Jason Millar, David Kermode and Anne Krebiehl MW tasted 51 wines, with 2 Outstanding and 24 Highly recommended

Vintage Cap Classique: Panel tasting scores

51 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 2

Highly recommended 24

Recommended 23

Commended 2

Fair 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their vintage-dated Cap Classique wines made in any style, including blanc de blancs, blanc de noirs, rosé and blends

Vintage pays dividends

This impressive tasting focused on single-vintage wines made mostly from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on the same principles as in Champagne, with extended ageing on the lees – the expired yeast cells that accumulate in the bottle during secondary fermentation – and cool-climate fruit both notable features of the best wines.

Like all sparkling wines made in the style of Champagne, South Africa’s Cap Classique is inevitably judged against the high bar of the world’s best.

And in this wide-ranging panel tasting it certainly rose to the challenge: half of the wines scored 90 points (Highly recommended) or more. In addition, all three judges noted the exceptional value on offer given the quality in the glass.

'Absolutely unbeatable when it comes to value'

Although our two top wines are priced on a par with their equivalents in Champagne, ‘Cap Classique is absolutely unbeatable when it comes to value’, according to sparkling specialist Anne Krebiehl MW.

David Kermode agreed: ‘While non-vintage Cap Classique makes a fantastic party starter – a superior alternative to Prosecco or Crémant – it’s definitely worth climbing the quality ladder. I doubt that you’ll find anywhere that offers better value.’

To pick just one example, with more than a decade of lees ageing and a big, bold flavour, the extravagantly rich Jacques Bruére Blanc de Blancs 2013 from Bon Courage (see recommendations, below), can be found for less than £20 via independent merchants – about the price of non-vintage Crémant from France.

Go a little further up the price scale and wine lovers can easily find long-aged, vintage-dated Cap Classique wines, such as Graham Beck’s Cuvée Clive, for around the same price as a non-vintage Champagne.

Yet Cap Classique remains under the radar among Champagne drinkers, because many excellent producers lack mass-market distribution in the UK.

Any lucky readers heading to South Africa should make a special effort to taste them there.

As with the first wave of grower Champagnes a decade ago, wine drinkers must make the effort to track down vintage Cap Classique, but those in search of complexity, richness and finesse will find lots to enjoy.

See all notes and scores from the Cap Classique tasting

The judges

Vintage Cap Classique panel tasting results:

wines were tasted blind

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Since the late nineteenth century Spain has been producing traditional method sparkling wines, and like Champagne, French Crémants or Italy’s Alta Langa, Franciacorta or Trentodoc, Spanish Cava is produced with this method, remaining on its lees for a minimum of nine months with secondary fermentation in the bottle.

What’s unique, however, is that Cava is often produced with a blend of indigenous white grape varieties: Macabeo, Xarel-lo and Parellada. Several international varieties, including the more common varieties for sparkling wines, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, can also be used.

Scroll down to see the top 15 Cava wines of DWWA 2026

Cava has established a global reputation for making some of the best value sparkling wines produced by the traditional method. But it’s important to note the quality to be found across Cava’s categories and styles, with top expressions on par with some of the world’s best.

Styles of Cava

There are three main categories of Cava which produce different styles of sparkling wine.

When labelled Cava, the wine must undergo a minimum of nine months of lees aging, providing subtle notes of autolysis (the bready aromas and flavours found in traditional method sparkling wines). These Cavas typically have light apple, citrus and herbal notes with moderate acidity.

Cava Reserva must spend a minimum of 15 months on the lees – three months less than Champagne requires. Here, biscuit autolytic notes are more evident.

Aged a minimum of 30 months on the lees, Cava Gran Reserva wines can show pronounced autolytic characters including smoky and toasty notes. These Cavas can be premium in price but can show outstanding quality for value, especially when compared to traditional method sparkling wine counterparts.

To strengthen Cava’s notoriety as a world-class sparkling wine, estate produced and bottled Cava can qualify for a relatively new category, Cava de Paraje Calificado. These wines must age a minimum of 36 months, showing even more development and integration of flavours.

Quality rising

Cava’s quality continues to be recognised by leading experts at the 2026 DWWA with Catalonia’s celebrated sparkling wines earning eight Golds including a Top Value Gold. The competition also recognised two magnum-format Cavas with Silver medals.

Along with the top accolades, Cava was awarded an additional 46 Silver and 72 Bronze medals.

To celebrate International Cava Day this 12th July, we highlight 15 award-winning wines to celebrate with.

International Cava Day: 15 award-winning wines to try

Asda, Exceptional Mas Miralda Brut 2023
Value Gold, 95 points
Hugely aromatic and soulful with boundless lemon peel, fresh herb and almond notes swaddled in glossy mousse and succulent acidity. A tasty joy to behold. Alcohol 12%

Bardinet Wines, Palau Gazo Brut NV
Gold, 95 points
Light and frothy, imbued with luscious lemon, fresh herb and wet stone character in a frame of curvaceous acidity. A linden blossom fragrance inures the length. Alc 11.5%

Cavas Hill, Panot Gaudí Brut, Reserva 2020
Value Gold, 95 points
A delightful perfume of chamomile, yellow fruit and butterscotch underscored by a twist of saline. Zesty lemon pith mousse and grapefruit acidity dapple the creamy texture. Alc 11.5%

Conde de Caralt, Brut Nature, Guarda 2024
Gold, 95 points
Well-defined green apple, pear and quince fused with lightly toasted brioche. Energetic and fresh with fine mousse and a zingy eucalyptus buzz at the end. Alc 11.5%

Dominio De La Vega, Cerro Tocón, Reserva 2018
Gold, 95 points
Restrained strawberry and rose petal perfume slinks into the smoke-infused effervescence and brushes against the fulfilling creamy texture. Gushing grapefruit. Alc 12%

Guilera, Centenari Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2005
Gold, 95 points
Vast swathes of ripe peach, apricot, pineapple and mango simmer over the creamy brioche texture, complete with fine bubbles and red apple acidity. Fabulously moreish. Alc 12%

Jaume Serra, Reserva Brut Nature 2022
Value Gold, 95 points
Evocative dried petal, resin and nut aromas gently soothe the nose; bright. green apple fruit and lemon foam textures lavish the palate. Long, herbal finish. Alc 11.5%

Vallformosa, 150 Brut, Gran Reserva 2020
Gold, 95 points
Engaging floral perfume simmers alongside gooseberry fruit and french toast. Buttery and textured with a stylish smoky mousse and fine, savoury aftertaste which is just phenomenal. Alc 12%

Maria Rigol Ordi, Maria Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2017
Silver, 94 points
Characterful aromas of fennel, dried herbs, brioche and intense toasty touches. Creamy and smooth, with a crisp acidity. Alc 11.5%

Rabetllat I Vidal, Brut Nature, Gran Reserva, Cava 2021
Silver, 94 points
Restrained character with earthy undertones and delicate aromas of brioche. Showing tension and energy, elegant and stylish palate. Long finish. Alc 12%

Art Laietà, Alto Alella 10 Pujol-Busquets Guillén Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2014
Silver, 93 points
Savoury character with notes of butterscotch, bread, orange, golden pineapple and lemon balm. Toasty and creamy palate, well layered. Alc 12%

Família Ferrer, Can Sala Brut Nature, Paraje Calificado 2013
Silver, 93 points
Developing nuances of caramelised apple, quince, toasted almonds and butterscotch. Honeyed palate, rich and creamy, with a mineral finish. Alc 12.5%

Marevia, Chardonnay-Pinot Noir Brut, Reserva 2020
Silver, 93 points
Light nuances of delicate brioche and citrus fruit on the nose. Creamy on the palate, very tasty and elegant. Alc 11.5%

Pere Ventura, Clos La Secreta Paraje Calificado Can Bas, Gran Reserva 2017
Silver, 93 points
Delicate aromas of peaches, apricots, brioche and digestive biscuits. Well made and layered, with a crisp acidity and lovely mousse. Alc 12%

Sumarroca, Ecològica Brut Nature, Gran Reserva 2019
Silver, 93 points
Perfumed, with bittersweet lemon, peach skin, Mediterranean herbs and aniseed. Savoury, saline and precise, with a nougat-like richness and long finish. Alc 12%

Search all award-winning Cava wines from DWWA 2026

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If there's one cuvée every Champagne lover dreams of tasting at least once in their life, it's Salon. So imagine the chance to taste not one, but five vintages of this legendary wine, produced only 45 times since the house was founded in 1905.

And what an opportunity to enjoy these five wines alongside five more Blanc de Blancs cuvées from Champagne Delamotte, Salon's sister house.

This was the exclusive opportunity afforded some 80 lucky attendees who got tickets to this sold-out masterclass – the first one of the day at the 2026 Decanter Fine Wine Encounter New York City, held on Saturday 6 June in the beautiful surrounds of the Manhatta on the 60th floor.

Scroll down for notes and scores of the 10 Salon and Delamotte Champagnes at the DFWE NYC 2026 masterclass

Delamotte, Blanc de Blancs NV (magnum)

Delamotte, Blanc de Blancs 2018 (magnum)

Delamotte, Blanc de Blancs 2014 (magnum)

Delamotte, Blanc de Blancs 2012 (magnum)

Delamotte, Collection Blanc de Blancs 2008 (magnum)

Salon, Cuvée S, Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs 2015

Salon, Cuvée S, Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs 2013

Salon, Cuvée S, Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs 2012

Salon, Cuvée S, Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs 2007

Salon, Cuvée S, Edition 2020, Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs 1997

Sister houses with distinct identities

Hosted by Cristian Rimoldi, the export director for both Delamotte and Salon, which have been part of the Laurent-Perrier group since 1988, this rare and exceptional tasting was a deep-dive into the complex and nuanced language of Chardonnay and the grands crus of the Côte des Blancs through the lens of these iconic sister houses

Through 10 remarkable and defining expressions of these outstanding terroirs, Rimoldi illustrated the commonalities between the two house’s approaches, as well as their distinct identities.

As background for the attendees, Rimoldi explained that the same technical teams are in charge of both houses, from viticulture to marketing. This allows for a nuanced understanding of the Chardonnay profile – from both owned and purchased vineyard plots – and subsequent decisions, particularly regarding the decision to release vintage cuvées.

For both houses, the wines are vinified in stainless steel tanks, but each has a different regimen regarding malolactic fermentation. It is done at Delamotte, while it is not encouraged – indeed prevented – at Salon, in order to preserve the delicate tension of the grape variety and terroir.

The dosage, made with cane sugar, is determined on a case-by-case basis, yet ranges between five grams per litre and 7.5g/L, with the exception of late disgorgements (Delamotte's Collection cuvée, and the ‘editions’ for Salon), which are brut nature, the extended bottling time providing the desired balance on the palate without the addition of sugar.

Champagne Delamotte

The first part of the tasting focused on Delamotte. One of the oldest houses in the Champagne region, founded in 1760, it specialises in Chardonnay, the grape variety at the heart of its four cuvées, where the average age of the vines is 40 years.

Champagne Delamotte also has HVE certification, which verifies its commitment to sustainable viticulture, and is moving towards organic farming trials

While it draws on the exceptional terroir of Mesnil-sur-Oger, Delamotte's philosophy, as Rimoldi told his audience, is the blending of the great crus of the Côte des Blancs. For the Blanc de Blancs NV, Avize and Oger are added to Mesnil, and for the pair of Blanc de Blancs Vintage cuvées, it is the three aforementioned crus plus Chouilly, Oiry, and Cramant.

‘We are the only house offering a blend of all six crus of the Côte,’ he emphasised. Added from 2008 onwards, Chouilly and Oiry ‘bring acidity, but also a structure similar to that of a Pinot Noir’.

The Blanc de Blancs NV is designed to be approachable, with the base vintage joined by 30% of reserve wine from the two preceding vintages, a 48-month aging period, and a more ‘inclusive’ dosage of around 7g/L.

The vintage cuvées, meanwhile, are crafted for complexity and ageing potential, and are undoubtedly the flagship of the house – albeit a discreet flagship, noted Rimoldi, often overlooked or little known by Côte des Blancs enthusiasts.

Contrasting vintage profiles

This was confirmed by comparative tastings of the 2018, 2014, and 2012 vintages. Their distinct identities were clearly identifiable – the ripeness of the 2018, the cool tension of the 2014, and the robust structure of the 2012 – especially since they were tasted in magnums. (They, like all 10 wines in the tasting, were aged under screwcap).

‘In terms of pH and ripeness, 2018 is similar to 1982,’ said Rimoldi when the topic of climate change was raised, along with its potential impact on a style as intense as Delamotte and Salon.

‘We need to take a step back and look at cycles,’ he explained. ‘We are obviously very aware of this issue. One advantage, however, is the improved health of the grapes compared to harvests that were previously very late and more complicated.

‘And we are fortunate to be on exceptional chalky terroirs with their water reserves, which are so important for the vines.’

The fact that the 2014 and 2012 were also in a period of post-disgorgement development highlighted the contrasting profiles of these vintages, both in terms of volume and aromas.

The comparison became even more interesting with the 2008 Collection. Delamotte offers late disgorgements for its Brut Vintage (dating back to 1964) as well as its Blanc de Blancs (1970, 1985, 1988, 1991, 1999, 2000, 2008).

Disgorged and then aged for barely a year, with no added dosage, the 2008 had the aromatic profile of a great Chardonnay, but with surprising power and density for a Côte des Blancs wine. A wine showing that Delamotte's vintage Blanc de Blancs is a benchmark, offering real value for money.

Champagne Salon

The second part of the tasting was devoted to the truly unique Salon Champagne. While its aesthetic – a single terroir (Le Mesnil-sur-Oger), a single vintage, a single grape variety – is no longer particularly striking today, Rimoldi reminded attendees that ‘Aimé Salon, a great lover of Burgundy, had this idea in 1905!’

Moving from the magnum format of the five Delamotte wines to the 75cl format for Salon – as well as going from the mature, brut nature 2008 Delamotte Collection to a young 2015 Salon, required particular concentration from the guests and was a true exercise for the palate.

But Rimoldi started with this latest vintage release followed by 2013, 2012, 2007, and 1997 in its 'second edition' version from 2020.

‘There is only one disgorgement when we release a vintage, and we do not indicate the date on the bottle,’ he told the masterclass.

‘However, we have decided to offer late disgorgements which we call Editions, in which case the disgorgement dates are mentioned. In terms of dosage, we are still around 5g/L to 7g/L grams, as for Delamotte, except for these late disgorgements, which are brut nature, as for Delamotte Collection.’

Making history

Only 45 vintages of Salon have been released since 1905 – 37 during the 20th century, but already eight since 2000.

Symbolic of the climatic consequences, 2015 was a sunny vintage so required less bottling time than 2014. This vintage has needed a longer time on the lees (tirage) and is still ageing ‘at a glacial pace’.

This is only the second time in Salon’s history it has made a non-chronological release. And once 2014 is out, it will also be only the second time that four consecutive Salon vintages (2012-13-14-15) will have been made, after the quadrilogy of 1946-47-48-49.Undoubtedly, the 2015 benefited from the water-retaining quality of the Mesnil chalk, mitigating the stress experienced by the vines in other Champagne areas, which can lead to vegetal bitterness on the palate.

The 2013 and 2012 vintages were remarkable examples of the Salon style, but very different profiles: 2012 with its mature, slightly more evolved structure, and 2013 with its crisp, chiselled freshness.

Salon has a reputation for closing up after a few years in the bottle and then reopening. This seems to be more the case with 2012 than 2013. The 2007, with a profile similar to the 2014, also benefited from a longer tirage period (11 years compared to the average of nine), and is now at its peak, deserving its nickname of ‘shining light’.

The masterclass concluded with a truly great 1997 (edition 2020), aged for 23 years and with no added dosage. Confirming again the importance of lees in defining texture and revealing density, the wine is surprisingly expressive.

Champagne Delamotte and Salon masterclass: 10 Blanc de Blancs cuvées

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While cooler-climate regions in the US, such as Oregon’s Willamette Valley, are better known for sparkling wine, a growing cohort of Washington state winemakers have been producing fizz worthy of fireworks.

The state’s principal appellation, the Columbia Valley, is larger than the country of Belgium and a growing region of extreme diversity.

Across its microclimates, sub-appellations, and high-elevation vineyards, traditional sparkling varieties such as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir seem to grow as well as the human talent required to transform those grapes into premium wines.

As US wine drinkers prepare to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday on the Fourth of July, here are five reasons to consider a bottle of Washington state fizz for the festivities.

Five sparklingly good reasons to choose Washington state fizz for your Fourth festivities

1. A range of prices puts Washington bubbly in reach of most buyers

Entry-level, traditional-method bottles from established Yakima-based producers such as Treveri start below $20. Newer upstart brand Tirriddis prices its value House line at just over $20 a bottle.

Gabriel Crowell, co-founder and director of winemaking at Tirriddis in Prosser, attributes this competitive edge to the state’s established agricultural infrastructure and what he calls the ‘pursuit of flavor’.

‘What makes sparkling so unique is that you have the option of flavor, but you have the possibility of being able to actually produce enough cases to get a traditional-method Pinot Gris to St Louis, Missouri.’

2. Cool-climate varieties are grown with success across the state

‘I’m always looking for the coolest spots,’ says Chris Sherry, who crafts traditional-method sparkling wines for his brand Elentone in the Woodinville wine district north of Seattle.

He sources fruit from higher-elevation vineyards within the rugged Columbia Gorge.

His preferred sites, such as Celilo on Underwood Mountain and nearby Rainmaker in White Salmon, are further west in the Gorge appellation.

These areas are closer to maritime influences from the Pacific Ocean, and benefit from more moderated temperatures as well as an extended growing season.

‘It just helps things ripen a bit more evenly,’ says Sherry.

3. Styles are suited to every taste

From natural, low-intervention styles, to extended lees ageing, or bottlings made using non-traditional grape varieties, there is something for everyone on Washington’s sparkling spectrum.

