12/12/07 Champagne Part 3 (Sparkling Wine)

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today we are continuing our series about Champagne and Sparkling wines. For the past two days we have focused on Champagne - let's discuss how they differ from Sparkling wines. All wines with bubbles or fizz are sparkling wines. However, only sparkling wines that come from the Champagne region of France are called Champagne. When shopping for a bubbly, there are a few things you should know. The level of sweetness of the wine is very important to understand. The French terms to describe this are used pretty much throughout the world whether or not the wine is from Champagne. If the label on the bottle describes it as a Brut then you know the wine will be dry, meaning that it isn't going to be sweet at all. If the label reads Extra Dry it is a medium dry wine that is sweeter than the Brut. I know it doesn't sound right but that is the way it is. The Extra Dry is followed by sec, which is sweeter than the extra dry. And a wine called a demi-sec, is just plain sweet. Next; if there is a year indicated on the bottle it tells you the year the grapes were harvested, that is the vintage. Vintage Champagne is usually a bit more expensive. If there is no vintage indicated it is called a non vintage wine. The wine was a blend of several different years. Non-vintage wines can be very good wines. But just a word of caution, although it needn't be drastically expensive, in the case of sparkling wines the good ones usually do cost more than $15.00 a bottle. And thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.