Codorníu Cava Pinot Noir Brut - Pink Bubbly

We had happy girly celebrations this week, what better way to toast them than to drink pink and sparkly wine? That's what we thought when we bought a variety of Cava Rosadas. It would have made for a far better celebration if we'd remembered to take them along to the party. We had to chill them for mid-week drinking instead - life is hard.

The Codorníu Cava Pinot Noir Brut was an attractive salmon pink with firm and assertive bubbles. It smelled fruity and a littly earthy, with a gentle strawberry flavour, not overwhelming, well balanced with lemon acidity.

It was good value sparkles, and the pink fruitiness was a pleasant change for the summertime.

Toasting with Ridgeview Merret Grosvenor 2004

Hurrah for Mark Cavendish who sprinted across the line to take the longest stage in the Tour de France today. A bit harsh on the breakaway who he sprinted past, but hurrah none the less.

Time for an English (yes I know he's Manx but you try growing grapes there) sparkling wine. A Ridgeview Merret Grosvenor 2004 which I bought last year when I drove through the Sussex countryside and saw a 'vineyard' sign. They gave me a few glasses of wine and let me wander around the vines taking nerdy photos.

It's a very good wine with a smooth mousse and distinct yeastiness which it's a cliche to call brioche. There's citrus too, but more grapefruit than lemon. It's one of England's more widely available sparklers as Waitrose do stock it when they can. The quality is unfortunately reflected in the price, expect to pay about ��22, more than your average grande marque Champagne in a supermarket, but it's worth a try to dismiss any thoughts about English wines being inferior.

Oh, and it's an excuse to post the picture I took of Cavendish winning a Tour of Britain stage again.

Tickled Pink By Wimbledon

Wimbledon is upon us. A chance to eat strawberries and cream whilst sitting in the rain listening to Cliff Richard, should you require one.

What better way to kick off the week than with an English wine. Welland Valley Wines produce the delightfully named 'Tickled Pink', a sparkling pink wine. It's a delicate rose pink, with a fine, enthusiastic mousse. It smells of strawberries and lemons. It tastes of strawberries too along with zippy redcurrants.

England's sparkling wines are proving to be a real success, and this is a good example. Unfortunately Welland Valley produces all of its wines on two acres of Leicestershire countryside. That's just a big back yard or outsized allotment. If you want some Tickled Pink - tough luck - it's sold out. Put an order in now for the next release, expect to pay around ��20.

Freixenet Excelencia Brut Cava

So 'perennial underachievers' Spain have made it through to te semi-finals of the European Championships. It does seem like they've trademarked the phrase.

What better way to celebrate than with a bottle of Cava, a Freixenet Excelencia Brut Cava. It's made from the classic Cava grape blend in what I'm not going to call the Champagne method, it's the traditional method. It opened with a reassuring pop, and the bubbles were lively leaving a persistent mousse, which looks inviting.

It smells almost floral, alongside the more expected lemony-ness. The bubbles burst quite assertively, but no unpleasantly in the mouth, with plenty more lemon flavour and apple. The flavour is fresh and invigorating, and whilst it doesn't have the biscuity richness of some of its older relatives, it doesn't miss it.

Served cold on a summer evening it's good value for under a tenner, offering something a little different in the sparkling space.

Lindauer Brut NV - Affordabubble

Coventry City have a new manager, Chris Coleman. I couldn't lay my hands on any Welsh wine, and Champagne seemed (and proved) to be over-optimistic, so opted for Lindauer Brut NV from New Zealand to celebrate his first win with the Sky Blues.

It's a golden yellow with fine, persistent bubbles and a bright citrus scent with light yeastiness. It's dry with a crisp acidity and has a medium body and flavour intensity. The mousse feels lively in the mouth. The citrus is joined by apple and fresh bread. It was a cheerfully assertive taste which finishes with crisp green apple.

Lindauer is made in the traditional Champagne style, mostly from the traditional Champagne grapes with a little Chenin Blanc. It isn't Champagne, and it lacks the rich biscuity character you might expect from one. However, it comes with one major advantage. It costs £6-8 and is reliably good. It may not compete with a good Champagne on flavour, but it certainly holds its own against 'bargain' Champagnes at double the price.

Losing your sparkle

Over the Christmas and New Year I encountered yet more people who insisted that putting a spoon in the neck of a half full Champagne bottle will keep the bubbles fresh. There are different theories, some believe that the spoon needs to be silver, some that the metal doesn't matter. None are able to offer any explanation of how the system works, but are insistent that it does.

None have ever thought to test out the theory with two bottles, one with a spoon, one without. Why not? Er... well, because it works? Er ... No!