Grosgrain winemaker Matt Austin, who helped popularize pet-nat (pétillant naturel) in the state with his Red Mountain Lemberger, now produces a traditional-method wine from the variety, albeit in a largely hands-off style.

‘We still make that wine in a fairly natural way, with no fining, filtration, or cold stabilization, to keep it a little more wild and textural,’ Austin says.

4. Washington fizz is fantastically food friendly

Picnic salads, corn on the cob, burgers, barbecue: few wines are better with a variety of traditional cookout foods than Washington’s many high-acid bubblies.

In Walla Walla, Kinhaven winemaker Kasey Davenport suggests seafood with her fizz, The Four Stars.

‘We love it with oysters, Dungeness crab pasta salad, or a lobster roll.’

5. You can toast to the promise of a brighter tomorrow (like a State official)

Second-generation winemaker Christian Grieb of Treveri in Wapato, Washington, says his brand’s Blanc de Blancs Brut Zero has made its way to the nation’s capital more than once.

‘We’ve been served at the State Department on several occasions,’ Grieb says.

‘We love its mission, which is American diplomacy through American food and wine.’

10 great Washington state sparkling wines to try

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Susie Barrie MW, Matt Hodgson and Dror Nativ MW tasted 66 wines, with 11 Outstanding and 40 Highly recommended

English sparkling wine: Panel tasting scores

66 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 11

Highly recommended 40

Recommended 14

Commended 1

Fair 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release brut or drier-style white, rosé or red traditional-method sparkling wines, single varietals or blends, produced in the UK using a blend of multiple vintages and labelled as non-vintage or multi-vintage

It was the year of the London Olympics, not to mention Queen Elizabeth ll’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

But for UK wine, 2012 was an annus horribilis on a scale hitherto unseen in the modern era.

When a vintage that bad comes along, having a stock of reserve wines to draw on is an essential blending tool in any traditional-method sparkling winemaker’s arsenal.

Sadly, given the nascency of the UK industry at that time, very few wineries had a reserve wine programme.

But as Hattingley Valley’s then head winemaker Emma Rice said: ‘2012 spurred us on to do it’.

Fast forward to today and the industry has evolved from producing largely single-vintage wines to one where non-vintage (NV) and multi-vintage (MV) bottlings play a growing role.

Hence this panel tasting, which also perfectly demonstrated how quality is rising seemingly exponentially.

As Dror Nativ MW stated: ‘If you consider the number of high scores we gave today, there’s really smart, consistent winemaking in England.’

Depth of flavour

Matt Hodgson concurred, adding: ‘I think non- and multi-vintage is the right direction of travel for the English wine industry’, and all the judges agreed that the wines containing higher levels of reserves (or just based on older vintages) delivered greater complexity and depth of flavour.

It’s also worth mentioning that almost all the wines we rated Outstanding (95 points or more) had seen oak and spent considerable time on lees, which added further layers of flavour.

One noteworthy observation was the way in which the whites outperformed the rosé wines (of the 30 wines scoring 93-96pts, only eight were rosé).

Hodgson commented: ‘We’ve always been big advocates of English sparkling rosé [at retailer Grape Britannia] and they were great – it’s just the whites were even better.’

Beyond quality, what I find exciting is that, in the key sweet spot of £30-£50, the best UK wines offer excellent value.

As Nativ said: ‘Based on the tasting today, we saw brilliant value compared to either Champagne or any worldclass sparkling wines.’

I couldn’t agree more.

See all notes and scores from the UK sparkling wines tasting

The judges

UK sparkling wines panel tasting results:

Wines were tasted blind

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The charming semi-sparkling wine of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna, Lambrusco is considered the ideal wine to pair with local Emilia cuisine, from cured meats like Salame and Prosciutto di Parma to pastas like tortellini and local cheeses.

Often frizzante, or lightly sparkling, classic Lambrusco wines are dry or slightly off-dry with floral aromas, bright red fruit characters and refreshing acidity. The wines are light in tannins and have moderate alcohol.

Typically produced using the Charmat (tank) method, a small proportion is also made by the Traditional or Ancestrale methods. The best examples reflect the different varieties and distinct characteristics of the three main Lambrusco grapes including Lambrusco di Sorbara, Lambrusco Salamino and Lambrusco Grasparossa.

Scroll down to discover six Lambrusco wines to try from DWWA 2026

A local favourite, the classic Lambrusco wine style, bottled with mushroom corks as opposed to the sweet, mass-produced Lambrusco wines bottled with screw-cap, is deservedly finding its way into international markets.

And catching the attention of the expert judges at Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), six Lambrusco wines received Silver and Bronze medals (from 89 to 95 points), worth trying.

A region and wine style well worth exploring, below discover Emilia-Romagna’s top-scoring Lambrusco wines from the 2026 competition to celebrate World Lambrusco Day.

Search all award-winning wines from Emilia-Romagna at awards.decanter.com

World Lambrusco Day: Six award-winning styles to try

Ceci, Otello Ceci 1813 Nero di Lambrusco, Lambrusco dell'Emilia NV

Gold, 95 points
Bustling with strawberry, brambly fruit and leafy florals that infiltrate the elegant mousse and luscious texture. A fine line of orange zest of acidity cuts through. Alcohol 11%

Le Origini, S. Onofrio Brut, Lambrusco di Sorbara 2025

Silver, 93 points
Pretty aromatics of candied redcurrant and cherry; raspberry, orange, wild blackberry and a bright acidity on the palate. Alc 11%

Gualtieri, Il Ligabue, Lambrusco Reggiano NV

Silver, 92 points
Candied cherry, strawberry jam, cranberry sauce and orange zest nose; palate of sour cherry and bright raspberry. Alc 11%

Ceci, Terre Verdiane 1813 Amabile, Lambrusco dell'Emilia NV

Silver, 90 points
Sour cherry and candied redcurrant nose; palate of dark cherry, subtle herb, sweet red fruit and a tangy acidity. Alc 8.5%

Cantina Puianello, Contrada Borgoleto Semisecco, Lambrusco Reggiano 2025

Silver, 90 points
Inviting and aromatic with dark berry fruit and lifted floral notes leading to a palate of juicy bramble and blueberry preserve. Alc 9.5%

Ventiventi, Rouge De Noirs Brut, Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce 2021

Bronze, 89 points
Tart red fruit and lifted floral notes on the nose; canned cherry, red berry fruit and crisp acidity on the palate. Alc 12%

See all DWWA 2026 results

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A glass fills with pale gold, capped with a meringue-soft mousse which subsides, slowly, to a simmering ring around the glass.

There’s little remarkable about the pour until a glance sideways reveals a number etched on the side of the bottle: 1979.

Sensing my astonishment, Lanson Chef de Cave Hervé Dantan raises a knowing smile. ‘The 1979 has always been like this!,’ he says. ‘From the first time I tasted it.’

Intense aromas soar up from the glass – cooked limes, coffee, kerosine, toasted nut and vanilla – it’s still gliding on a gently bubbly texture while serving up intense, complex refreshment.

Despite the fortune to taste older Champagnes on a regular basis, disappointments at the hands of overt oxidation, bad corks or careless storage are commonplace.

How come Lanson’s treasures seem to last so well?

Turning out the cellar

First in the list of reasons is a renovation of the house’s library that has proven itself a model for the region.

‘It took four years to do the restoration of all the wines going back to 1904,’ explains Dantan, who had two people working constantly on a highly technical project which included laser-tasting bottles for pressure (without opening them), colour and chemical analysis, cork analysis and, where needed, tasting.

‘We had to taste some 1914, some 1918 – it’s wasn’t torture, but we learnt so much about the potential of ageing these wines. It was an incredible process,’ he recalls.

Around 15% of the library was culled after all 200,000 bottles were individually checked.

The end result is that every bottle in the extensive library is now as close to guaranteed in condition as possible, tagged with its own ID card and, in the case of the Lanson Vintage Collection, available for collectors to purchase in their own personal private cellar space at the maison.

Unhurried development

While the vintage takes up most of the cellar, a separate archive exists for prestige cuvée Noble.

It was this precious store which was raided for an extraordinary ‘vertical’ tasting in April 2026, starting with the 1979 and proceeding through a series of both Noble Blanc de Blancs and Noble releases.

With the Chardonnay part of the blend put together first (and sometimes released as a standalone Noble Blanc de Blancs), 30% Pinot Noir from the Grand Cru village of Verzenay is added to complete the main cuvée, which spends around 12 years ageing in the cellars before release.

Even then, this is clearly not a wine in a hurry.

Four aged examples of Lanson Noble

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The 1976 Judgement of Paris is credited with putting American wine on the map internationally, but a century earlier, a forgotten milestone put New York wine on the world’s stage.

In 1873, a Finger Lakes sparkling wine took home gold at a competition in Vienna – the first American bubbly to win an international medal.

The wine was crafted from Catawba grapes by Pleasant Valley Wine Company on Keuka Lake, U.S. Bonded Winery No. 1.

The victory caused quite a stir back home in the Empire State. In 1871, the winery’s founder, Charles Champlin, sent a case to the Boston wine connoisseur, Marshall P. Wilder, who declared it the ‘The Great Champagne of the Western World’.

Pleasant Valley quickly earned the nickname ‘Great Western’, and its shipping records from the late 19th century show it was a supplier to numerous prestigious east coast establishments such as S.S. Pierce, Macy’s, Park & Tilford, Palmer House of Chicago, and Parker House of Boston.

Origin story

‘[American hybrid] grapes like Delaware played such an important role in our region’s early sparkling wines,’ explains Erin McMurrough of Little Clover Wine Company, a micro-winery in the Finger Lakes offering traditional method style Riesling, Delaware, and Cayuga White.

‘These grapes are naturally suited to traditional-method sparkling wine: they hold bright acidity, develop beautiful aromatics at lower sugars, and create wines with freshness and energy,’ she continues.

‘I never questioned whether they could make serious sparkling wine; I only wondered whether people would be open to revisiting these varieties in a new, yet historically rooted, way.’

McMurrough’s wines have become cult favourites since launching in 2023.

She says: ‘I see Little Clover as both a nod to our roots and a reminder that New York doesn't need to imitate other regions to make world-class sparkling wine. We have our own story to tell.’

New York’s rich history of sparkling wine dates back more than 150 years. The fame of local sparkling wines from the Finger Lakes was such that from 1870 to 1945 it adopted the postmark ‘Rheims, N.Y.’.

The vinifera revolution

Though prohibition was crippling to the wine industry, the region’s strong associations with sparkling wines remained.

Renowned winegrowers and makers immigrated to Long Island and the Finger Lakes in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Guy Deveaux of Moët et Chandon and Mumm Napa, and Charles Fournier of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.

‘Our sparkling programme began with the 1985 vintage under my grandfather, Willy Frank,’ says Meaghan Frank, fourth-generation General Manager at Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery on Keuka Lake.

The winery began in 1958 as an experiment between Charles Fournier and Frank’s great-grandfather, Konstantin.

Willy Frank’s deep commitment to traditional method wines, classically made with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, meant he was the first producer to successfully plant Vitis vinifera in Finger Lakes, proving it was possible and leading to a new wave of still and sparkling wines made with vinifera varieties.

‘At the time, he labelled the wines “Finger Lakes Champagne” because he was intent on legitimising both vinifera and sparkling wine production in the region,’ Frank continues.

Although EU-USA labelling agreements mean it is still allowed to use the term, the winery prefers to list 'traditional method' on its labels out of respect for the venerable Champagne region.

Diverse sparkling offerings

As interest in New York sparkling increases, so do the state’s offerings: with traditional and tank method wines, Pét Nat (pétillant naturel also known as ancestral method), and everything in between.

You’ll even find a sparkling Albariño in the Hudson Valley and sparkling rosé ice wine in the Lake Erie AVA.

‘I guess the reason is “why not?”. I'm a scientist. I like challenges,’ says Johnson Estate Winery winemaker Jeff Murphy.

Like his counterparts statewide, Murphy is a true New Yorker, unafraid to push the limits of cool-climate wines, sparkling especially, and not back down from something others might think is too difficult.

‘Long cool summers and crisp falls ripen aromatics and flavour components at lower sugar levels, providing an ideal sparkling base,’ he says of the state’s conditions.

After decades of testing and measuring itself against European benchmarks, New York’s persistence has arrived at something more valuable than validation: an identity of its own.

When you open a bottle of New York sparkling, you’re experiencing deep roots – and a very bright future.

Empire State of fizz

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Italy’s reverence for French bubbles runs deep, yet its own metodo classico (traditional method) wines tell a distinct story.

Crafted using the same method as in Champagne – but rooted in Italian soil – these wines showcase the country’s unique landscapes, native grapes, and centuries of tradition, delivering effervescence with unmistakable Italian character.

Historical spark

Metodo classico is produced across Italy, but its historic heart lies in the north – Trentino, Lombardy, and Piedmont – home to landmark regions such as Trentodoc, Franciacorta, Alta Langa, and Oltrepò Pavese, as well as Veneto’s Monti Lessini.

This wasn’t by chance. Northern Italy shares more than a border with France. It also shares centuries of exchange and ambition.

As Champagne rose to prominence in the 19th century, Italian producers studied its methods, imported Chardonnay and Pinot Noir cuttings, and adapted them to their own landscapes.

Long before climate change began reshaping Europe's vineyards, Northern Italy's cooler growing seasons allowed grapes to ripen slowly while preserving the vibrant acidity that traditional-method sparkling wines depend on.

That natural freshness gave the region an enduring advantage in producing elegant metodo classico wines.

Set against the Alps, a landscape shaped by elevation, glaciers, moraines, and alpine air creates ideal conditions for classic-method sparkling wine.

Wide temperature swings between day and night preserve acidity and allow grapes to ripen slowly, resulting in wines of finesse and structure.

Trentino-Alto Adige

A century ago, Giulio Ferrari coaxed Chardonnay from mineral-rich Alpine soils, setting a benchmark for Trentodoc, Italy’s first DOC devoted to metodo classico.

Today, bottlings such as San Leonardo’s Marchesi Guerrieri Gonzaga Cuvée Pietra, or Rotari’s Flavio Riserva range from light and vivid to autolytic (toasty, reminiscent of brioche) and texturally rich.

Bright and focused, Trentodoc is defined by precision and energy.

Continuing north, Alto Adige’s metodo classico is naturally gaining ground.

Against the Dolomites’ rugged peaks, producers including Kettmeir, Kurtatsch, Peter Sölva, and Praeclarus craft Alpine-spirited wines from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Bianco – crystalline and taut.

Alta Langa

In Piedmont’s Alta Langa, steep, high-altitude hills with calcareous marl soils and wide temperature swings create ideal conditions for metodo classico.

Only Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are permitted, and every bottle is vintage-dated and aged for at least 30 months on the lees.

This gives Alta Langa its hallmark tension, crisp acidity, and savoury minerality, with layered notes of citrus, white flowers, and freshly baked bread.

Still a young DOCG, Alta Langa is rapidly earning acclaim, with both historic producers like Coppo and Enrico Serafino and dynamic newcomers such as Tenuta Santa Chiara.

Oltrepò Pavese

Crossing the Po River, Oltrepò Pavese remains Italy’s heartland for Pinot Noir.

Its history runs deep: in the 19th century, pioneers including Carlo Gancia and Count Augusto Giorgi di Vistarino helped establish Italy’s first metodo classico wines.

‘Engineer Domenico Mazza declared his first production of Pinot Noir Metodo Classico as “Champagne di Codevilla,”’ notes Attilio Scienza, professor and chief scientist at the Vinitaly International Academy.

Despite its finicky nature, Pinot Noir has found a natural home here, with the highest concentration of plantings in Italy.

In this landscape of chalky marl slopes, a cool stream of salinity rises from the Ligurian Sea, and Apennine breezes cool the vines.

Wineries are reviving the Pinot Noir metodo classico tradition, with the term ‘Classese’ now appearing on labels, linking the method ‘classic’ to the place ‘Pavese’, and introducing specific production regulations for the variety.

Conte Vistriano, Tenuta Mazzolini, Roccapietra, and La Genisia are producers worth seeking out.

Franciacorta

Also in Lombardy, vineyards sweep across morainic hills south of Lake Iseo, where careful site selection is yielding polished expressions of Franciacorta DOCG.

Detailed vineyard mapping led by cartographer Alessandro Masnaghetti defines a mosaic of vineyard areas, helping producers better understand their sites, even if those distinctions remain largely invisible to consumers.

This shift toward site expression has helped define Franciacorta’s identity within Italy’s sparkling landscape.

In the glass, this means layered, lees-aged wines where citrus and orchard fruit evolve into almond, bread crust, and a gentle creaminess.

Distinct styles such as Satèn – made from Chardonnay and bottled at lower pressure – offer a softer, silkier expression.

At the same time, estates such as Barone Pizzini and Castello Bonomi are reviving the obscure Erbamat grape.

Naturally high in acidity and late ripening, it adds freshness while offering a response to warm vintages.

Italy’s indigenous fizz

But Italy’s story doesn’t rest solely on international grapes. In Veneto’s Monti Lessini DOC, the indigenous and ancient grape Durella thrives in volcanic, fossil-rich soils, yielding food-friendly metodo classico wines with formidable acidity.

Think of minerals, crunchy green apples, and citrus.

‘Its high acidity makes sparkling wine an ideal vehicle for Durella’s charms,’ says D’Agata.In Piedmont, Luigi Ferrando is reimagining Erbaluce di Caluso as a sparkling wine with tension and longevity.

Around Lake Garda, metodo classico in Lugana made from Turbiana, like those from Perla del Garda, offer wines of brilliance from high-mineral soils, imparting structure and a saline edge with a vibrant, modern snap.

Further north, Prié, the oldest documented grape variety in the Valle d’Aosta, is grown at some of Europe’s loftiest vineyard sites.

