Our Cup Bubbleth Over
December 31, 2009 at 12:00 pm by
The Deal... Buy any of the sparkling wines featured in our
wine flights that follow, and we'll grant you a 10% discount off
the listed bottle prices. Buy a case (12) of any of the following
(mixing/matching is fine) and that discount bubbles up to 15%.
Feels a little more like a holiday already, doesn't it? By the way,
while intended for midnight/prime-time, if you judiciously save
some of these wines, they do form the base for an excellent mimosa
and can make for a happy start to 2010. Certainly a fancy thing to
serve with black-eyed peas and collards, but hey, all traditions
have to start somewhere.
Underrated and Excellent Southern European Bubbly
Wine Flight of 3 2-oz. pours: $7
1. Bisson Prosecco - $7/gl -
$17.99/btl
Here's your wine for day-into-night moveable feast type partying. Effortlessly cool and frantic at the same time, irrepressibly Italian, this is bubbly for people who want to enjoy the best but don't have time or the inclination to pause and reflect on what they are consuming. Drink it while rolling on to the next moment, while wearing Prada sunglasses at 5am by a bonfire or on a beach watching the sunrise with the Anita Eckberg/Marcello Mastroianni of your life's story. Too hip for words, good with crudo, and quite dry, though definitely an accoutrement of the sweet life.
2. Avinyo Cava - $7/gl - $17.99/btl
This is serious Cava, complex, thought-provoking, profound. It will fit right in to a New Year's evening spent with an old friend, a night of dining on classic French (or Catalan) cuisine. By the bottle's mid-point you may be lost in metaphysics, humanism, American Idol.... Avinyo's locally-based importer (Andre, of course) is never dull, an amiable and intellectual guy capable of carrying on a conversation about art or transcendentalism or Spanish ham that doesn't turn into a snoozer. Avinyo is a sparkling wine for the intellectually alive and polemically averse, an irreverent bubbly that asks interesting and searching questions about why we drink what we drink when it is time for fizzy wine.
3. Lini Lambrusco - $8/gl - $18.99/btl
Ever have one of those nights when you show up at a party, get caviar all over your hands, unwittingly wipe it on the other guests, impale your entree on a lady's tiara, fall into the ornamental pond and yet at the end of the night still get the girl? This wine is an out-of-step classic for people who don't mind getting there along a different path, who prefer flavor to formality and would rather spend evenings at home scrubbing graffiti off of elephants than at stodgy strait-laced formal dinner parties. The Lini label is embarrassingly, grotesquely bacchanalian, but nowhere near as embarrassing as Peter Sellers faking an Indian accent for 90 minutes. Lini Lambrusco may seem campy (all the cool kids know it these days) but it is also a classic, an archetype of traditional and delicious Italian wine form. It is red and dry and delightful, great with Prosciutto di Parma, Grana Padano, and birdie num-nums.
The Real Deal: Classic French Sparklers
Here's your wine for day-into-night moveable feast type partying. Effortlessly cool and frantic at the same time, irrepressibly Italian, this is bubbly for people who want to enjoy the best but don't have time or the inclination to pause and reflect on what they are consuming. Drink it while rolling on to the next moment, while wearing Prada sunglasses at 5am by a bonfire or on a beach watching the sunrise with the Anita Eckberg/Marcello Mastroianni of your life's story. Too hip for words, good with crudo, and quite dry, though definitely an accoutrement of the sweet life.
2. Avinyo Cava - $7/gl - $17.99/btl
This is serious Cava, complex, thought-provoking, profound. It will fit right in to a New Year's evening spent with an old friend, a night of dining on classic French (or Catalan) cuisine. By the bottle's mid-point you may be lost in metaphysics, humanism, American Idol.... Avinyo's locally-based importer (Andre, of course) is never dull, an amiable and intellectual guy capable of carrying on a conversation about art or transcendentalism or Spanish ham that doesn't turn into a snoozer. Avinyo is a sparkling wine for the intellectually alive and polemically averse, an irreverent bubbly that asks interesting and searching questions about why we drink what we drink when it is time for fizzy wine.