We did leave a bottle with a steel teaspoon in, Sheffield steel no less. The following evening the wine sparkled, the bubbles bubbled. Why? Because we'd put the bottle in the fridge and it had stayed cold, and the carbon dioxide was just too lazy to disturb gravity. Three days later there were still some bubbles. The wine tasted awful, but there were bubbles. You can increase the number by using a dirty glass if you really want to.

Putting a spoon in a bottle top does not work, putting sparkling wine in the fridge does, a bit, but drink up, sparkling wine only sparkles to make you happy. Keeping it for a week is just mean -like pinning a butterfly or caging a songbird it's an affront to nature.

The good people at Stanford went to the effort of demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the spoon, you can read their research (which does tail off a bit in rigour the more they drink) here.

Hurrah for Non Iron

It's a big day today for Non-Iron It's the first day of the new power sharing assembly in Northern Ireland, or 'non-iron' as it tends to be pronounced by natives. It's early to be overwhelmed with optimism, but it's a big step, and one I didn't think I'd see. Strange though, I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for 'the troubles'.

So tonight we had some fadge and champagne to celebrate (I couldn't cope with a full Ulster fry).

The champagne was Mumm Cordon Rouge. Bright and enthusiastically bubbly it had a cheery mousse. It smelled of citrus and vanilla with a touch of peach blossom. Off dry with a zippy acidity, the bubbles felt soft in the mouth. The citrus became more grapefruity in the mouth, and the peach came through stronger with more apricot. It lasted well for a long finish.

The fadge was great, but it's unlikely to become a classic combination.

For England and St George

Happy St George’s day everyone. Time to celebrate with a glass of Nyetimber, England’s finest wine.

Nyetimber comes from a vineyard in West Sussex. It was planted with Champagne varieties and obsessively cared for, and has gone from strength to strength.

So what’s it like. I had a Nyetimber Classic Cuvee 2000, a classic Champagne blend. It’s a rich lemon-gold colour, with a beautiful mousse. It smells of brioche, with lemon curd on toast.

It’s off dry, with a medium acidity and alcohol. It tastes heavenly. Each mouthful releases angels to dance on your tongue. OK, that might be a little florid, but the mousse is smooth and satisfying, the brioche and lemons carry through with a yeasty length. It’s worryingly more-ish.

Nyetimber isn’t cheap, at about £25, but it compares well with an NV Grande Marque Champagne, when you can get hold of it. BBR carry it, as do Waitrose.

The vineyard was recently bought by a Dutch investor, who liked the wine so much he bought the company. With UK temperatures rising by around 3 degrees Celsius each decade, and increasingly drier summers, wine production in England looks set to have a sunny future.

Hurrah for Vicky Pendleton

It���s been a very good day for British cycling. At this year���s World Track Championships the GB team has picked up 11 medals, seven of them are gold and three of those belong to Victoria Pendleton ��� go Vicky!

Time to crack open some sparkles. I was down in Somerset a few weeks ago, and stopped by a farm shop where I found some Exmoor Brut, a sparkling wine from the County. I���d never heard of Dunkery Vineyards, and the farm shop assistant was quite insistent that I double check the price as it was ��13, not ��3. It seemed reasonable to me, it���s not easy growing Pinot Noir in England, though it seems to be getting easier as the world warms up.

It was a pale lemon gold with plenty of persistent bubbles. It smelled yeasty, very yeasty, marmite and feet with some lemony citrus. The bubbles feel smooth in the mouth, and it���s just off dry with perhaps a little too much acidity but not an offensive amount. Medium bodied with more yeasty bread and zippy lemons, there was a hint of softer summer fruits.

Exmoor Brut is a good wine, and it would hold its own against cheap Champagne and Cava. If it���s anything like other English sparkling wines it���ll get better quickly.

If Pendleton, Hoy, Wiggins and the squad were choosing a wine to celebrate tonight, I���d be happy to give them this, though I feel they deserve Nyetimber, it���s worth seeking out.

Yeast will eat itself

I was searching for a lost file this week. It was important and it wasn���t in my e-mail. I was having to search for ��� gasp ��� a paper copy. In doing so I looked in filing cabinets, normally things I simply use to keep plants on. In one I found an old bottle of Mas Tauler Cava. It had a note attached ��� it had been a gift from a supplier to an employee who left four years ago.

We cracked it open this afternoon, with every intent of pouring it down the sink. It opened with a reassuring fizz after a couple of days in the fridge. It was a rich lemon gold colour and the bubbles kept coming.

It smelled of yeast. All sorts of yeast. Think hot buttered toast with Marmite and crumbled biscuits on top. The bubbles kept going in the mouth, with a reasonable amount of acid and little sugar. The yeastiness continued, without a hint of fruit. The toast was burned, the marmite was thick, and oddly, a hint of peanut butter entered the equation.