Where altitude defines both place and profile, producers such as Cave Mont Blanc and Ermes Pavese are crafting wines that are brisk and finely etched, with mountain herbs and citrus woven through a lively, persistent mousse.

This focus on native grapes is reshaping Italy’s sparkling identity.

From Emilia to Etna

In Emilia-Romagna, Paltrinieri’s ‘Grosso’ draws attention to Sorbara’s singular character.

A grape that cannot self-pollinate, it depends on interplanted Salamino vines. This leads to uneven ripening, which, paradoxically, heightens its natural acidity.

‘Sorbara’s acidity doesn’t come from picking early,’ says fourth-generation Giovanni Paltrinieri. ‘When fully ripe, they are full of acidity.’

The wines are shimmering, vibrant, and expressive – driven as much by character as by precision.

In Sicily, before Etna became known for its reds and whites, sparklers were already made using the traditional method.

In the mid-19th century, the Spitaleri family presented Etna sparkling wines at international exhibitions, reportedly winning top prizes over Champagne.

Production then declined for much of the 20th century before re-emerging in recent years as a small but growing focus among Etna producers.

Grown on Etna’s black volcanic soils, Nerello Mascalese and Carricante are producing bubbles of notable freshness and structure.

A formal category for sparkling wines is set to be introduced into the denomination in the coming years, reflecting growing momentum behind the style.

Key references include Benanti and Terrazze dell’Etna, alongside Tenute Nicosia and Murgo.

More focused projects are also emerging from producers such as Iuppa, Firriato, and De Bartoli Etna, with Tenute Mannino also exploring this space.

‘It’s fascinating to see what indigenous grapes are capable of, particularly Nerello Mascalese,’ says Kirk Peterson, wine expert and owner of US distributor Copfina Nevada.

An open invitation

For wine lovers, Italy’s metodo classico is an invitation to explore.

Italy's traditional method wines are linked by technique but uniquely distinguished by terroir.

In broad strokes, Franciacorta tends toward ripe yellow orchard fruit and breadth, Trentino is known for its steely precision, while Monti Lessini showcases the remarkable acidity and individuality of its native grape, Durella.

Peterson says: ‘For anyone interested in exploring the differences between Montagne de Reims and Vallée de la Marne should also welcome the opportunity to taste metodo classico from Alta Langa to Mount Etna.’.

After all, would you compare Parmigiano Reggiano to Comté?

Italian metodo classico: Eight to try

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There are rich pickings for fans of vintage and prestige Champagne this summer as wines from one of Champagne’s few trilogies – sequences of three fine seasons where single-vintage wines are widely produced by the houses – start to hit the market.

A stellar trio

2018, 2019 and 2020 all featured hot, sunny weather, with subtle variations in rainfall and temperature meaning each has its own character.

For the time being it’s the 2018s that are starting to trickle through.

‘It was a fantastic vintage,’ says Charles-Armand de Belenet, managing director of Champagne Bollinger, which launched the 2018 La Grande Année in both white and rosé editions this spring.

‘After the nightmare of 2017, we had perfect weather, with lots of rain at the start of the year and then beautiful sunshine.’

There will be very few Champagne producers who did not make a 2018 vintage, not only because of the quality but also because the yields were among the most generous ever recorded.

The question marks in this vintage are in terms of depth, concentration and low acidity. The wines are instantly delicious, but are they sometimes a bit too easy-going?

As demonstrated, though, by this fine pair from Bollinger, as well as the latest vintage releases from Louis Roederer and Laurent-Perrier reviewed below, this is a year that, while certainly warm, sunny and approachable, offers more elegance than previous heatwave summers such as 2015, 2009, 2006 or 2003.

Pol Roger’s vintage rosé from the following year, 2019, widely viewed as the most complete and perfect of the trilogy – may be the most impressive rendition of this cuvée yet.

Unexpected stardom for an underrated vintage

It’s not only widely the fêted vintages to look out for, though. Charles Heidsieck offers only the fifth vintage of its prestige blanc de blancs, Blanc des Millénaires from 2017, a year widely regarded as a disaster in Champagne thanks to fast-moving acetic rot at harvest.

‘In mid August, the talk was of the vintage of the century,’ says Charles Heidsieck cellar master Emilien Erard, ‘but two weeks later, it was a disaster’.

A disaster, that is, almost everywhere apart from the chalky Côte des Blancs, where the resilient Chardonnay grapes on fast-drying soils escaped much of the rot and offered up a harvest of fine intensity and quality.

With the exception of isolated growers and an excellent, if low, production of Dom Pérignon, blanc de blancs will be the best style of the vintage – and Blanc des Millénaires will prove among the very finest.

Heading back in time

Two fine releases from Billecart-Salmon from the late-ripening 2013 season proved that this vintage, despite its bright acidities and reputation for relative austerity, can still yield quite approachable, welcoming wines in comparison to higher-acidity vintages of the past.

These are impeccably built cuvées that, while ready to drink in terms of balance, will gain much in terms of complexity from further cellaring.

In the meanwhile, enjoy more approachable releases such as Lanson’s excellent Noble 2012, as well as Henriot’s Cuvée des Enchanteleurs 2015, which reverts back to its much-loved historical name before the change to Cuvée Hemera in 2005.

Finally, after a Comtes de Champagne Rosé 2012 that was arguably the finest ever release of this lesser-known Pinot Noir-dominant rosé prestige cuvée comes the 2013.

An entirely different vintage in character yet one that, especially given a little patience, will prove this cuvée just as deserving as its more famous blanc de blancs sibling.

Latest Champagne releases

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Moscato emerged as the drink of choice for hip-hop royalty in the 2000s. Lil’ Kim got the ball rolling when she mentioned the semi-sparkling wine in her 2006 hit Lighters Up, and Drake was soon waxing lyrical about pairing Moscato with lobster.

Ab-Soul and Kendrick Lamar captured the zeitgeist when they collaborated on Moscato in 2011. Lamar, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, delivers this immortal line on the track: 'When things get hard to swallow, we need a bottle of Moscato, puts me in the mood for your lovin’ – ya love it.'

Sales exceeded $300 million in the US that year, while sales in Canada doubled.

Californian winery Gallo Family Vineyards decided to capitalise on the trend, so it created Moscato Day in 2012. The company chose 9 May as a fixed annual date, giving fans – including hip-hop superstars – a chance to savour a glass of Moscato each year.

An ancient grape with modern appeal

The Muscat family of grapes has thrived in the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

Its roots may stretch back to Ancient Greece, where it was likely known as Anathelicon Moschaton. Historians have speculated that the Ancient Romans, Persians and Egyptians all enjoyed wines made from Muscat too.

The family contains more than 200 varieties, but the most prized for winemaking is Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains – the grape behind Italy’s beloved Moscato d’Asti. The grape found its spiritual home in Piedmont, in north-west Italy.

That region is renowned for making world-class red wines like Barolo and Barbaresco, but it also created Moscato d’Asti. This gently sparkling wine offers a delicate sweetness and low levels of alcohol (typically around 5% to 6% abv). That makes it a perfect wine for newcomers, but it’s also a popular palate cleanser for experienced drinkers.

Scroll down to discover 10 awarded wines from DWWA 2025

Yet Moscato’s reputation as a simple sweet wine doesn’t tell the full story.

Producers in California make sweet, approachable wines, but the Muscat family yields a remarkable range of styles: bone-dry, aromatic whites in Alsace, fortified wines in southern France and Australia, vibrant Asti Spumante and much more.

There are even red and rosé Moscatos for anyone seeking something a little different.

Whatever your preference, in the immortal words of Drake, 9 May is the time for 'a celebration, clap, clap, bravo, lobster and shrimp and a glass of Moscato.'

Award-winning wines from DWWA 2025

Australia

Gralyn Estate, Museum Rare Muscat, Margaret River, Western Australia NV
Platinum, 97 points
Intoxicating molasses, sticky date pudding, treacle, coffee and chocolate flavour smoulders and slides over the unctuous palate, punctuated by a soothing orange peel acidity to freshen and a grilled nut, leathery note to juxtapose. Amazing. Alcohol 18.5%

Croatia

Benvenuti, San Salvatore Muškat, Hrvatska Istra, Coastal 2021
Platinum, 97 points
A thrilling array of apricot, orange marmalade, mango and chestnut honey fragrance seeps into the harmonious palate, resplendent in its sweet, yet delicate concentration. Utterly absorbing with a beguiling freshness from the vibrant acidity. Wonderfully persistent. Alc 12.5%

Greece

Uwc Samos, Nectar, Samos, Aegean Islands 2018
Platinum, 97 points
An embarrassment of riches: dried raisins, figs, apricots and marzipan float over the unctuously rich palate, resplendent in its viscous glory. The heady power is tapered by an oozing preserved lemon acidity. Long and finessed. Alc 14.%

Samos Wines, Anthemis, Samos, Aegean Islands 2019
Silver, 94 points
Stylish with complex aromas of cocoa, liquorice, muscovado sugar in sweet spices background alongside shitake mushroom, fig and dates; long-lasting Alc 15%

Italy

Siddùra, Nùali Moscato, Moscato di Sardegna, Sardinia 2022
Platinum, 97 points
Flamboyant and exotic aromas of dried tropical fruits, vanilla, honeyed peaches and roasted almonds. So wonderfully fragrant and enjoyable with a cheeky prickle of effervescence and zippy acidity in the mouth. Lively, expressive and long. Alc 13%

Ca' De Lion, Moscato, Canelli, Piedmont 2024
Silver, 93 points
Pretty nose of fresh citrus, brioche and rose petal; white stone fruit, mandarin and melon on the palate. Alc 6%

Dogliotti 1870, Moscato d'Asti, Piedmont 2024
Silver, 92 points
Inviting, with a nose of fresh chamomile, peeled tangerine and floral notes; palate of stone fruit and sherbet. Alc 5.5%

South Africa

Groot Constantia Estate, Grand Constance, Constantia, Cape Town 2020
Platinum, 97 points
Multitudinous layers of apricot, orange marmalade, elderflower and tulip fragrance pursue the radiant honeyed sweetness with a smooth, emulsifying texture and a quenching watermelon acidity that tingles and energises. Statuesque with glorious tea leaf finish. Alc 12%

Alvi's Drift, Nectarinia Muscat Blanc À Petits Grains, Worcester 2017
Gold 95, Points
Grandiose and genteel with copious sultana, date, syrupy mandarin and orange flower water perfume permeating the luscious viscosity, with a honeyed hazelnut warmth to end. Alc 15.5%

Spain

Jorge Ordóñez, Nº2 Victoria, Sierras de Málaga 2024
Gold 95, Points
Festooned with orange blossom and orange peel perfume that unfurls over the succulent honeycomb palate. A tapering freshness from the grapey acidity glides towards the end. Alc 11%

See all DWWA 2025 award-winning wines

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South Africa’s leading Cap Classique producer, Graham Beck, has launched its first English sparkling wine. The vintage cuvée is the first traditional method fizz made outside of South Africa by the Robertson-based winery.

Made in limited quantities, Graham Beck Artisan Collection English Sparkling 2018 is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grown in Hampshire and West Sussex. The house worked with four growers to source fruit.

The project was overseen by Graham Beck cellar master Pierre de Klerk and former cellar master and COO Pieter ‘Bubbles’ Ferreira. It marks their final collaboration before Ferreira's retirement.

Speaking to Decanter, Ferreira explained that the idea of making sparkling wine outside of South Africa went back many years. ‘Champagne is obviously the ultimate benchmark for any winemaker in the sparkling wine world,’ he said.

‘But we also did study tours to Franciacorta; we’ve been in Cava country and I’ve been visiting the UK vineyards since the days when there were only three or four wineries here.’

However it was a trip to Düsseldorf wine trade fair ProWein in 2016 that made the idea take root. ‘South Africa was in the New World hall, and next to the South African stand was Wine GB – brand new. There were maybe 10 producers flying the English flag,’ he said, adding that hype around England’s sparkling wine potential also started around that time.

Later that year, Ferreira toured southern England’s key wine regions with winery owner Antony Beck, son of Graham Beck. Helped by Ian Kellet, founder of Hambledon Vineyard in Hampshire, they explored the unique geology of the landscape.

‘When we began studying the vineyards and chalk soils of southern England, we recognised the potential immediately,’ noted Ferreira. The chalk formations of the South Downs – similar to those found in Champagne – lend a distinctive mineral backbone to wines. While England’s cool maritime climate can produce base wines with vibrant acidity and pure aromas.

Nicknaming the project GBinGB – Graham Beck in Great Britain – the house decided to work with selected growers, rather than establishing its own vineyards, which as Ferreira explained who have been a 10-year project to achieve first vintage. Instead they set up contracts with growers, arranged access to cellar space in Hampshire and started to produce in 2018, which is widely regarded as one of finest English vintages to date.

‘2018 was a gorgeous vintage in the UK,’ confirmed Ferreira. ‘It was beautiful and ripe. It was sunny – a fantastic year.’

Ferreira and De Klerk visited the vineyards to determine harvest dates and were hands-on throughout vinification, assemblage, tirage, ageing and disgorging of the new cuvée. The parcels of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier were vinified separately, then assessed individually before the final blend was assembled.

A small proportion of the base wines underwent fermentation in neutral French oak, adding texture and complexity to the final cuvée. It was bottled early to maximise extended lees maturation, creating the signature Graham Beck creaminess.

‘The opportunity to bring Graham Beck’s philosophy of traditional-method sparkling winemaking to England is incredibly exciting,’ concluded De Klerk. ‘This wine reflects both the character of its English terroir and the precision and patience that define the House style. It’s a continuation of our pursuit of the perfect bubble.’

Graham Beck Artisan Collection English Sparkling 2018 will be released in the UK this summer with an RRP of £45.

Allocations will also be available in South Africa later in the year.

How does it taste?

Decanter's Regional Editor for South Africa, Julie Sheppard, reviews the new release.

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We are standing on the panoramic terrace of the tasting room of the Borgo Maragliano winery in Loazzolo, in the Alta Langa.

The Galliano family have produced Moscato here for three generations. They began to plant Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the early 1980s, and were among the first of the new generation of ground-breaking metodo classico producers in the Langhe area of Piedmont.

The cellars are at 450 metres above sea level, while the average elevation of the vineyards spread out below us in a patchwork of vines, pastures and woodland is around 400m.

Carlo Galliano points to a plot which has been cleared on a hillside high above us, on the opposite side of the valley.

‘It’s at 600m,’ he explains. ‘The soils are perfect for Pinot Noir, but my father would never have planted a vineyard at that height. It would never have ripened. But today with the climate we have, it’s different. I’m going to be planting there in the spring.’

Taking advantage

When the production norms for the Alta Langa DOC (later DOCG) were drawn up in 2002, they stipulated that the wine had to be sourced from vineyards at above 250m.

Today the producers’ consorzio estimates that the average elevation is between 400 and 550m, although many growers are exploiting the opportunity offered by a changing climate to plant much higher – on sites where the grapes tick all the boxes for sparkling wine production; intense aroma, high acidity and low sugar.

When the Rivetti family acquired the historic house of Contratto in 2011, they planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir dedicated to Alta Langa sparkling wine at between 700m and 820m.

And when Sara Vezza from the Josetta Saffirio winery at Monforte embarked on a production of her metodo classico, she planted on virgin soils at 700m at Murazzano, in an area of high pastures renowned for its cheeses and certainly not in the past for its wines.

It will be interesting to see how the arrival of viticulture will impact these often isolated rural sites in the future.

Italian metodo classico: A brief history

When it comes to metodo classico wines, Alta Langa is very much the new player on the block.

The three other major Italian DOCs for bottle re-fermented wines all arrived much earlier: Trento DOC dates from 1993, Oltre Po from 1970, and Franciacorta from 1967.

Yet production of metodo classico is not new to Piedmont – in 1850, following studies in Reims, Carlo Gancia founded the house of Gancia at Canelli.

Adapting the French system of bottle re-fermention using the local grape Moscato, he produced what is documented as Italy’s first traditional method sparkling wine.

Other historic houses including Calissano, Contratto and Cora followed suit, adding sparkling wines to the flourishing production of Vermouth of the period, emulating Champagne not only in the production method but also in the flamboyant liberty-style advertising posters which have become collectors’ items.

But then it all died away.

Fast forward to 1990, and a group of seven major Piedmontese houses launched a project to recreate the production of prestige metodo classico, which had been lost in the region.

In what would make an interesting case study in entrepreneurial initiative, the project started from zero, with experimental plantings of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and by 1996, there were 48 hectares under vine.

The name Alta Langa was registered in 1998, and the following year the first wines were released.

The producers’ consorzio was founded in 2001, and in record time, DOC recognition arrived in 2002 for the new sparkling wine.

Building an identity

To create a distinctive identity for the new Alta Langa denomination, the production regulations drawn up in 2002 set the bar high.

To begin with, the base must be Chardonnay and/or Pinot Noir, used individually or in combination.

There is no non-vintage version – Alta Langa is exclusively ‘millesimato’ – and it must age on its lees for a minimum of 30 months (36 months for the Riserva; this will increase to 60 months when the latest modifications to the regulations come into effect).

The potential area of production for Alta Langa is vast, taking in 149 villages in the three wine growing provinces of Alessandria, Asti and Cuneo.

But currently, only 600ha are registered. To put that in perspective, Barbaresco has around 750ha registered.

Calcareous marl soils predominate, with varying textures depending on the percentage of clay to sand.

Production is limited but growing, with projections for the 2025 total of two million bottles to increase to five million by 2030.

Two great Piedmontese traditions are reflected in the cross-section of Alta Langa producers.

On one hand, there are the long-established sparkling wine and Vermouth houses like Cocchi, Coppi, Contratto and Gancia; on the other hand, small- to medium-scale family-run estates.

Many famous names from the red wine denominations of the Langhe have added Alta Langa to their lists, as have Moscato producers from Asti.

The Alta Langa style

If Trento DOC is all about crisp elegance, and Franciacorta round complexity, Alta Langa offers structure and depth.

