkling wine:
• Champagne. Produced exclusively in the Champagne region of northeastern France (no matter what some rogue labels claim) using the traditional method (méthode champenoise) with secondary fermentation in the bottle. Three primary grapes—pinot noir, chardonnay, and pinot meunier.
• Crémant. French sparkling made outside the Champagne region, using grape varieties typical to their regions using traditional method.
• Cava. Spanish sparkling, primarily produced in Catalonia. Made using traditional method using Spanish grapes xarel·lo, macabeo, and parellada; also chardonnay and pinot noir.
• Prosecco. Italian sparkling from the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions using the Charmat method where secondary fermentation occurs in large tanks. Glera is the prime grape.
• Franciacorta. High-quality Italian sparkling from Lombardy primarily made with chardonnay and pinot noir using traditional method.
• Asti and Moscato d’Asti. Sweet sparklings made in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy using the moscato bianco grape. Asti is fully sparkling (spumante). Moscato d’Asti is semi-sparkling (frizzante).
• Sekt. German sparkling made with various grapes, some using traditional method, others Charmat.
• New World Sparklings. Made in U.S., Australia, New Zealand and some other countries using traditional grapes and traditional method.
• Cap Classique. Sparkling in South Africa using various grapes, primarily chardonnay and pinot noir, using traditional method.
• Junk Sparkling. My term for very cheap wine infused with CO2 in the same way as soda pop. Guzzle this dreck at the close of 2024 and it is unlikely you will enjoy the dawn of 2025.
Last round
Man walking home after too much sparkling at a New Year’s party. Policeman sees him weaving and asks where he is going. Man: “To a lecture.” Policeman: “Who gives lectures this late on New Year’s Eve?” Man: “My wife.”
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