This was odd. It was clearly too old, but if we���d caught it a year ago, it may have been far too good for the c ��5 it cost. Maybe if we had stored it somewhere more sensible than a filing cabinet it may have done better, but it certainly hadn���t been disturbed and maybe filing cabinets do help to maintain a steady temperature.

I still don���t know what I did with that file, but now I don���t really care.

Happy Birthday!

Some friends had a happy, healthy baby this week. Hurrah! She arrived a month earlier than planned, so we were delighted she was fine, but I was woefully short of Champagne to celebrate. A quick scoot around the kitchen revealed a few sparklers, but nothing from the required neighbourhoods in northeast France.

I cracked open a Cava from the fridge, intended for a somewhat lesser (as yet undetermined) pleasant surprise.

It was certainly bubbly, with persistent small bubbles giving a creamy mousse. It smells yeasty, more bread than marmite. There���s fresh green apples and limes. It���s just off dry with a balanced acidity. Medium body and alcohol add to that balance. The bubbles create a lovely creamy fizz in the mouth. The yeast and fruit carry through, with the addition of some ripe melon adding more rich fruitiness.

At ��7 retail this is a fabulous value wine. It���s excellent fizz easily of the quality of Champagnes twice the rice (or even three times without discounts). This bottle was left over from the Christmas Thresher offer, it cost me about a fiver. I really don���t know why I don���t have a glass with lunch every day!

Think Pink - Jacob's Creek

I’ve been a bit down lately, with a few bits of glum news topped off with a cold. When I gained my ability to smell back I opted for something to cheer me up – pink fizz. Jacob’s Creek’s bottle fermented Sparkling Rose is enough to ‘give the kids a treat’ without breaking the bank.

It’ cheerfully pink without being bubble-gum like. The bubbles are attractively small and persistent. It smells pink! There’s strawberries, raspberries and lemons. It could be a meringue.

The bubbles feel full and creamy in the mouth, and the fruity flavour carries through with redcurrants too. With a medium level of alcohol at 11.5% you can sip away without falling over.

This is a fun wine, and at about £8 it’s good value. I picked this bottle up on special offer at £6, making it great value. Cheap and makes me cheerful!

Festive Fizz

The big hit this Christmas was Charles Heidsieck Mis en Cave NV Champagne. It���s lemon gold with a fine mousse of exuberant bubbles. It smells of fresh lemons with marzipan and a touch of toast.

The creamy bubbles feel rich in the mouth. It���s off dry with a medium body and well balanced acidity. The lemon carries through to the palate with more nuts and a little hint of fresh vanilla.

Charles Heidsieck Champagnes have a great reputation and this example certainly didn���t let the side down, so I���m shopping for more for New Years.

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Bolly Dolly

‘Tis the season to sparkle and as I was given a bottle of Bollinger Special Cuvee NV Champagne we gave it a go. It was a pale lemon colour with a smooth creamy mousse. It smelled lemony, with marmite meatiness and some nuts.

It’s off dry with good acidity. The bubbles feel soft and creamy in the mouth. It tastes big, in as much as a wine can taste big, there’s marmitey Bovril with lemons and sweet almonds with just a touch of toffee and cooking apples. There’s certainly a lot going on, and the 12% alcohol takes an express lift to the head.

Champagne prices are all over the place at the moment with big discounts at supermarkets, wholesalers and even local retailers. Expect to pay around £25 or get yourself invited to Sandringham for Christmas, it's what the Queen serves at home.

Foreign Misadventures

Germans drink more sparkling wine per head of population than anyone else in the word, so on a brief trip I thought I’d join them. Most of the bubbles drunk in Germany are made there, but not from German grapes. Although they get through some Champagne and Prosecco the big market is in Sekt made in industrial tanks from grapes brought in from all over Europe, selected for economy rather than any worries about terroir.

Not surprisingly this kind of wine is limited in its distribution and not worth importing to the UK, so when in Frankfurt I took the opportunity to try Henkell Trocken, popular in that neck of the woods. It’s pale and fizzy with small persistent bubbles. It smells slightly fruity and a little flowery.

It’s off-dry with medium acidity. The bubbles feel firm in the mouth, and with medium alcohol it has quite a full body. It has some autolytic character but there’s still quite a bit of citrus and tropical fruit.

Henkell Trocken is a fun, fizzy, cheap wine. It lacks the elegance of Champagne or even Cava, and doesn’t have the lively fruitiness of an Asti. I suspect I’d never buy a bottle, but next time I’m in the neighbourhood I’ll no doubt have a glass for a little local flavour.