The absence of an entry level non-vintage label, combined with extended ageing, are distinguishing features accentuated by the orientation of many producers towards the driest pas dosé (equivalent to brut nature) and extra brut styles.

These styles are not always the most accessible, however, and blanc de noir bottlings in particular can feel very dry indeed, and undeniably Piedmontese: austere, long-lived, and great with food.

10 top Alta Langa for your glass

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Across Champagne, the signs of what the French call la transmission – the handing down of family expertise – is underway.

Driving through the village of Louvois on the way to the more famous grands crus of Bouzy and Ambonnay, the pale stone frontage of Champagne Guy Méa flashes by.

Stop by to meet Franck and Sophie Moussié, though, and the bottles that greet you are now labelled Domaine Méa.

This is a common signal: showing that new hands are at work in this family enterprise that is split between some of the lesser-known crus of the Montagne de Reims in Champagne’s heartland.

They might be new hands, but they’re not necessarily complete revolutions.

‘Five generations of Méa have worked here,’ says Franck. The 2014 and 2015 vintages were made in conjunction with the whole family.

Then 2016 – the vintage where Franck and Sophie abandoned herbicides and pesticides and started their journey toward organic certification – was the first they made alone.

New hands, small changes

There’s a little less of a sense of rebellion or counter-culture among the next generation of vignerons of the Montagne de Reims compared to those of the Marne Valley or Côte des Bar, where history and prestige weigh less heavily on the shoulders of the wines.

In the Montagne de Reims, you’ll find fewer obvious signs of a ‘natural wine aesthetic’ (even though almost all of the young growers are veering toward organic and low-intervention practices).

There are also fewer ultra-modern labels, and fewer off-piste wine styles.

The fruit that comes from these villages hardly needs playing around with, though, and the young vignerons know it.

Take the grand cru village of Verzy, where Adrien Renoir is turning heads with his ultra-precise, direct and transparent Champagnes.

‘It’s the restraint, the salinity and the length that marks Verzy out,’ Renoir says as we taste through an expansive lineup of wines that includes a number of single-vineyard expressions.

Bold and rich styles have a place too

There’s no doubt that family holdings in these northern grand cru villages are the jackpot for any new vigneron.

Among those reaping the rewards is also Matthieu Godmé-Guillaume, who’s taking over and re-shaping his mother’s domaine (Champagne Sabine Godmé) in neighbouring Verzenay with a series of wines from the north face that embody a slightly bolder, richer winemaking style.

Even if most of the growers in the well-known grand cru villages keep an eye on the classics, there are two names in slightly lesser-known parts of the Montagne ready to elevate their sub-zones with one aesthetic – 100% oak fermentation.

Edouard Carré of Carré Frères promises to be the most significant new grower voice in the eastern Montagne de Reims Chardonnay villages since David Léclapart.

Carré is working with the deeper Chardonnay styles found here, as well as partial new oak fermentation, to yield a style of almost Burgundian aromatic richness.

Carré is keen to build a style of his own and not follow the crowd: ‘I didn’t do an internship at Sélosse, I don’t have a model…I just make my wines the way I like,’ he says.

Stick to your own identity

On the other side of the Montagne, Thomas Herbert and Marie-Charlotte Mignucci are finding their feet after steering the family domaine, Didier Herbert, in a markedly different direction (as Herbert & Co) with a smaller production, all-oak fermentation and strikingly unusual branding.

It hasn’t been without its bumps in the road, but like Carré, Herbert feels that the abundance of new growers in Champagne means you must stick to your own identity.

‘A lot of the young generation want to make a change from their parents...but we all have the same recipe, we’re all trying to make the same thing!’ he laughs.

Even if it has been a little slower than other parts of Champagne, the qualities that have made the Montagne de Reims the heart of Champagne’s grand cru terroir are speaking loudly through the next generation as they hone their styles.

They are all well worth discovering.

Six wines from the best new names

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The Grande Montagne de Reims has the largest concentration of grand and premier cru villages in Champagne. As such, it is not always the first place Champagne fans might think of for value.

This area runs from the premier cru village of Villers-Allerand, through the north and south-facing grand cru villages famous for Pinot Noir, and then curves round to Louvois.

The grapes grown here – and especially those grown in the grand cru villages themselves – are some of the most costly by the kilogram in all of Champagne.

They are sought after by Champagne’s maisons for vintage and prestige cuvées. When it’s easy to sell the fruits of your labour, what’s the incentive to produce entry-level Champagnes from these grapes?

Pride, more than anything. In the realms of terroir-specific Champagne, £50 may not quite bring home the calibre of wines it used to.

As our value Champagne focus highlighted last year, inflation and taxation mean that it’s only very large-scale producers and co-operatives that can afford to turn out wines under £45 in the UK any more, with only a handful of independent names faring well at that price level.

That being said, among producers with large holdings in top villages (and a real quality focus at entry level, not just on more expensive bottlings), it remains possible to track down wines that are not only fine value, but also offer a real sense of the shifting characters of Champagne’s vineyard heartland.

As our recent in-depth Champagne report highlights, the Grande Montagne can be thought of in three areas. Here is a selection of affordable options for discovering each terroir.

North-facing grands and premiers crus: Cool and restrained

Although these crus are mostly Pinot Noir, there’s also Chardonnay and Meunier here which retain the brisk freshness of these cooler slopes.

Independent family producer Duménil in Chigny-les-Roses makes graceful, delicate and accessible wines, such as the Blancs de Blancs made entirely from fruit from their home village of Chigny-les-Roses.

Looking to black grapes, the house of Cattier, based in the same village, turns out the fruit-forward, pretty and fragrant Blanc de Noirs Premier Cru, rounded out with 40% reserve wines in the blend.

For a little more chalky intensity and structure, independent domaine Michel Arnould in the grand cru village of Verzenay produces the good value, brisk Observation from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay (among a number of well-priced cuvées).

While leading domaine (and producer of some of the top wines on the Montagne as a whole) Vilmart & Cie produces the superb Pinot-led entry-level Grande Réserve from Rilly-la-Montagne, boasting depth and polish from reserve wines in the blend.

The east face: Fine Chardonnay

Outside the Côte des Blancs, the villages of Trépail and Villers-Mamery are some of the finest for Chardonnay in the region.

Arnaud and Mathilde Margaine’s estate A Margaine is this area’s most celebrated independent producer, with the Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs a perfectly precise, aromatic and juicy Chardonnay that remains one of the best value Champagnes on the Montagne.

A great choice for those that tend to find blanc de blancs too light or acidic – here in Villers-Marmery, the deeper soils yield slightly fleshier wines, even with low dosage levels.

South-facing grands and premiers crus: warm and sunny

The sun-catching villages of Ambonnay and Bouzy offer up a more generous style of Champagne, although their fame means fine entry-level wines are hard to come by.

Star independent domaine Pierre Paillard offers up one of the south face’s top value Champagnes in its entry-level Les Parcelles.

It’s firm and intensely flavoured with oak-ageing complexity. It’s a perfect introduction to chalky, sunny Bouzy, one of the earliest-ripening villages in Champagne.

Six wines with a sense of the Montagne without the price tag

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About Cristian Rimoldi

Cristian Rimoldi is export director for Champagne Salon and Champagne Delamotte in the heart of the Côte des Blancs. Born in Argentina, as a youngster he spent a year studying in the US before returning to his home country to embark on marketing and business administration studies in Buenos Aires. His appreciation of French culture eventually led to him settling in Paris, where he completed a master’s degree in business and marketing at the IAE-Sorbonne and, later, an MBA specialising gastronomy and wine.

Cristian Rimoldi will be hosting a masterclass at Decanter's Fine Wine Encounter New York 2026 on 6 June, featuring Champagne Salon and Delamotte wines spanning several decades.

At the table with Cristian Rimoldi

Meet Cristian Rimoldi and taste a rare line-up of Champagne Salon and Delamotte wines at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter New York on 6 June.

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Nestled in the historic Champagne village of Aÿ lies one of the region’s most recognisable names: Champagne Bollinger.

A family-owned house since its inception in 1829, it is nearing its 200th anniversary in just a few years.

A staple on wine lists and shop shelves, it’s a brand we think we know well. Yet on a recent visit – the launch of Bollinger's classy prestige cuvée La Grande Année 2018 – I still discovered many things that surprised me.

Here are five facts you need to know about this iconic Champagne house.

1. Never-ending underground cellars

Underneath the quiet streets of Aÿ lies an astonishing six kilometres of cellars where wine bottles rest and age patiently in a naturally cold environment.

Descending down 48 steps, the cellar opens out into a maze of endless tunnels. One could easily get lost among the bottles attempting to navigate this rabbit warren.

Thankfully we were guided through by someone who knows them intimately.

2. The house still has a human riddler

While the majority of Champagne houses today rely on automated riddling machines, Bollinger still performs manual riddling for all of its special cuvées and vintage Champagnes.

The house currently has two and a half riddlers: two experienced riddlers and one in training.

Asked how many bottles he riddles in a day, riddler Olivier Lannez says: ‘about 45,000 bottles!’ his eyes gleaming with pride.

3. The last resident cooper in Champagne

Not only does Bollinger own the largest collection of barrels in Champagne, it has the only resident cooper in the region. Gaël Chaunut manages around 4,000 barrels single handedly.

And with a new barrel room just inaugurated, there will be another 1,000 barrels under his remit.

In a nod to traditional cellar practices, chestnut branches are sometimes fixed around the rims of the barrels.

This simple technique protects the cellar floors from scratches when the heavy barrels are moved around.

4. Bollinger makes a still red wine

It may come as a surprise that alongside its famous bubbles, Bollinger also makes a very rare still red wine.

La Côte aux Enfants is made from 100% Pinot Noir grapes, and comes from the legendary La Côte aux Enfants vineyard.

Given it is not sparkling, it cannot be labelled as Champagne, and is therefore labelled under the Coteaux Champenois appellation.

This 4ha plot was once divided between 50 different owners. Recognising the extraordinary potential of this land in the early 20th century, Jacques Bollinger gradually bought each small plot. Bollinger now owns the entire vineyard.

Although this plot of Pinot Noir has long been used for red wine production, both for the still red and for use in Bollinger's prestige La Grande Année rosé, the house also launched a blanc de noirs Champagne from the north-west part of the plot in 2012.

The red is only made in the best vintages, and feels close in style to a top-tier Burgundy: vibrant red fruit, savoury aromas and complex notes of truffle and forest floor. Heavenly!

5. Stepping into a time capsule

Hidden deep within the Bollinger cellars is a historic wine library, which it calls Galérie 1829, housing bottles dating back to the 1830s.

I reflected on how much history these wines must have witnessed, with generations of winemakers from the Bollinger family carrying forward its legacy.

To amuse myself, I first checked my birth year, then my mother’s, and finally my grandmother's, just to live in a moment where three generations of women in my family could share this quiet connection through time.

My ancestors, of Indian heritage, would probably be appalled at the thought of women drinking wine.

Madame Bollinger, though, would probably be proud.

Elisabeth 'Lilly' Bollinger played a pivotal role in making Bollinger into the iconic brand it is today.

After her husband, Jacques Bollinger, died in 1941, she took charge of the house during the Second World War.

A true visionary, she travelled to the United States after the war to promote her Champagne.

She brought in forward-thinking practises, such as late disgorgement and continued traditional ones like oak vinification, that the house still uses today.

So next time when you open a bottle of Bollinger, picture those winding cellars, the team of riddlers, the skill of the cooper, and Lilly Bollinger's legacy.

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The use of ‘Old World’ and ‘New World’ as terms might be increasingly redundant as descriptors in the global landscape of wine, but they remain useful when discussing geographical wine regions.

There is little question that a place that has produced wine commercially for less than 70 years is a new kid on the block, compared to one that has hundreds (or thousands) of vintages under its belt.

When exploring a newer wine region, I find it interesting that, without question, one or two names are always synonymous with it.

Sometimes, those names were the region’s founding wineries. Sometimes, they were the first to buck the trend and see potential for greatness – rebels, you might say.

And sometimes, it’s a little of both, along with such a deep commitment to excellence that a name itself becomes congruent with the place.

Ed Carr’s name has been synonymous with House of Arras since its inception in 1995.

And House of Arras is a name intrinsically bound to Tasmanian wine, a shining beacon for the possibilities that abound for Australian sparkling wine.

The beginnings

Tasmania was a fledgling wine industry with just 46ha under vine when Carr visited in 1988 and earmarked the state for sparkling wine production.

It was while working at Hardys that Arras was founded by the business in 1995, and Carr was appointed chief sparkling winemaker.

‘I started with what was then BRL Hardy in 1994, and we had the plan to extend our premium sparkling wine winemaking to expand into new cold climate areas,’ says Carr, over a hydrating glass of bubbles. ‘I mean, it was still pretty new stuff then, most of the colder regions.’

Other cooler regions at play included Pemberton, Adelaide Hills, Yarra Valley, Tumbarumba and Macedon.

‘But we knew that what we wanted to do moving forward was to create a world-class wine. In 1995, we proved our theories that Tasmania would be the best to suit our style.'

Why Tassie?

Ever the master of understatement, Carr adds: ‘We didn't have a name for a brand at that stage; we were just making wine, really.’

The original Arras releases – 1995, 1996 and 1997 – were blends of fruit from Tasmania and the upper Yarra Valley.

Carr explains: 'We liked the structure of the higher latitudes, so the more southerly vineyards [of Australia] as opposed to the high altitude vineyards. Or a combination of both. And Tasmania offered the southerly latitude and the maritime climate.'

By 1998 Arras had accessed several more vineyards in Tasmania beyond the initial Tamar and Pipers River sites.

‘We found that we had the diversity of fruit coming from within Tasmania, so we didn’t need to step outside it,’ says Carr. ‘In fact, if we blended something else in [from another region], it seemed to sort of blow the structure a bit down the track.’

Thirty years on

Over the course of the past three decades, the brand has changed hands several times and is now owned by boutique Australian producer Handpicked Wines.

But Carr has remained a constant. A guardian of the cellar reserves, he has gently guided the growth of Arras from a single label, the Grand Vintage, to a portfolio.

‘We spent the last 30 years fine-tuning our style and planting or purchasing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, in all seven or eight regions [in Tasmania], then seeing where they fit in a matrix of base wines,’ he says.

‘It’s interesting how those different sub-regional terroirs express themselves with the different varieties and how we’ve managed those into the various blends.’

The house style is one that sings clearly from the glass. Lengthy tirage and a sophisticated oak regime are hallmarks of the Arras style, with fermentation of up to 10% in oak introduced from 2007 onwards.

Carr adds: ‘We've always gone for the more robust sort of style, the richer style. Our use of 100% malolactic fermentation and oak probably enhances that. We pick it quite ripe compared to other people.’

Patience is a virtue

‘If anything has amazed us over the course of time, it's how well these wines age,’ continues Carr.

‘Initially, we thought four years was a very long tirage time. But now we’re thinking 20 years is achievable with all the cuvées. We just have to choose when and how we want to sell them.’

One of the biggest learning curves has been the management of stock, as there is nothing that can replace what time adds in traditional-method sparkling wines.

As confidence in the Arras brand grew, there’s been a progressive build-up in the tirage age.

‘Making the wines, keeping tirage stocks and finished goods in museum and assessing them over time; it’s a business model you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody to fund,’ notes Carr.

‘Essentially, you’re saying I’m going to pick some grapes this year and you're not going to see a wine on the shelf for six.’

The favourite child

So, over 30 years, are there any standout vintages or wines for the man who has made them all?

‘Oh, 2008 stands out really strongly,’ he says. ‘And the Late Disgorged is one of my favourites for being a classic. We’ve just disgorged the 2013 and that’s looking very strong.’

More recently, 2015 was a favourite. ‘The 2015 Grand Vintage really is just a killer. It’s just been so successful and very, very strong.

'So probably the 2015 for overall appeal. I almost can’t wait for the 2015 to come out as the Late Disgorged, but that’s still three years away yet,’ he adds.

Where to from here?

30 years is a milestone for a Tasmanian wine label, but there are plenty of plans and aspirations ahead.

Carr says: ‘We’re looking back at some wines which have had three, four and five years of cork age. I love that style, but that really comes back to the consumer holding on to them. So we might hold back some bottlings for release with extra cork age. That would be interesting.’

Other possibilities include a blanc de noir with oak reserve influence; ‘but that’s not in tirage yet, so that's a long wait’.

More magnums in the market are a reality, as is an increased focus on the international market.

‘The feedback from international markets is very, very positive about Tasmania in general. It’s like it’s a discovery of something entirely new,’ says Carr.

While there have been many stalwarts of the Tassie wine industry over the years, including people who planted key vineyards and people who have made great wine, Carr’s name, like the Arras wines, is one that speaks of consistency, persistence and generosity.

Putting Tasmania on the map

The global representation of Tasmanian wine is largely led by the Arras name, for both quality and export reach.

Meanwhile Carr’s international accolades – including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2018 Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships and the Sparkling Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine Challenge – have placed his name, and thus Tasmania’s, in the spotlight for sparkling wine.

However, Carr never speaks in the singular. It is not ‘I’, but ‘we’. Most importantly, it is his willingness to share his knowledge with the Tassie wine community, with a humble and quiet knowing, that has stitched his name into the fabric of Tasmanian wine.

Top House of Arras wines to try

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Taittinger’s prestige cuvée Comtes de Champagne, made from 100% Chardonnay, is one of the region’s most recognisable wines. Lesser spotted, though, is its pink cousin.

The newly released 2012, however, is one of its most impressive vintages.

Scroll down for Tom’s tasting note and score for Comtes de Champagne Rosé 2012

‘The story is a bit different from the white version,’ says Taittinger cellar master Alexandre Ponnavoy.

While the white cuvée debuted in 1952, prestige-level rosé Champagne was a later development, and Comtes Rosé didn’t appear until 1970.