3. Lini Lambrusco - $8/gl - $18.99/btl
Ever have one of those nights when you show up at a party, get caviar all over your hands, unwittingly wipe it on the other guests, impale your entree on a lady's tiara, fall into the ornamental pond and yet at the end of the night still get the girl? This wine is an out-of-step classic for people who don't mind getting there along a different path, who prefer flavor to formality and would rather spend evenings at home scrubbing graffiti off of elephants than at stodgy strait-laced formal dinner parties. The Lini label is embarrassingly, grotesquely bacchanalian, but nowhere near as embarrassing as Peter Sellers faking an Indian accent for 90 minutes. Lini Lambrusco may seem campy (all the cool kids know it these days) but it is also a classic, an archetype of traditional and delicious Italian wine form. It is red and dry and delightful, great with Prosciutto di Parma, Grana Padano, and birdie num-nums.
The Real Deal: Classic French Sparklers
Flight of 3 2-oz. pours: $12
4. Martinolles Blanquette de
Limoux - $6/gl - $13.99/btl 
Limoux would like you to know they were doing it first. Getting out of the gate early has not allowed this southern bubbly-making region of France to outdistance still-champion Champagne, but this little feller keeps coming at you. Like a great comedic silent film star, this wine keeps coming, against the odds, determined to get the girl and save the day in spite of improbable odds, consumer ambivalence, being a little out of step with the crazy modern world. But the finish on this wine is perfect, miles away from the jarring anticlimax of cheap bubbles.
Limoux would like you to know they were doing it first. Getting out of the gate early has not allowed this southern bubbly-making region of France to outdistance still-champion Champagne, but this little feller keeps coming at you. Like a great comedic silent film star, this wine keeps coming, against the odds, determined to get the girl and save the day in spite of improbable odds, consumer ambivalence, being a little out of step with the crazy modern world. But the finish on this wine is perfect, miles away from the jarring anticlimax of cheap bubbles.
5. Aubry
Brut Premier Cru - $12/gl - $34.99/btl
Substantial stuff, an epic Champagne at an unlikely price. Long have the small family growers toiled in the fields of Champagne only to see wealth flow away from their labor into the patrician hands of large Champagne house owners. But recently a rebellion has been mounting, a "grower revolution" led by importers including Aubry champion Terry Theise and fed by the work of sturdy lads like the brothers Aubry. Still today, less than 10% of the Champagne sold in America bears the name of a farmer-winemaker, but with this ripe, rich, and complex Champagne as a mascot for their cause, more and more will gain courage from their successes and stand up to say "I am Aubry" (sorry, Kirk Douglas).
6. Guy Larmandier Brut Rose Premier Cru - $15/gl - $62.99/btl
This personal favorite is as dry as a vodka martini, with color as sexy as Scotland's only credible romantic export. Guy Larmandier Champagne is focused, terse, action-packed. It's a purist's Champagne, a genre-defining bubbly that makes most mass-marketed Champagnes seem shallow and contrived, all special effects with no soul or story. Larmandier sticks to the plot, with riveting mineral brilliance that keeps us racing toward an all-too-soon conclusion. Luckily you can buy two for the price of one of those vintage Bollingers vintage 007 is always ordering.
I hope the prose unites you with a perfect companion bottle or two. If you are not convinced, stop by and we'll pour you a sip of one of these contenders. Or taste through one of our bubbly wine flights for a small fee: comparative analysis is a powerful decision-making tool.
Substantial stuff, an epic Champagne at an unlikely price. Long have the small family growers toiled in the fields of Champagne only to see wealth flow away from their labor into the patrician hands of large Champagne house owners. But recently a rebellion has been mounting, a "grower revolution" led by importers including Aubry champion Terry Theise and fed by the work of sturdy lads like the brothers Aubry. Still today, less than 10% of the Champagne sold in America bears the name of a farmer-winemaker, but with this ripe, rich, and complex Champagne as a mascot for their cause, more and more will gain courage from their successes and stand up to say "I am Aubry" (sorry, Kirk Douglas).
6. Guy Larmandier Brut Rose Premier Cru - $15/gl - $62.99/btl
This personal favorite is as dry as a vodka martini, with color as sexy as Scotland's only credible romantic export. Guy Larmandier Champagne is focused, terse, action-packed. It's a purist's Champagne, a genre-defining bubbly that makes most mass-marketed Champagnes seem shallow and contrived, all special effects with no soul or story. Larmandier sticks to the plot, with riveting mineral brilliance that keeps us racing toward an all-too-soon conclusion. Luckily you can buy two for the price of one of those vintage Bollingers vintage 007 is always ordering.
I hope the prose unites you with a perfect companion bottle or two. If you are not convinced, stop by and we'll pour you a sip of one of these contenders. Or taste through one of our bubbly wine flights for a small fee: comparative analysis is a powerful decision-making tool.