This is peak Champagne season, when holiday revelers start thinking bubbles and obsessing over buying and drinking fizz. (I do it all year.) U.K.-based marketing company Wine Intelligence just released a report that estimates 45 million Americans partake in sparkling wine annually—and some of them drink bubbly only during the holidays.
Of course, not all of that is expensive Champagne. But if you’re not going to splash out a little more for effervescence around New Year’s Eve, when will you?
Join the party. Just make sure you’re doing it right.
You’re fooled by flash and familiar names
Most Champagne is the less-expensive nonvintage stuff that blends vintages to achieve a consistent taste and style. That way you’ll know what you’re going to taste when you open a bottle of Roederer or Veuve Cliquot. But you’ll almost always get more bang for your buck by picking a bottle with a vintage date on it. (Krug Grande Cuvée is one exception.) That means avoiding the stuff you’re familiar with, like nonvintage bottles of Moët, Ruinart, Taittinger, Bollinger, etc. (all make splendid vintage-dated cuvées, by the way).
For vintage Champagnes, grapes must come from a single harvest, the year on the label. They’re made in small quantities, usually only in top years, and are aged longer before release. As a result, the wines have more distinctive personalities, with deeper and fuller flavors. They cost a lot less than a Champagne house’s flashy prestige cuvee (such as Dom Perignon), but many people actually prefer them.
Top recent vintages: 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012Good value bets: 2008 Henriot Brut ($85), 2009 Pol Roger Brut ($78), 2008 Delamotte ($76)
You’re buying just a couple of bottles
Buy a case or two. Demand for Champagne skyrockets during holiday season, but at the same time prices drop sharply. A few years ago, Fivethirtyeight.com estimated the average price of a bottle was 18 percent lower at holiday time than during an average week.
The site cited research from two University of Chicago economists that explains why the usual supply-and-demand model doesn’t hold—because seasonal Champagne buyers are also super price-conscious, and retailers lower prices to reel them in. Maybe they’ll fall in love!
You’re getting regular-size bottles for a party
I don’t know about your friends, but mine aren’t satisfied with only a glass or two of bubbly. If you plan to entertain more than four people, spring for magnums (the equivalent of two regular bottles). The big size shouts celebration, makes you look incredibly generous, and, besides, you won’t have to open so many bottles.
You’re storing Champagne in the refrigerator
A refrigerator is not some wine-preserving cryogenic chamber. Three or four days in a food fridge before popping the cork is fine, says Moët & Chandon’s wine quality manager, but the conditions are too cold and too dry for longer-term storage. They dry out the cork, which lets in air that flattens a wine’s flavors and causes it to lose its sparkle.