Although initially Chardonnay dominant, the rosé has evolved over time to become Pinot Noir dominant, reflecting a ‘fashion throughout the 1990s and 2000s for fruitier, crisp rosés with lots of red fruit,’ says Ponnavoy.

The Comtes Rosé 2012, though, signals a slight change in direction from some of the deeper, fruitier rosés released over the last decade.

This is a release of beautiful expressive fruit but, in comparison to 2011 for example, an ultra-refined level of silky polish and restraint that, although still a very different wine from the white, seems to approach it in delicacy.

Why is Comtes Rosé 2012 so good?

Ponnavoy has begun a process of refinement in the winemaking – especially the production of the red wine used in the blend – but believes much of this apparent bump in quality in 2012, quite evident over the more unusual 2011, is simply down to the vintage.

‘Between the warmth of 2011 and the minerality and freshness of 2013, you have 2012,’ he says.

It was a year that promised disaster in Champagne, beset by frost, disease and low yields. It was saved by a clement run up to harvest that yielded grapes of phenomenal concentration of both ripeness and acidity.

‘You have to imagine the wonderful potential of aging here,’ he says.

Indeed, ageing is something that keen-eyed Champagne fans might remark on. Taittinger has started keeping hold of Comtes Rosé a little longer than the white Comtes before release. This extra ageing on lees is also a factor in the 2012’s immediate quality.

‘After several tastings we decided not to sell after eight or 10 years, but after 12, to achieve all the complexity of the cuvée,’ he says, ‘It’s a long piece of work!’

Unlike some other vintage and prestige rosés, this is not a wine made simply by adding red wine into a white blend destined for another cuvée – something Ponnavoy believes would be a ‘huge mistake’ for a wine with its own identity.

Instead, Comtes Rosé is blended from the bottom up each vintage. All the grapes are sourced from grand cru villages in the Montagne de Reims and Côte des Blancs.

It is a rosé d’assemblage, or a blended rosé, made by blending in a specially made red wine to the white base before bottling for the secondary fermentation.

It is the village of Bouzy, famous for its southern exposure, chalk soils and historical red wine production, that appears central to the blend. ‘We have done lots of trials, but if you don’t use Bouzy you lose the identity of the wine,’ says Ponnavoy.

In 2012 the rosé proves itself to be much more than a sideshow to the white release; this is an age-worthy, remarkable rosé worth buying.

Comtes Rosé 2012 tasted and rated

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For all but the most obsessive – and patient – Champagne collectors, the question of assessing whether 1995 or 1996 turned out to be a better vintage might seem like purely an academic one.

Dig a little deeper, however, and there is much to learn for any Champagne or wine lover.

Scroll down for notes and scores for a clutch of 1995 and 1996 Champagnes

1996, together with 2015, can be considered one of the most significant turning points in modern Champagne.

Through the unexpected development of 1996 wines initially heralded as exceptional, the Champenois’ understanding of their climate, ripeness and flavour took a huge leap forward.

Ripeness signals

Although 1996 and 2015 are in some ways polar opposite vintages, they share a common thread: if you picked your grapes based on traditional notions of ripeness, you were probably picking too early.

It’s for this reason that Moët et Chandon cellar master Benoît Gouez called 1996 the ‘most overrated vintage ever’ in 2016, during the launch event of the Grand Vintage 2016.

This was the moment Champagne learnt that merely reaching 10 degrees of potential alcohol on paper did not mean the wines would taste ripe.

This turning point is recognised by Louis Roederer’s Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, who credits the success of 2008 – similar to 1996 in terms of weather – to the lessons learned in 1996.

‘If 2008 is great today, it’s because all the cellar masters were also there in 1996, and they knew the mistakes they made’.

The growing seasons

On paper, neither of these growing seasons were extreme. That being said, 1995 was undoubtedly more complicated due to warm and wet spells in the late spring and early summer. This initiated a fight against downy mildew that favoured more resilient Chardonnay.

Despite more than 500ha of Champagne being hit with frost in 1995, yields in both years exceeded 10 tonnes per hectare.

The real difference between 1995 and 1996 emerged over the mid summer.

In 1996, cool and cloudy weather kept acidities high. Yet a mild and clement September, with little disease pressure, little dilution and strong, dehydrating winds, resulted in an exaggerated concentration of sugar (which, in hindsight, led to early harvesting).

While 1995’s complications with mildew tarnished the feeling around the vintage, the relatively modest sugar accumulation was not accompanied by any lack of ripe flavour thanks to spells of warmth during critical periods in June and August.

The wines today

Acidity is certainly sky-high in the 1996s. However, as tastings over the last few years have shown, this is not, in my view, the chief issue with some of the wines.

Jancis Robinson MW wrote a decade ago that ‘the fruit was falling away’ in the 1996 Champagnes. That process today is even more evident.

In fact some of the wines – despite being harvested at pleasing sugar levels when acidity had dropped to an acceptable range – show a muted, green-toned fruit that proves that the flavours in the grapes simply weren’t ripe by modern standards.

When you add to that high dosages, prominent lees ageing and malolactic creaminess (which was common in this high acid year), plus a tendency to oxidise, the 1996s today too often come across as extreme, unbalanced and angular.

The 1995s, on the other hand, failed to excite at harvest because the grapes, on paper, were not exceptionally ripe – just 9.2% potential alcohol. By today’s standards this would be disappointing.

The wines, however, have told a different story, offering up-front pleasure, solid structure and good balance, if not the sort of electric acidity or dramatic palates of 1996s. Nonetheless, the 1995s are still in the running for the top wines of the decade.

The exceptions

Although the reputation of 1996 still suffers today, it’s certainly not a write off.

Indeed, Decanter contributor Charles Curtis MW writes in his book Vintage Champagne: ‘Connoisseurs are still arguing about 1996, but I refuse to come down on the side of the haters. Frankly, I have had too much pleasure from too many wines to rank this as anything but five-star status’.

In fact, among the wines tasted side-by-side for this article, the 1996 vintage was preferable in the case of Bollinger’s RD and Louis Roederer’s vintage cuvée.

Further experiences with 1996 buck the trend, including a delicious Pol Roger in magnum and a fabulous Billecart-Salmon Clos St-Hilaire tasted at the estate last year.

Unfortunately, there is not a huge amount of 1995 and 1996 Champagne left on the market. What’s more, there can of course be huge variability with Champagnes of this age due to the vagaries of storage conditions and cork quality.

In short, it’s a lottery, yet overall there are more hits from 1995 today. It will be 1996, though, that remains the more famous of the two – as well as the most controversial.

Tasted and rated: 1995 vs 1996 Champagnes

Many of the wines reviewed below were tasted at a vertical organised by Bordeaux Index in London. Prices and stockists have been listed where available.

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A list of the top 10 scores of the year and a list of the year’s most memorable Champagnes will always be slightly different.

While scanning through memories of the year, though, it wasn’t just the wines that I expected to be great – and were – whose flavours come rushing back, but wines that went a little against the grain.

Wines that reminded me that, whilst we learn easy-to-grasp takes on good and bad vintages, or winemaking techniques, or the style of certain producers, some bottles stick in the memory because they don’t quite fit the story.

A surprise from an underrated vintage

During a stunning vertical tasting of Rare that took place in Versailles in October 2025, a magnum of 1999 – not reputed as a fine vintage, and one whose wines today are almost without fail rather heavy – astonished not only the professional tasters present, but even the winemaker Émilien Boutillat.

No, it wasn’t the top wine of the tasting. But it was a great reminder that great bottles – and especially great magnums – can come out of the blue, and that writing off any single vintage in its entirety is always a mistake.

Aged rosé and hidden gems

Aged vintage rosé Champagne is one of the secret passions of bubble aficionados, and I had my itch scratched at Laurent-Perrier this year when a bottle of the rare ‘Cuvée Alexandra’ was brought out from the rather austere 2007 vintage (which was notoriously difficult for Pinot Noir).

On the same day, I drove over to Adrien Dhondt of Dhondt-Grellet and tasted a range of wines which included not only superb renditions of the very difficult 2021 harvest, but also a stunning 2019 from ‘Les Nogers’ in the lesser-known village of Cuis – a reminder that not all great blanc de blancs from Champagne is from the famous grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs.

Late-disgorged delights from 2002

Going back in time, late-disgorged 2002s have provided some high points despite some original releases starting to tire.

Philipponnat’s 1522 ‘L.V.’ 2002 was a deep, complex star at a terrific vertical of this underrated cuvée at the estate this summer, whilst Pol Roger’s Vinothèque Blanc de Blancs 2002 is creamy, mature, immersive Chardonnay of pure hedonistic delight.

Innovation and southern discoveries

This was also the year of discovering the finest zero sulphite Champagne I have ever tasted in Nicolas Maillart’s swaggering, enveloping and complex ‘Les Loges’ Blanc de Noirs based on the 2019 vintage which topped our blind panel tasting in the December issue.

Heading to the south of Champagne for a regional report on the Côte des Bar was a highlight of 2025, with Etienne Sandrin’s incredibly vivid, sapid and elegant Pinot Noir making quite an impression across the range. His ‘Beauregard’ from 2020 was one of the most striking wines of the trip.

Potential ‘best ever’ releases

Two wines which vie for the titles of ‘best ever releases’ of their respective cuvées had to be featured, too – the imperious Dom Pérignon P2 2008, the late-released edition of one of the great Dom Pérignon vintages of modern times, and the most refined release to date of Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne Rosé from the fabulous 2012 vintage.

Finally, the year in Champagne was marked by the sudden passing of one its best-loved figures in Frédéric Panaïotis, Chef de Cave of Ruinart.

His 2013 Dom Ruinart epitomises all the work undertaken to raise this cuvée to the very heights of blanc de blancs – I was lucky enough to taste this with Panaïotis, and was left in no doubt that it is a wine Champagne lovers will be enjoying for decades to come.

Tom’s Champagne highlights of 2025: 12 wines to try

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Stars of Champagne’s Côte des Bar

Champagne Dhondt-Grellet: The young grower at the top of his game

It’s no secret that the Champagne market has continued to cool in 2025, with sales to August down 1.8% compared to the same period in 2024.

The good news for shoppers, though, is that the price hikes seen over the last two years show signs of softening as the region seeks to move some stock.

Scroll down for the latest Champagne releases tasted and rated in time for festivities

The festive period looks set to be a tempting one for buyers, with release prices of many of the grande marque prestige cuvées at least equal, but often lower, than those of last year.

Headline releases include Taittinger’s superb follow-up to the acclaimed Comtes de Champagne 2013, this time from the cool, focused, yet far from austere 2014 vintage.

This blanc de blancs, all from Chardonnay in grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs, is already starting to open up, although the blossoming of the 2013 (which is still widely available) with only a couple of years of ageing post release is a reminder that even a little patience with this most reliable of prestige cuvées can pay off.

Although major new prestige cuvée releases have proven a little slow since the spring, perhaps due to the slowing market, there have been a few headlines.

Charles Heidsieck offers the second edition of its reborn, extremely limited and imaginative Champagne Charlie, which breaks the mould for high-end Champagne by blending a top quality, relatively youthful vintage (in this case 2019) with generous helpings of top notch reserve wines, here going back all the way to a Cramant Chardonnay from 1996.

Perfectly aged

For hunters of the rare and exclusive, Pol Roger continues its Vinothèque programme of perfectly aged vintages released direct from its cellar with some striking wines, including a beautifully mature 2002 blanc de blancs.

Fans of terroir-specific Champagnes can enjoy a brilliant duo of Meuniers from Billecart-Salmon (Rendez-vous No 7 and Rendez-vous No 8) that highlight the diversity of this misunderstood grape.

Bollinger replays the concept behind its B13 – a vintage release that isn’t a Grande Année due to its atypical makeup and style, but is still offered as a unique interpretation – with the compact, complex and invitingly priced B16, while Rare Champagne tackles the warm, dry 2015 vintage.

A selection of independent Champagne releases are also reviewed here. They range from a joyful and typically approachable vintage blanc de blancs from Legras & Haas, and top grower releases from rising stars in the Côte des Blancs: La Rogerie and Agrapart Avize, as well as Penet-Chardonnet in the grands crus of the northern Montagne de Reims.

Latest Champagne releases tasted and rated

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A toast to the happy couple

Tina Gellie

Weyborne Estate general manager Ben Abric shared a charming analogy for the difference between the still-maturing 2022 vintage of the West Sussex sparkling estate’s Oriana cuvée and the Oriana Golden Spur, the early release of the same wine.

‘The Golden Spur is your daughter celebrating her engagement. And then in a few months she will celebrate her wedding!’

With low stock of the inaugural 2018 and awarded Oriana 2019 (Silver at DWWA 2025; £46.99 Hay Wines), and no wines released in 2020 and 2021, Abric admitted there was pressure to get a new wine to market.

‘But in tastings we realised Oriana 2022 was at a point of its lees ageing – a fresh, bright point – where we thought it offered something different.’ So some was bottled as Golden Spur in July 2023 and given a 4g/L (extra brut) dosage after disgorgement in August this year.

Golden Spur stays true to the estate’s signature oxidative style, with first fermentation in open tank and 3% in barrel, followed by full malolactic fermentation in barrel. While more time on lees (and lower dosage, says Abric) will give the eventual Oriana 2022 greater opulence, depth and texture, Golden Spur (£45-£48 Farr Vintners, Hawkins Bros, Weyborne Estate, Wine & Earth) shows a soft, youthful side to flavours of grilled lemon, crab apple and apricot blossom.

Five generations of modern tradition

Ines Salpico

A fascinating masterclass in Lisbon, in late October, took attendees on an epic journey through the long history of storied Douro winery Alves de Sousa.

Led by father and son Domingos and Tiago Alves de Sousa, the lineup included wines going back to 1995. Tiago – who has long established his own reputation as a winemaker and academic – joined the family venture in 2002, and has since taken over technical direction and export management.

Rather than allowing his father to retire, this has built a fruitful intergenerational platform that has eased in gentle stylistic innovation while remaining fiercely deferential to tradition. The result of this dialogue between past and future – founded on a shared curiosity for the (sometimes overlooked) viticultural heritage of the Douro – was on show as the pair talked the audience through canonic labels and more recent additions to the Alves de Sousa portfolio.

In the latter camp are the delicious Rosa Celeste, a Tinto Cão-based oak-aged rosé, and the characterful Memórias (£159.99/magnum Delicias UK), a multi-vintage blend of the best plots and years across each decade – signs of the timeless modernity that Alves de Sousa expresses by remaining unassumingly true to itself.

Vermentino discovery at Vinitaly USA

Clive Pursehouse

Decanter is a media partner with Vinitaly USA, and this October I joined the team in Chicago to host a panel on Italy’s next generation. I was enthralled by one of the wines – a late-harvest botrytised Vermentino di Gallura that is fully dry.

‘We can’t make this every year,’ Rafaelle Gregu of Tenute Gregu explained. Called Pitraia, it comes from a small vineyard in northern Sardinia surrounded by a forest of cork trees and flanked on either side by a river. It’s harvested fully botrytised, then spends 18 months on lees with weekly batonnage.

The 2024 Pitraia Vermentino di Gallura Superiore DOCG has soaring notes of mint and pine sap. It carries an undeniable Mediterranean seaside character of salt and stone, with juicy citrus and stone fruits, and a beguiling texture. It’s unlike any wine I’ve ever tasted. 

Dynamic duo

James Button

Two Italian wineries at the top of their game visited the Decanter offices in September. Altesino from Montalcino was the first to introduce a Montosoli cru bottling, with its inaugural 1972 vintage released in 1975.

Montosoli is a cool hill to the north of the town, where a handful of producers farm about 30 hectares of vines.

The current vintage of Altesino’s Montosoli Brunello di Montalcino, 2020 (£105-£115 Noble Grape, London End Wines, Vinvm), is full of succulent blood orange and ferrous notes, lifted yet with depth. A new Rosso di Montalcino from the hill is due to be released next year, too.

Marchesi di Barolo is a historic winery in the town of Barolo. While Barolo is of course a focus, the estate also makes some delicious wines from the likes of Barbera and Arneis. The Sarmassa Barolo 2019 (£82.80 Millésima) stood out for me, however, with its earthy dried oregano and balsamic herb qualities. Its fine structure, minty acidity and floral finish reflect the elevated, steep, rocky site perfectly.

Graceful Australian Grenache

Julie Sheppard

I first tasted Mark Bulman’s wines at London’s Next Generation Grenache tasting in April – and was immediately blown away.

Bulman was the first person ever to win the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for a Grenache, putting the variety on Australia’s vinous map, back in 2017 when he was working for Turkey Flat.

Now focusing on his own project, he works with just two vineyards in Eden Valley and McLaren Vale’s Blewitt Springs. Both wines are made in exactly the same way, avoiding oxygen throughout the entire process, allowing differences in terroir to sing loud and clear.

‘Grenache is such a good medium to show site. It seems to be a variety that doesn’t have much of an ego by itself, so it’s happy to transform into the site,’ he explained as we tasted the inaugural Bulman vintages at Decanter HQ.

Named after grower Gary Whaite, Gary’s Vineyard 2023 (96pts, £50.60 The Sourcing Table) is made from vines planted in 2007 in Blewitt Spings. It’s detailed and dancing, with Negroni-like herbal aromatics and an intricate palate of crystalline red fruit with Nebbiolo-like tannins.

Glen’s Vineyard 2023 (96pts, £50.60 The Sourcing Table) is named for Glen Monaghan, custodian of a vineyard first planted in 1857 in Eden Valley, and has a more savoury edge, with slatey minerality chasing lifted purple-hued fruit, sprinkled with white pepper spice. What a debut! 

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If Champagne is the ultimate celebration drink, then Champagne cocktails really make your celebrations pop. Is there anything better than offering your guests a sparkling cocktail in an elegant flute or coupe – or treating yourself to one before the guests arrive?