Thankful for Ashes

The Ashes are here! Whether or not you’re into cricket the Ashes are one of the most important sporting events in the sporting calendar. What other event brings people together in the same way? Each time the Ashes rolls around people in England or Australia dig out their address books and call people they haven’t spoken to for years. To gloat, to tease, to mock. It may not be a traditional way to express love, but it works.

I had a Jacob’s Creek sparkling wine from Australia to kick off the series. It’s an attractive looking wine, bright with plenty of persistent bubbles. It smells yeasty with nuts and ripe fruit. There’s melon, apples and biscuit.

It’s off dry with medium high acidity. It has a creamy mousse and the yeasty marmite carries through with pineapple, baked apples and a floral element.

It’s well balanced with good fruit concentration as well as yeast character. For around £7-8 this is really good stuff. Who knows, there may be plenty around going cheap on the January 7, when Australians have nothing to celebrate!

Forty Buck Chuck

Now and again I have bad day, and on a bad day Champagne tends to make me feel better. We had a bottle of Laurent Perrier Brut L-P to perk me up. Laurent Perrier is the Champagne of choice of Prince Charles, and are happy to be his official supplier, giving me every excuse to tuck into some Duchy Organics biscuits too.

It’s bright with small, persistent bubbles. It smells fresh and lemony with a good dollop of marmitey toast and some nuts. It’s off dry with a medium crisp acidity. The bubbles give it a creamy mousse. The lemon and toast carry through with just a touch of fresh soft red fruit, like strawberries and raspberries.

The 12% alcohol does take an express lift to my head on the bubbles, which is nice. It’s well balanced, fruity and refreshing, and at around £20 a bottle, it’s reasonable for Grande Marque Champagne.

Thankful for Spain

Spain is still a source of great wine at reasonable prices. Whether it’s Sherry, Rioja or Cava, to get a wine of similar quality, made with similar care in France you need to pay a lot more.

I had a good bottle of Cava this week. It certainly wasn’t Champagne, but would easily kick the butt of any Cremant at the same price. It was a “C d’O” Castell d’Olerdola Cava Reserva from Catalonia.

With plenty of small bubbles forming an attractive mousse it certainly looked the part. It smelled autolytic with a little marmite with honey, bread, and toffee-banana with a touch of minerality.

Just off dry with good acidity and a creamy mousse, the flavours from the nose carried through well to the palate.

For £6-7, this was great value, being made by the traditional method and having had 15 months on the lees – the same as any NV champagne. As with any cheap cava it had benefited from 6 months in the bottle at home – a sensible investment.

Bonfire Night Sparkler

It’s bonfire night in Britain, a curious and culturally slightly dubious celebration involving burning effigies, setting off fireworks and eating baked potatoes and sausages.

We had our party last night, and it was a hoot. One thing you do need to be careful of is ensuring that the designated firework lighter and anyone likely to be waggling a sparkler stays reasonably sober. The perfect wine to start the party in a cheery way was Asti. We had Ca’Solare’s Asti DOCG.

It was a pale lemon green, kind of like fresh clear grape juice, with small bubbles creating a little froth. It smelled fresh and bright with oodles of fresh grape aromas as well as some apricot and orange blossom.

It was medium sweet, not cloying with a medium acidity and creamy mousse. The Muscat grape flavour dominated, but there was more peach and orange in the mouth. At around a fiver it’s fabulous value, and with 7.5% alcohol everyone can have a glass without worrying. After a second glass the sugar does start to kick in so it would be tough to get drunk on if you tried.

I do feel that Asti is an under-rated wine, and doesn’t get as many outings as it deserves. It’s light, flavourful and fun - perfect for a mixed crowd. This was a good example, with good fruit character, well worth the money. You’ll pay a pound or two more for the more recognisable Martini brand, but it’s hard to go wrong with any Consorzio dell’Asti member brand as long as you buy it from a retailer who turns it over quickly, and you drink it up quickly. It doesn’t age well.

Sparkling fun

Some friends took a driving trip around Europe this summer, stopping close to Barcelona for a few days, taking time to stock up on Cava. We had some at the weekend. It was Freixenet Carta Nevada Sec. It’s not a fancy wine, and came in at around €5 a bottle.

It’s a pale light yellow with oodles of fizz. The bubbles are small, and there’s lots of them that keep going like a Duracell bunny. It has some good yeasty character, with a thin layer of fruit.

It’s medium dry, with crisp acidity that balances out the sugar. The bubbles feel creamy and refreshing and 11.5% alcohol keeps it light. The yeastiness carries through with a smidge of marmite and nutty softness.

If you can find it in the UK it’s around £6-7, still good value. This is an ideal wine for a little sparkle with dessert, or better still with pancakes and fruit for Sunday brunch.