Decanter Premium: The perfect gift for a special wine lover

The great news is that many Champagne cocktails are super-simple to make, and involve little more than pouring your ingredients into a glass. ‘The Kir Royale is the ultimate easy-to-make sparkling cocktail,’ says Pietro Collina, bar director for Thesleff Group, a collection of top London restaurants and bars.

‘It is simply a mix of Champagne and crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) and a lemon twist. The beauty of this drink is that it works as a template for endless variations. Once you master the ratio, you can swap the cassis for apricot liqueur, peach or St-Germain (elderflower) to create your own signature Royale for the evening.’

Top tips for making Champagne cocktails

While it’s surprisingly easy to create drinks with wow factor at home, there are a few useful tips that will help you to make Champagne cocktails like a pro. First: think about your glassware.

‘Flutes are always popular for drinks like French 75s and feel very festive, while also having the benefit of preserving the carbonation in your cocktail longer due to a smaller surface area for bubbles to dissipate,’ advises Alex Leidy, general manager at Silver Lyan in Washington DC.

‘You can never go wrong with a classic flute; it preserves the carbonation the best,’ agrees Collina. ‘However, if you want to add a bit of theatre and vintage flair to your New Year’s Eve, use a cocktail coupe. It looks elegant, though you have to drink it a little faster before the bubbles disappear!’

Whichever glass you choose, remember to chill it. ‘Beyond matters of preference, the best kind of glass for a sparkling cocktail is a cold one,’ says Leidy. ‘Putting whatever glassware you intend to use in the fridge or freezer for a few hours before hosting will go a long way towards keeping the final drink at its most refreshing for as long as possible.’ It also gives your glass a festive frosted look.

What Champagne to use?

Don’t use vintage Champagne or exclusive cuvées in sparkling cocktails. The complexity of these prestige Champagnes will be lost in the mix. Instead choose a non-vintage (NV) cuvée. ‘An entry-level bottle from any reputable Champagne house is perfect,’ notes Leidy. Supermarket own-labels are also a good value choice.

Next think about the style of fizz. ‘Brut or extra brut Champagnes are best for spirit-forward or minimal-ingredient cocktails,’ recommends Carmine Marano, bar manager of Advocatuur, Rosewood Amsterdam. You can even choose an ultra brut, the driest style of Champagne to balance out sweeter cocktails.

There are six recommendations at the bottom of this article to give you inspiration.

Festive Champagne cocktails: 12 recipes to make at home

Air Mail

This tropical twist on the Champagne Cocktail (see below) first appeared in a recipe pamphlet published in Cuba by the Bacardí company in 1930. The Cuban air mail service began in the same year, which might mean the drink was invented then and named after it; but there’s no evidence to support that theory – nor do we know who actually created it. Nonetheless, it’s a great party drink. Although the original recipe called for Cuban rum, specifically Bacardí Gold, you can use any gold rum (aged one to three years). Try Bacardí Carta Oro (£23.94, Master of Malt). To make your own honey syrup, dissolve 5ml honey in 5ml warm water.

• Ingredients: 45ml gold rum, 15ml lime juice, 15ml honey syrup, Champagne to top
• Glass: Highball
• Garnish: None
• Method: Put the rum, lime juice and honey syrup in a shaker with ice and shake until your hands are cold. Strain into an ice-filled highball glass and top with Champagne.

Buck’s Fizz

The Buck’s Fizz was invented in 1921 at the Buck’s Club in London. Viewed by many as the classic breakfast cocktail, it’s also a great choice for festive celebrations thanks to its orange citrus taste. Exact quantities can be adjusted according to the size of your glass; just remember to always use a 2:1 ratio. Or for a lighter option, try a Mimosa. This twist on a Buck’s Fizz is a mix of equal parts Champagne and orange juice.

• Ingredients: 100ml Champagne, 50ml freshly squeezed orange juice
• Glass: Champagne flute
• Garnish: Orange slice
• Method: Pour the Champagne into a chilled flute, then pour in the orange juice.

Champagne Margarita

This recipe comes from The Cocktail Edit, a new book by Decanter contributor Alice Lascelles. ‘I can’t think of a combination more hedonistic than tequila and Champagne – and this one is wickedly good,’ she says. ‘It would be a great drink to kick off a party, or even as a thirst-quenching punch. Just lengthen with a bit of sparkling or still water and charge with lots of ice. For more elegance, serve in a coupe, undiluted, over a single ice cube.’

• Ingredients: 50ml tequila, 25ml lime juice, 12.5ml sugar syrup, 50ml Champagne
• Glass: Cocktail glass or rocks
• Garnish: Lime wheel
• Method: Shake the first three ingredients and strain over ice and top with Champagne.

Classic Champagne Cocktail

One of the oldest cocktails, tracing its roots back to the mid-1800s, this simple mix is a decadent treat – plus it’s easy to make. Simply build the ingredients in the glass and stir gently to mix. No cocktail shaker required. Try H by Hine (£22.75, The Whisky Exchange) a Cognac created especially for use in cocktails.

• Ingredients: 1 sugar cube, 2 or 3 dashes Angostura Bitters, 20ml Cognac, Champagne to top
• Glass: Champagne flute
• Garnish: None
• Method: Drop the sugar cube into a chilled Champagne flute and saturate it with the bitters. Add the Cognac. Top up the glass with Champagne, stir gently to mix and serve.

Cranberry Fizz

This is a seasonal twist a classic Bellini, which is made with Prosecco and peach purée. You can buy ready-made cranberry syrup, such as Routin 1883 Cranberry Syrup (£14.95, Amazon). But it’s easy to make your own fruit syrup if you have fresh cranberries. Put 200g of cranberries, 50g caster sugar and 150ml orange juice in a pan and
bring to the boil. Simmer for five minutes, then strain through a sieve and leave to cool. This will give about 200ml of purée, which will keep in the fridge for a week.

• Ingredients: 10ml cranberry syrup, 75ml Champagne
• Glass: Champagne flute
• Garnish: None
• Method: Pour the syrup into the bottom of a chilled Champagne flute. Slowly top with Champagne and stir gently to mix.

French 75

Created in 1915 at the New York Bar in Paris by Harry MacElhone, this gin and fizz combo delivered such a kick that it felt like being shelled by a powerful French 75mm field gun used in World War I. A few of these will certainly get your party started… Use a well-balanced London Dry gin, such as Portobello Road 171 (£30, Amazon).

• Ingredients: 60ml gin, 30ml freshly squeezed lemon juice, 5ml sugar syrup, Champagne to top
• Glass: Champagne flute or coupe
• Garnish: Lemon twist
• Method: Put the gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup into a cocktail shaker. Fill half way with ice and shake until your hands are cold. Strain into a chilled glass (flute or coupe) and top with Champagne. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Kir Royale

Starting life as a simple Kir or Kir Aperitif, this mix was created at the Café George in Dijon, where it was known as a Cassis Blanc and was made with Bourgogne Aligoté. But it was popularised by World War II French Resistance hero, Canon Félix Kir, who gave his name to the drink. Your Kir becomes Royale when you add Champagne instead of white wine – choose an ultra brut or zero dosage style to balance the sweet fruitiness of the crème de cassis. Try Gabriel Boudier Crème de Cassis de Dijon (£16.50, Soho Wine Supply).

• Ingredients: 10ml crème de cassis, Champagne to top
• Glass: Champagne flute
• Garnish: None
• Method: Pour the crème de cassis into a chilled Champagne flute and fill the glass slowly with Champagne.

Millionaire’s Martini

This Martini-with-Champagne mix harks back to the era of classic cocktails and has been revived by Sipsmith, the gin brand that kick-started the craft gin revolution in the UK. The recipe is taken from SIP: 100 Gin Cocktails with Only Three Ingredients, a great book that shines a light on simple gin mixes and is packed with cocktail history.

• Ingredients: 40ml London Dry gin, 40ml dry vermouth, Champagne
• Glass: Coupe
• Garnish: Lemon twist
• Method: Combine the gin and vermouth in an ice-filled mixing glass and stir until properly chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and top with Champagne.

Old Cuban

One for fans of Daiquiris and Mojitos, this deluxe rum-and-mint mix was created by top bartender Audrey Saunders in 2001. An icon of the New York bartending scene, Saunders is best known for her work at the Pegu Club in Soho, though this recipe predates her time there. One of her skills was reinventing classic recipes, and this mix, which uses an aged rum rather than the white rum of a Mojito or Daiquiri, puts a decadent spin on those drinks, while adding the zinginess you’d find in a French 75 (see above). Try using Appleton Estate 8 Year Old Reserve Rum. (£32.50, The Whisky Exchange).

• Ingredients: 45ml gold rum, 22.5ml lime juice, 22.5ml brut Champagne, 15ml sugar syrup, 6 fresh mint leaves, 2 dashes Angostura Aromatic Bitters
• Glass: Coupe
• Garnish: Mint leaf
• Method: Muddle the mint leaves, lime juice and sugar syrup in a shaker. Add the rum, bitters and ice, then shake until your hands are cold. Double-strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with a mint leaf.

Sloe Gin Fizz

The Gin Fizz is a classic and simple mix of gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup, topped with soda water. For a more festive and decadent take, use Champagne and a fruity sloe gin, such as Hayman’s Sloe Gin (£26.50, Amazon). Use frozen blackberries or raspberries to garnish if you don’t have fresh ones.

• Ingredients: 50ml sloe gin, 25ml lemon juice, 10ml sugar syrup, Champagne
• Glass: Champagne flute
• Garnish: Blackberry or raspberry
• Method: Put the gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake until your hands are cold, then strain into a tall Champagne flute. Top with Champagne.

Sparkling Red Bells Ring

This fruity twist on a French 75 was created by the team at Mr Fogg’s bars in London. Simone Spagnoli, group bars manager, says: ‘For a show-stopper, the Sparkling Red Bells Ring is the perfect choice. Using the French 75 as a base, the addition of winter fruit and spiced red berries syrup is not only festive in taste, but also creates a vibrant red colour. Make this if you want to impress in-laws or friends.’ He recommends serving it as a pre-Christmas lunch tipple. ‘We use Moët & Chandon Impérial Brut NV Champagne, as the white fruit notes of pear, white peach and apple work particularly well with the spiced red berries,’ Spagnoli adds.

• Ingredients: 30ml St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, 20ml apple juice, 20ml pomegranate juice, 10ml Monin Spiced Red Berries Syrup, 10ml fresh lime juice, 30ml NV Champagne
• Glass: Champagne flute
• Garnish: Red fruit
• Method: Put all of the ingredients except the Champagne into a shaker with ice. Shake until your hands are cold and strain into a chilled flute. Top with Champagne.

Twinkle

This modern classic was created in 2002 by Tony Conigliaro at The Lonsdale bar in London – and it has to be best name ever for a sparkly party drink. The original recipe used elderflower cordial, but St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur (£27.95, Amazon) works brilliantly and is more commonly used today.

• Ingredients: 30ml vodka, 15ml elderflower cordial or St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, Champagne to top
• Glass: Champagne coupe
• Garnish: Lemon twist
• Method: Put the vodka and elderflower cordial (or liqueur) into a cocktail shaker. Fill half way with ice and shake until your hands are cold. Strain into a chilled coupe and top with Champagne. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Six Champagnes for cocktails

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From a ‘pull-out-all-the-stops’ platter to leftover Cheddar melted into a comforting toastie, cheese is a festive mainstay that pairs beautifully with various wine categories.

When it comes to pairing sparkling wine and cheese – as with most food and wine matching – there are no hard and fast rules, with individual taste being the most important factor. But sparkling is one of the easiest – and most decadent – wine categories for cheese.

When considering any wine and food match, grape variety and style of course play a part, but the added bonus with sparkling wine is that the bubbles cut a cleanliness through the fat in cheese, creating a pleasing mouthfeel and texture.

And you really don’t have to spend a fortune on that perfect sparkler, as demonstrated by the great value to be found in our selection below.

Cheese and sparkling wine: Where to start

When it comes to pairing sparkling wine and cheese, there are various approaches you may want to take as a starting point.

A useful aspect to consider is balancing the respective weight and intensity of the cheese with the sparkling wine. A tangy mozzarella light in flavour would be a great pairing for a fresh and easy-drinking wine, so as not to overpower the delicate flavour of the cheese.

The same wine would be lost on an aged Comté, with a stronger, nutty taste, as the cheese calls out for a weightier companion, perhaps a Champagne or other traditional-method sparkler with extended lees ageing to give autolytic notes of brioche and toast.

Sweet and salty

Just as sweeter styles of still wine can work well with blue cheese, so too do off-dry or demi-sec sparklers. The ever-appealing mixture of sweetness and acidity from the wine is a great match for the tangy saltiness of the cheese.

To impress your guests with a point of difference, consider pairing a sparkling sake with blue cheese. Sake has lower acidity than wine, but an abundance of umami flavour which works to enhance the similar characteristics in blue cheese. A great example is Lachamte’s Sparkling Junmai Hideyoshi, which has a hint of sweetness underpinning its savoury depth and salty, earthy characteristics.

Taking a regional approach

The old adage ‘what grows together, goes together’ could offer some great inspiration in terms of pairing sparkling wine and cheese from the same regions.

A Chenin-dominant Crémant de Loire would make a lovely complement to a tangy local crottin – the acidity of the Chenin cutting through the cheese and creating a clean and smooth mouthfeel. Chassaux et Fils’ Specially Selected offering would be a solid place to start. You could take the flavour profile one step further and source a herb-crusted goat cheese to accompany Domaine des Grandes Espérance’s Barbule Extra Brut – a Crémant which ‘deserves food, ideally with the same subtle herbal nuances,’ according to Decanter contributor Anne Krebiehl MW.

Langres Fermier, a cow’s milk cheese with a distinctive orange rind and ‘fontaine’ dip in the centre, comes from Champagne-Ardenne. ‘Given the region it comes from, Champagne would be the perfect match, especially if you’ve splashed a little Champagne on the cheese,’ says Patricia Michelson, founder of London cheese store La Fromagerie.

Moving over to Italy, how about an Ubriaco al Prosecco, a cow’s milk cheese from Veneto which is soaked in Prosecco must for a number of months, hence the name ‘ubriaco’, meaning ‘drunk’. The prolonged contact with the grape must gives the cheese a fruity characteristic, making it a great pairing with the obvious partner, a chilled glass of Prosecco, such as Asda’s Exceptional expression.

Or you could stay closer to home with a creamy, salty mature Cheddar. Perfect with a glass or two of English sparkling, such as Morrisons The Best offering, aged for six years on the lees giving it savoury pastry notes.

A matter of character

You could even start with a specific sparkling wine and then choose your cheese accordingly.

I recently popped open a bottle of Sugrue South Downs’ Rosé Ex Machina – a delight as an aperitif but which really came into its own with a pop of saltiness and umami in the form of a mushroom and parmesan canapé.

Take inspiration from our wine recommendations below – including our tasters’ thoughts on specific sparkling wine and cheese pairings. However you decide to match, the most important thing is to enjoy the process of discovery.

Cheese and sparkling wine: 10 to try

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Red grape Pinot Meunier, or just Meunier, as it is known in France, accounts for roughly a third of land under vine in Champagne, with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir making up most of the remainder.

The grape is recognisable in the vineyard due to its leaves, which have fine hairs resembling a coating of white dust or flour on their undersides, hence the name Meunier, which means ‘miller’ in French.

This Champagne workhorse has sometimes been considered a lesser cousin to its popular counterparts, rather unfairly, given its reliability in the vineyard.

The three key varieties all have different roles to play in Champagne and other sparkling blends.

Think of friends at a gathering. Chardonnay is the well-dressed guest reclining elegantly on the sofa while self-assured Pinot Noir brings structure and weight to dinner table discourse. Meunier, previously considered less stylish than the other two, bursts into the room with its youthful character and vivacious acidity, although it may leave the party early, being generally less recognised for its ageing potential.

But expressions in Champagne and beyond are showing Meunier is emerging as a successful single varietal in its own right.

Although less common, some producers make a Blanc de Meunier, a Champagne made from solely Pinot Meunier grapes.

Master Sommelier Roberto Duran, who advocates for the variety, references the ‘lighter, more elegant style’ of Cazé-Thibaut’s Naturellement Extra. He also highlights the oxidative style of Denis Salomon’s Histoire de Famille which ‘brings powerful new energy and dimension to Meunier Champagne pairings.’

‘It matches especially well with one of my favourite dishes, beef tartare, integrating with the slightly spicy seasoning and complementing the meatiness of the beef,’ Duran adds.

And Pinot Meunier’s glory doesn’t stop at the sparkling category.

Kent producer Simpsons Estate makes a 100% Pinot Meunier still white, brimming with ‘tangy ripe red apple and pear’ according to a recent tasting note from Decanter contributor David Williams.

Over the pond in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, Decanter’s North American Editor Clive Pursehouse describes a red expression in the form of Eyrie Vineyards’ Dundee Hills 2022 as having ‘aromas of wild green strawberries, mint and alpine meadow herbs’.

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Champagne’s Côte des Blancs saw a significant arrival in 2025. Champagne Barons de Rothschild opened the doors of a new winery and cellar complex in an imposing, recently renovated 1874 building, complete with its own vineyard clos.

The winery may be new, but the house is not. Its opening in fact marks the 20th anniversary of the coming together of three branches of the Rothschild family in 2005.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for six Barons de Rothschild Champagnes

Time to ease in

Rather than rushing out of the gates, though, this has been a project born of patience.

‘When I joined in 2011, we only bottled 5ha,’ says cellar master Guillaume Lété, ‘we were just trying to learn about the terroir, about which villages we would use, how we would do vinification’.

It is therefore somewhat of an unusual achievement to have already reached today’s production of 600,000 bottles, in a region where true startups on this scale are rare.

It’s rare because buying vineyards is extremely hard. What’s more, signing grape contracts – especially for sought-after Chardonnay in the Côte des Blancs, which forms the backbone of the house’s style – is fought out in an environment of steep competition with other houses.

Fortunately Barons de Rothschild has at its helm a true Champagne native in Lété, who grew up in nearby Avize in a vine-growing family.

Lété has overseen the shift from the early days, when the wines were made under his guidance at the nearby co-operative, to the first vintage processed in the new winery in 2024.

Here he stores an impressive selection of reserve wines and a perpetual reserve system which lends considerable character to the non-vintage wines.

Consistent improvement

With impressive results in both Decanter panel tastings and the Decanter World Wine Awards 2025, there’s plenty of evidence to back up Lété’s belief that the wines have gained in precision over the last five years, too.

‘There was a big change with the wines based on 2018 for me,’ says Lété, whose local connections have proven important for grape sourcing.

Grapes are sourced from 90ha (8ha of which the house owns), and 90% is from grand and premier cru villages.

‘I prefer to work with growers who also make their own wine,’ he says, believing they have the right ‘philosophy’ to reach the maturity in the grapes Lété is searching for.

With the focus on Chardonnay, the style leans into cleanliness and purity, yet with approachability always in mind.

Even with the range entirely in extra brut, Lété says the ‘natural sucrosity’ of the grapes yields balanced wines that have shifted away from some of the more overt buttery/pastry notes encountered in earlier releases, to more purity today.

Partial oak vinification, too, plays a part in the complexity in blends of two of the high points of the portfolio: Brut Nature and Rare Collection.

Crème de la crème

The new project closest to the house’s heart, though, is also the one closest to home – the 0.52ha Grand Clos vineyard, situated outside the new winery.

Released for the first time with the 2019 vintage, it displays the decadent aromatics of ripe fruit of this grand Champagne vintage, bolstered by 100% vinification in oak.

‘Built like a Burgundy wine,’ says Lété.

Twenty years on, the excitement of a startup mentality still feels palpable among the small team here as they work on a highly promising 2025 vintage.

While patience will continue to be a theme behind the cellar doors, though, the wait to taste a clear vision of this young house’s ambition is over.

The Barons de Rothschild range:

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Champagne itself will always be a beacon for sparkling lovers, but a host of top medals at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2025 (DWWA) recently showcased stunning work by producers in California, the UK, Spain and Italy, plus those in up-and-coming Tasmania and lesser-explored corners of the vinous universe, such as China’s Ningxia region – to name a few.

While styles and grape varieties vary, traditional-method sparkling wines all undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle, followed by a period of ageing on the lees (the spent yeasts remaining in the bottle), in a process similar to Champagne.

Many bottles develop enthralling complexity that is often balanced by a backbone of refreshing acidity – making them strong contenders for the dinner table, as well as for aperitifs with canapés.

Scroll down to discover 15 top-scoring sparkling wines from DWWA 2025

Why not try a vintage Cava or Chardonnay-led style with seafood dishes? Or even pour a Blanc de Noirs, made with all black grapes, with roast turkey.

There’s no shortage of options among the delicious wines featured below. All have navigated DWWA’s rigorous judging process and promise to add extra sparkle to all manner of festive celebrations.

Explore the full results from DWWA 2025 at awards.decanter.com

Australia

House of Arras, Blanc de Blancs Brut, Tasmania 2016

95 Gold

£81-£87 Liberty Wines, Loki Wines

A fabulous fusion of white flower, ripe peach and vanilla brioche aromas with a taut, mineral backbone and stunning sea breeze effervescence. Long and accomplished. Alcohol 12.7%

Austria

R Schlumberger, Grosse Reserve Chardonnay Brut, Poysdorf 2017

96 Gold

schlumberger.at

Delicate notes of pear, apple and lemon blossom intertwine with a pearly mousse and precise, vivid acidity. Stylish and persistent with a long, smoky finish. Alc 13%

China

Devo Winery, MV03 Brut Nature, Helan Mountain East, Ningxia NV

95 Gold

Captivating red apple, lemon peel and stone fruits persist, swirling over a bedrock of biscuits and toasted brioche. Delicate mousse and a long and impressive finish. Alc 12.5%

Croatia

Zure, Quinta Essentia Grk Brut, Lumbarda, Coastal 2016

95 Gold

zure.hr

A complex mix of syrupy yellow plum, lemon and ginger on the nose with a toasted sourdough croissant warmth, buttery texture and firm, mineral finish. Alc 13%

France

Bouvet Ladubay, Ogmius Saumur Brut, Loire 2015 (magnum)

97 Platinum

bouvetladubay.com

Tasted in magnum. Zesty citrus and green apple fruit with wisps of crushed rocks and seashells on the nose. A compelling savoury complexity pervades the palate, with delightful lemon acidity infusing soothing creamy mousse and decadent mineral length. Alc 12.5%

Hungary

Kreinbacher, Classic Brut, Wine of Hungary 2019 (magnum)

97 Platinum

£32/75cl Best of Hungary

Tasted in magnum. Complex aromas of lemon curd and red apples meet toasted brioche and walnuts. In the glass, a fine mousse precedes a palate of searing saline tension and verdantly fresh acidity. Very long. Alc 12.5%

Italy

Freccianera, Casa delle Colonne Riserva Zero Dosage, Franciacorta, Lombardy 2015

97 Platinum

£90 Thorman Hunt

White smoke and steely mineral aromas, then a palate full of lipsmacking citrus and creamy almond biscuits with fresh, grassy inflections. Lively and fleshy, with a beaming line of acidity and a profoundly long finish. Alc 13%

Japan

Hokkaido Wine, Traditional Method Type C Brut, Hokkaido NV

96 Gold

hokkaidowine.com

Pear, apple and honeysuckle aromas fold gently into a gorgeous pastry core, supplemented by an elegant mousse, bracing acidity and a joyfully mineral-infused finish. Alc 12%

New Zealand

Mumm, Blanc de Noirs, Central Otago NV

96 Gold

pernod-ricard.com

An expressive display of red florals, Pink Lady apples, white peaches and citrus on a cushion of brioche, with fine bubbles and fresh, lively acidity. Alc 12%

Slovenia

Dveri Pax, DP Brut, Stajerska Slovenija, Podravje 2014

96 Gold

dveri-pax.uk

Attractive nougat, honeyed stone fruit and biscuit aromas roll on through the seamless, gossamer mousse, the palate freshened by a crackling seam of citrus acidity. Alc 11.5%

South Africa

Van Loveren, Christina Cap Classique Brut, Robertson NV

96 Gold

£17.40 Rakq

A delicious interplay of crisp apple, blood orange and shortbread biscuit enhanced by a rounded, creamy texture, wonderful effervescence and juicy lemon acidity. Alc 11.5%

Spain

Can Sala, Vinyes de Can Sala Cava Brut Nature, Penedès, Catalonia 2015

97 Platinum

ferrerwines.com

Opulent aromas of ripe mango, peach and nectarine are enveloped in notes of freshly baked bread crust and toasted almonds. An impeccable harmony of structure and acidity is topped off by a fine and persistent mousse. Captivating. Alc 12.5%

UK

Sugrue South Downs, The Trouble with Dreams, Hampshire, England 2009 (magnum)

97 Best in Show

sugruesouthdowns.com

The DWWA has been open to Champagne magnums since 2023, and this year we opened the competition to sparkling wine magnums from all origins. And it was an English sparkling, not a Champagne, that was the first to find its way in magnum to the Best in Show selection. The generous 2009 vintage helped its creators build a magnificent blend, in which each of the three classical Champagne varieties (60% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, 10% Meunier) plays a role. Fifteen years in bottle has given the always-masterful English acidity the brooding time it needs, and the result is fresh, wide and bracing on the nose, and searchlight-deep on the palate. The acidity still very much forms the structure here, but it’s not hard to imagine stone, sand and salt on the move in the background. The producer has now sold out, but if you ever get the chance to try it, you’ll find texture and even glycerol as the acid wave pulls back after you’ve swallowed. It’s still a youngster, full of energy and jubilation. Alc 12.5%

Bluestone, Blanc de Noirs Brut, Wiltshire, England 2019

97 Platinum

£65 Bluestone Vineyards

Abundant apricot, peach, cherry skin and floral aromas bask in the soft, broad texture and supple mousse. Focused and vibrant with tapering acidity and a tingling black tea element on the finish. Long and rewarding. Alc 12%

USA

Chandon, Etoile Brut, Los Carneros, California NV

97 Platinum

US$55-$80 Widely available nationally

Singing with ripe yellow apple and citrus aromas combining flawlessly with warm toasted brioche. A delightfully tangy acidity cleanses the palate and the fine mousse billows towards a delectably textured ending. Long and enduring. Alc 12%

Search all DWWA 2025 award-winning wines

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In some respects, vintage Champagne is an affront to the traditions of the Champagne region.

‘Champagne is a blended product,’ in the words of the Comité Champagne, the ruling body of the Champagne industry.

The region prides itself on the consistency of its wines, and the overwhelming majority of production are non-vintage blends – the Comité Champagne reports that vintage Champagne represented only 1.2% of exports in 2024. For seasoned wine lovers, however, this tiny sliver of the market can provide wines of spectacular quality.

It has long been held that vintage Champagne is produced only in exceptional years. Luckily for wine lovers, it has become more common in the modern era of global warming.

Making a great vintage

The best vintages unite ripe fruit and abundant extract with thrilling acidity and structure. In my book ‘Vintage Champagne: 1899 to 2019’, I awarded only three vintages a top, five-star rating since the turn of the millennium: 2002, 2008, and 2012.

All the factors came together nicely in 2012: ripe fruit (potential alcohol of 10.6% at harvest), crisp acidity (an average of 7.8 g/L), and very healthy fruit.

The year did not begin auspiciously, however. A spring frost that damaged 10–17% of the crop was followed by heavy rain that brought mildew and cool weather that disrupted flowering, all factors that limited the crop.

Fortunately, the rain stopped in mid-July, and conditions turned sunny and warm thereafter. The mid-August heatwave dried the grapes thoroughly, and harvest began on 10 September, producing a small crop of concentrated grapes with exceptional balance.

Results were superb throughout the region.

Chardonnay focus

Tasters at the Decanter Masterclass sampled exquisite wines produced from across Champagne made by houses both large and small.

The tasting opened with two Blanc de Blancs Champagnes, made exclusively from Chardonnay. The first was produced by the venerable grande marque producer Delamotte.

The house style is clean and rich; the base wines are fermented in stainless steel, and all undergo malolactic conversion to soften the crisp acidity.

The 2012 was a blend of 20% each of the five grand crus of the Côte des Blancs: Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, Avize, Oger, Cramant, and Chouilly. The wine aged for nine years on its lees before being disgorged.

The second Champagne was the top-of-the-range Fleur de Passion from the small artisanal producer Diebolt-Vallois, who craft it from the grapes they grow on their family estate in the grand cru of Cramant.

Here, the base wines are all fermented in cask, and the malolactic conversion is not done, resulting in a zingy profile. This wine was also aged nine years before release, but the dosage with 3 g/L sugar was about half of that used by Delamotte, accentuating the wine’s crisp, refreshing nature.

A prestigious vineyard

From the Côte des Blancs, the tasting moved on to the Marne Valley and the incredibly famous Clos des Goisses from Champagne Philipponnat.

This exceptional wine is produced from a single steep vineyard in premier cru Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, whose vines are planted in thin, chalky soils that face due south and yield grapes of great concentration.

The 2012 was a blend of 61% Pinot Noir and 39% Chardonnay. Two-thirds of the base wines were fermented in small casks or larger oak uprights, and the rest in tank. Malolactic conversion was blocked, and the wine was given an extra-brut dosage of 4.5 g/L.

A generous contribution

The next stop on the tour of the vintage was the Montagne de Reims, where Champagne Laurent Perrier and Champagne Pierre Paillard both generously provided two wines each.

Laurent Perrier, based in the grand cru Tours-sur-Marne, showed its vintage 2012, produced from equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from top villages throughout the region, aged for more than nine years before release.

The house also contributed its exceptional Alexandra rosé. This wine, a blend of 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay, is made in the saignée (or maceration) method and aged for 10 years before release.

Pierre Paillard showed two wines, both from the grand cru village of Bouzy, where the house is based. La Grande Récolte is half Pinot Noir and half Chardonnay from its oldest vines, fermented in cask and aged for a decade before being finished with a dosage of 1 g/L.

Les Mottelettes is a rare bird, produced from Chardonnay from a single vineyard near the heart of the village of Bouzy, mostly known for its Pinot Noir. Co-planted with the Chardonnay is a small amount of Pinot Blanc.

The far south

We finished our Champagne journey far to the south in the Côte des Bar. Concordance is the name of the flagship cuvée from Champagne Marie Courtin, where owner and winemaker Dominique Moreau is among the most gifted in the region.

This Champagne of extraordinary purity and freshness is truly a high-wire act, since she fashions it from a single parcel of biodynamically grown Pinot Noir vines, vinified in tank without the use of sulfur or any other additive during fermentation of the base wine.

The wine was disgorged for our tasting and received no dosage.

We concluded with two Champagnes from the outstanding firm of Drappier, established more than 200 years ago in cellars first constructed in 1152 by Bernard of Clairvaux.

Grande Sendrée is their blend of 55% Pinot Noir and 45% Chardonnay from an exceptional single-vineyard site. One-third of the grapes are fermented in cask and large oak uprights; the wine aged nine years on the lees before receiving a dosage of 4.5 g/L.

The last wine was Drappier’s Millésime Exception 2012, produced from parcels selected from throughout the region.

This diverse selection of Champagne amply demonstrated the thrilling quality and age-worthy character of the 2012 vintage, when lovely wines were produced by large and small wineries throughout Champagne.

The best of these wines will continue to improve for decades in the cellar, truly demonstrating the seduction of time.

Vintage Champagne 2012

Wines are listed in tasting order

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From the moment you walk through the gates at Champagne Henri Giraud in Aÿ, there’s a sense that this is a house with a difference.

The celebrated grand cru vineyards of Aÿ are associated with names such as Bollinger, Deutz, Gosset and Ayala: houses that exude a sense of classicism and heritage with their cast-iron gates, quiet hallways and historic cellars.

Step into Henri Giraud, on the other hand, and you’ll see a Japanese water feature, twisting forms of glass and steel, and wall-to-wall colour.

There’s even a cigar room. In an age in which restraint is the default setting for everything in Champagne – from the wines themselves to the design and communication that surrounds them – Giraud wears its heart on its sleeve.

This is a house that isn’t afraid of a little hedonism, a little decadence, a little fun.

See Hewson’s notes and scores for six Champagnes from the historic house of Henri Giraud

All in the family

Despite the modernity, the Giraud-Hémart family has been present in Aÿ for 400 years. It’s an anniversary the house couldn’t pass up. About 1,000 bottles were popped at the celebrations in June.

It was the arrival of Claude Giraud during the 1970s that saw the first wines bottled under the name Henri Giraud after his father, who first began making the family’s own wines under the label ‘Giraud-Hémart’ following World War II.

In a relatively rare feat for a successful small Champagne house, it remains entirely family owned to this day.

‘After phylloxera and later the [second world] war, they installed themselves in the village and began to make their own wines,’ says Emanuelle Giraud, who today looks after the day-to-day running of the estate. ‘It has always been a family story.’

Claude was also the instigator of what has become the house’s signature: its combination of fine Pinot Noir from Aÿ with a highly original use of oak vinification.

This includes new barrels that the house commissions (and indeed helps produce) from the Argonne forest to the east of the Champagne region.

‘Claude began working with the forest in the 2000s,’ says cellar master Sébastien Le Golvet, the mastermind behind many of the house’s most imaginative developments over the last decade.

‘People know about the difference between oaks in different forests, but they didn’t look at the terroir of the forest itself – the difference between trees!’

In a strikingly detailed project, the house selects individual trees for individual barrels, even adjusting the kind of tree used – faster-growing or slower-growing, with different sun expositions and wood grain sizes – depending on the requirements of the vintage in the vineyards.

Next-level terroir

The goal is ‘not to make oaky wines, but to put together the terroir of Aÿ and the terroir of the Argonne’, says Le Golvet – much of the house’s work with wood is therefore focused on extreme-precision toasting to achieve nuanced profiles and avoid bitter, tough extraction from the barrels.

Together with a series of perpetual reserves – a solera-style system for blending and storing base wines across multiple vintages – tailored to each cuvée, the marriage between vineyard and forest yields wines of striking density, flavour concentration and gastronomic potential.

These wines have also shown constant evolution towards greater precision and refinement over the past decade. Champagne lovers who haven’t sampled Henri Giraud wines for a few years should not be wary of diving back in.

‘I always say the best wines of Giraud are tomorrow’s,’ says Le Golvet. Today’s wines, though, remain essential discoveries for anybody who is curious about modern Champagne.

Hewson’s pick: Six of the best Henri Giraud bottlings

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Data from international merchant Bordeaux Index and its LiveTrade online trading platform showed prestige cuvée Champagne prices were mostly down in 2025 so far, albeit Bollinger, La Grande Année 2012 was up 7%, but several wines saw better performance in the third quarter of the year (see table below).

Bordeaux Index’s Geraint Carter highlighted ‘more of a balance between buyers and sellers’, albeit talk of market recovery is premature.

‘We’ve had good success with vintage Champagnes with 15 to 20-plus years of age, which offer compelling value,’ he added, including Taittinger, Comtes de Champagne 2006, Dom Pérignon, Rosé 2002 and Bollinger, La Grande Année 2008.

Many prestige Champagnes remain more expensive than five years ago, despite falling back since a market bull-run peaked in late 2022. Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, said its Champagne 50 index was down 4.6% in the first nine months of 2025 and 20.8% over two years, yet still up 16.7% versus September 2020.

‘The Champagne 50, unlike the broader market, remains a way off its 2020 lows,’ said Liv-ex’s September market report. ‘With its volatility decreasing and trade volumes remaining strong as the [broader] market begins to stabilise, a full retracement back to 2020 levels appears increasingly unlikely.’

Nevertheless, consumer interest in new releases has reportedly been patchy. Recent successes include Cristal 2013 in magnum, said Bordeaux Index’s Carter.

Miles Davis, market expert at Vinum Fine Wines, reported good demand for Taittinger, Comtes de Champagne 2014.

Lauren McPhate, partner at Tribeca Wine Merchants in New York, said: ‘The frequency of purchase of prestige cuvée Champagne has definitely slowed over the last year.’

Consumers were increasingly tired of some producers’ higher release prices, she said, also noting the recent 15% US import tariff on EU wines. ‘Champagne as a category has not slowed down, however. We’re seeing great turnover in our $50-$100 category, which tends to be heavy on grower Champagne.’

Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com.

2025 has been a challenging year for prestige Champagne, though ultimately one not without encouragement. Trading is down around 10% year-on-year, slightly outperforming the broader fine wine market.

Factor in lower pricing and volumes are marginally higher than last year – a sign that engagement remains healthy despite understandable consumer reticence. The market now feels more balanced between buyers and sellers, with a notable trend of large stockholders selling through to retail buyers worldwide.

Mature vintages offering value and near-term drinkability have attracted deep and consistent attention – think Comtes 2005 & 2006, Dom Pérignon 2004 and Bollinger LGA 2008. Prices, meanwhile, are starting to reflect a mood of cautious optimism. Prestige cuvées have shown a modest uptick after continued declines in the first half of the year.

Yet given the scale of the pullback since the 2022 peaks, this remains a story of consolidation rather than resurgence. The worst may well be behind us, but recovery looks set to be gradual and ‘organic’. The market is steady and well tested, just don’t expect effervescence.

Bidders send venerable Scotch whisky sale to heady heights

Special bottlings of decades-old Scotch whiskies sparked strong bidding among collectors at the latest Distillers One of One charity auction, host Sotheby’s has said. Total sales hit £2.9m as bidders vied for 39 one-off lots in the 10 October auction, held at Hopetoun House near Edinburgh.

‘Bids [were] leaping in increments as much as £140,000 at a time,’ said Sotheby’s. Top lot was a 1.5-litre, spiral-shaped decanter housing The Glenlivet SPIRA 60 Year Old 1965 single malt.

It sold for £650,000, including buyer’s premium, far outpacing a pre-sale high estimate of £110,000. Other highlights included a 1.5L hand-blown decanter of The Glen Grant Eternal 77 Year Old 1948, which fetched £400,000 (high e: £120,000).

Auction proceeds will primarily benefit the Youth Action Fund, which supports disadvantaged young people in Scotland, said Sotheby’s.

Rothschild cellar yields 19th-century gems

A collection of 19th-century Bordeaux wines from a Rothschild family member’s cellar has been a highlight of New York’s autumn auction season. Zachys auction house said that every lot found a buyer after it offered the wine collection of the late Jacqueline (de Rothschild) Piatigorsky.

Total sales hit $11.16m and several lots soared above estimates.

‘The opening 35 lots set world records,’ said Zachys. A magnum of Château Lafite Rothschild’s celebrated 1870 vintage sold for $387,500, including buyer’s premium, eclipsing a pre-sale high estimate of $75,000.

That’s a record auction price for the wine in magnum, said Zachys. Lafite 1870 is regarded as one of the f inest wines of its era, produced just two years after the Rothschild family acquired this Bordeaux first growth estate.

Several magnums of the 1869 vintage also featured; the highest-priced selling for $231,250 (high e: $30,000). A three-bottle lot of Château Haut-Brion 1899 and a six-bottle lot of Château Giscours 1875 each sold for $106,250 (high e: $18,000 and $6,000 respectively).

Henri Jayer, Cros Parantoux 1999 Wines in the collection were acquired on release and had been stored in Pauillac ever since, said Zachys. According to Charles Antin, the global head of wine auctions at Zachys, the sale represented ‘truly a pinnacle of my wine-auction career.’

He added: ‘It was gratifying to see so many of our collector friends and clients respond to what was truly a once-in-alifetime offering of unmatched provenance.’

Disclaimer: Decanter’s Market Watch pages are published for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice. Wine prices may vary and they can go down as well as up. Seek independent advice where necessary and be aware that wine investment is unregulated in several markets, including the UK.

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France is awash with bubbles.

And no, I’m not talking about Champagne; I’m talking about Crémant, the bottle-fermented sparkling wines made outside Champagne, across eight French regions.

From Alsace in the northeast down to Burgundy, then skirting the Alps in Jura and Savoie, south to Die and Limoux, across to Bordeaux and finally the Loire Valley, these Crémant appellations trace an effervescent tour of France.

They look back on various sparkling wine traditions and come with delicious regional accents.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for 20 superb French Crémants

A rich history

Sparkling wines have long been popular in France. Legend has it that they’ve been made in Limoux since the mid-16th century, although evidence of the wine’s effervescence is considerably younger.

It was the early success of Champagne and its processes that inspired others.

Négociant and winemaker Joseph-Jules Lausseure made Bourgogne Mousseux from his Pinot Noirs in 1818. Others soon followed and, by 1827, more than a million bottles of sparkling Burgundy had been sold in France.

Belgian Jean-Baptiste Ackerman pioneered the style in the Loire Valley, a hub of sparkling wine production to this day.

He founded his trading house in Saumur in 1811, got into wine production, experimented, and received a gold medal at the 1838 Industrial Exposition of Angers for his 1836 sparkling wine. Troglodyte cellars, carved into the local tuffeau limestone, were ideal, of course.

In Alsace, Mousseux d’Alsace was made in the 1880s and ’90s, but it took young Julien Dopff, from a family of coopers and wine producers, to take the idea mainstream.

He had visited the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900, discovered Champagne and the méthode Champenoise (as it was then known), and promptly decided to train in Epernay. He then began to make sparkling wine back home in Alsace.

The official stamp

Internationally, the success of Champagne, its marketing nous and the region’s fierce stance on defending its (well-deserved) status and quality have left other regional French sparkling styles firmly in the shadows.

While Champagne has had a legally protected name since 1887, legally fixed boundaries since 1927 and formalised appellation laws since 1936, other sparkling wines had to wait longer for legal definition, despite their entrenched histories.

Initially, local traditions were subsumed into appellation laws, as in Vouvray in 1936, or recognised separately, as in Bourgogne Mousseux (1943) and Saumur (1957); however, ongoing legal wrangling with Champagne and integration with European laws finally resulted in the creation of dedicated appellations for Crémant, starting in the 1970s.

Crémant de Loire and de Bourgogne, both of which were created in 1975, are celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year, while Alsace will do so in 2026.

Crémant appellations for Limoux (Languedoc) and Bordeaux were formalised in 1990, Die (Drôme) in 1993, Jura in 1995 and Savoie in 2015.

Know your Crémant styles

France

Loire

AP received 1975

Colours white, rosé

Area in production 3,600ha

Grape varieties Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Orbois, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon (max 30%), Grolleau, Grolleau Gris, Pineau d’Aunis (max 30%), Pinot Noir

Bourgogne

AP received 1975

Colours white, rosé

Area in production 3,433ha

Grape varieties Pinot Noir, Chardonnay (min 30%), Gamay (max 30%), Aligoté, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Sacy, Melon

Alsace

AP received 1976

Colours white, rosé

Area in production 4,567ha

Grape varieties Auxerrois, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Riesling; rosé wines must be 100% Pinot Noir

Limoux

AP received 1990

Colours white, rosé

Area in production 1,097ha

Grape varieties Chardonnay (min 30%), Chenin Blanc (min 10%), Mauzac (max 20%), Pinot Noir (max 30%)

Bordeaux

AP received 1990

Colours white, rosé

Area in production 1,927ha

Grape varieties Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenère, Malbec, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Muscadelle, Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Semillon plus ‘supporting’ varieties Ugni Blanc, Colombard and Merlot Blanc (max 30% alone or together)

Die

AP received 1993

Colours white

Area in production 66ha

Grape varieties Clairette, Aligoté (10%-40%), Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (5%-10%)

Jura

AP received 1995

Colours white, rosé

Area in production 298ha

Grape varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Savagnin, Poulsard, Trousseau. For white: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Trousseau can account for min. 70% of the blend; for rosé, Pinot Noir, Poulsard and Trousseau must represent min 50% of the blend

Savoie

AP received 2015

Colours white

Area in production 47ha

Grape varieties Jacquère (min 40%), Altesse (together with Jacquère min 60%), Aligoté, Mondeuse Blanche, Chardonnay, Chasselas, Molette, Gamay, Mondeuse, Pinot Noir; max 20% of red grapes

Luxembourg

AP received 1991

Colours white, rosé

Area in production n/a

Grape varieties Elbling, Müller-Thurgau, Auxerrois, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Saint Laurent, Sylvaner

Perfect party choice

These appellation laws are tailored to the production of sparkling wine. The foremost aim is to prevent the oxidation of grape juice before pressing.

All Crémant rules thus mandate hand harvesting and the size or fill height of the transport containers of the grapes. Even the maximum drop from hopper to press is governed, as is the maximum time between picking and pressing.

Grapes must be whole-bunch-pressed and only to a specified limit. Only grapes for rosé wines may be macerated on the skins.

Wines must be made by second fermentation in bottle, spend at least nine months maturing on lees and have a certain minimum pressure.

Buying Crémant thus guarantees a minimum level of sparkling wine quality – a standard that countless producers have mastered, scaled and translated into price.

It’s perfectly possible to buy Crémant in a French supermarket for far less than €10, less than £15 here in the UK and less than $30 or even $20 in the US.

This makes Crémant a real value proposition, especially for parties, but it also means that there are many perfectly correct but uninspiring Crémants out there.

Beyond France? Look out for Crémant de Luxembourg

Formalised in 1991, Crémant de Luxembourg is made from grapes grown along the western bank of the Moselle river.

Unlike in neighbouring Germany, where the river grinds its way through the Rhenish slate massif, the soils along this 42km stretch are of Triassic marls and limestone where Pinot varieties, Chardonnay and Riesling thrive very close to the 50th parallel of latitude – further north than either Epernay or Reims. Each year, the country produces about three million bottles.

Domaine Alice Hartmann, Brut, Crémant de Luxembourg, Moselle, Luxembourg NV 90pts

£46.80 Hedonism

Made from half Riesling and roughly a quarter each of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the last two having been matured in oak as base wine.

Lovely aromas of tangerine jelly and peel join a creamy smokiness. The palate straddles that smooth, oaky creaminess with bright, fresh Riesling fruit, offering a touch of honey and more tangerine.

Aged for just 18 months on lees, this is a sophisticated yet fruit-driven, light-bodied Crémant that will work both as aperitif and alongside spicy dishes. Drink 2025-2030 Alcohol 12.5%

Finding the jewels

So how do you spot the great ones?

Beyond paying attention to Crémants with longer lees ageing, look for special cuvées from the larger producers and for Crémants made by smaller, artisanal producers – and chat to your wine merchant.

Right now, Crémant is surfing a wave. The French national federation of Crémant producers reports that in 2024, 114.5 million bottles of Crémant were sold at home and abroad, grown across about 15,000ha in eight appellations.

The upward trend in production – amounting to a 47% increase between 2016 and 2024 – is ‘developing in line with market demand’, the federation says.

These numbers are dwarfed by Champagne’s 34,200ha and 271 million bottles sold in 2024, but Crémant d’Alsace is now the most popular traditional-method sparkling wine sold in France after Champagne.

Crémant works as a value alternative for Champagne – especially if you look to Crémant de Bourgogne, which is often made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – or as a sparkling wine category in its own right, full of wonderful local inflections: an effervescent Jacquère, a sparkling Clairette, a Crémant dosaged with Vin Jaune? Yes please!

Krebiehl’s pick: 20 excellent Crémant buys from around France

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The village streets of Champagne’s Côte des Blancs are tightly packed with domaines – squeezed into old houses and courtyards, jam-packed with tractors and lorries during harvest and bottling.

Yet one of its hottest addresses, Champagne Dhondt-Grellet, sits away from this hustle and bustle, in the quiet village of Flavigny on the plains, nestled behind an unassuming treeline.

Scroll down for notes and scores for six Dhondt-Grellet wines to try

It’s here that Adrien Dhondt, now in his 13th year in charge of the wines, has slowly been offering his take on what modern blanc de blancs can be.

Upon my first visit in 2022, the domaine, despite early success, was still very much a family farmhouse. It had played host to his parents’ domaine since they took their vineyards out of the village co-operative in 1986 in order to produce their own wines.

Descending into the vaulted cellars, though, reveals Dhondt’s intent with the wines nowadays: while his parents had produced traditionally styled blanc de blancs, the cellar is now stacked high with Burgundy barrels, the only steel tank in sight kept above ground for the family’s reserve wine.

Beside the farmhouse lies a smart new glass-fronted tasting room, with the smell of fresh paint still lingering.

Dhondt’s trademark baseball cap and shorts may have slowly given way to a touch more formality as he transitions from up-and-comer to established figure in the region, but he remains a winemaker of irresistible ease, charm and unpretentiousness.

Earlier this year, despite his increasing fame, heightened wine prices and decreasing availability, I arrived to find him engaged in conversation with a small group of visitors from Iceland, happily explaining the sort of Champagne basics that some similarly celebrated winemakers may feel to be beneath them.

In the vines

Dhondt’s vineyard holdings are geographically particular: the vineyards are spread not only over the famous Chardonnay region of the Côte des Blancs itself, but also in the Sézanne – the slightly sunnier southern neighbour.

The main focus, though, is on the northern part of Côte des Blancs via the famous grand cru village of Cramant, as well as Cuis and Grauves on the other side of the hill, both known to be cooler and later-ripening, with more varied soil types than the pure chalky strictness of the main Côte.

Dhondt released a limited run of wines from a négociant project under his own name in 2024, sourced from bought-in grapes from Avize, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.

These are blanc de blancs with pristine, ripe fruit and 100% oak vinification that will appeal to anyone searching for Champagne-level refreshment with Burgundy-like body and complexity.

Although Dhondt himself is resistant to the ‘Burgundy with bubbles’ label sometimes applied to this new-wave style of Chardonnay, feeling it ‘denigrates Champagne’s terroir’.

The style never strays, though, into overt, sweet-toned oakiness or vinosity, despite his professed love for ‘wines with a bit of substance and concentration’ and the continual rotation of new oak in the cellar (which can form up to one third of the barrel usage in some cuvées).

Some of the wines’ crunch and freshness is likely down to the cooler positioning of many of the parcels, and perhaps also down to viticulture, which avoids pesticides, herbicides and synthetic chemical treatments, although is not certified organic.

Geographic imprint

All of Dhondt’s wines today have a strong geographical imprint. The more approachable Sézanne fruit forms the basis of the new entry-level Roc Solare cuvée (from a 2021 base), which replaces the Dans un Premier Temps cuvée.

Terres Fines comes from the cooler villages of Cuis and Grauves, tending to offer a little more precision.

Although more affordably priced, both present fully-realised, expressive examples of Dhondt’s developing style. Both excel, too, at capturing the freshness of the 2021 harvest without some of the angularity sometimes present in this complicated year.

Being a specialist in Cuis, Dhondt also makes Les Nogers, one of the few single-vineyard bottlings of this village.

There are two bottlings from the grand cru of Cramant. The cuvée called Cramant is a blend of two parcels, one in the lieu-dit Les Garennes, and the other from Les Longues Verges which is affected by the court-noué virus which concentrates the grapes.

‘It’s not the stereotypical style for the village,’ Dhondt says, pointing to the richer, deeper soils found in the northerly part of the village.

Le Bateau, also from Cramant, is a single, mostly south-facing 0.14ha site that has the more classic, chalky terroir. The current release of 2019, which Dhondt calls ‘the most beautiful vintage in Champagne in a long, long time,’ is already ascending to the ranks of Champagne’s most sought-after, rare and pricy blanc de blancs.

New to the lineup is the blanc de noirs La Côte aux Vents (‘the windy hillside’), which plays on the fact that Cuis and Grauves have always historically had a fair percentage of the red grape Pinot Meunier planted.

It’s testimony to Dhondt’s viticulture that, even in the torrid 2021 season, he harvested ripe and expressive Meunier, yielding a beautifully sprightly curio in one of the region’s most compelling blanc de blancs portfolios.

Six Dhondt-Grellet wines to try

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Krug cellar master Julie Cavil has worked with highly regarded composer, pianist and producer Max Richter to develop a Champagne and music ensemble entitled ‘Every Note Counts’.

It’s the latest chapter in Krug’s tradition of interpreting the character of Champagne cuvées through music, in collaboration with renowned artists.

Richter, known for blending traditional orchestrations with modern electronic elements, worked with Cavil to compose individual pieces of music inspired by three Krug Champagnes from the celebrated 2008 vintage.

Each composition is intended to accompany its corresponding cuvée, as well as reflect its character, the Champagne house said.

‘Clarity’ is a soloist piece composed around Krug, Clos d’Ambonnay 2008, which is created from a 0.68-hectare walled plot of Pinot Noir.

‘Ensemble’ is chamber composition created around Krug 2008, ‘evoking the ideal circumstances of the year,’ Krug said.

Meanwhile, ‘Sinfonia’ has been inspired by Krug Grande Cuvée 164ème edition. This Grande Cuvée is created around the 2008 vintage, but is assembled from 127 wines spanning 11 different years back to 1990.

‘These musical pieces recompose the singularity of the 2008 harvest,’ said Krug.

It said the three Champagne cuvées would be presented together under the name, ‘Krug from Soloist to Orchestra in 2008 (Act 2)’, with 200 cases produced. 

It added the pieces of music will be released in February 2026, alongside a documentary following Krug and Richter’s collaboration, from Reims to a recording studio in Oxfordshire.

There is a long tradition of comparing Champagne to the composition of classical music at Krug, which was founded in 1843.

Olivier Krug, sixth-generation family member of house, which is today owned by LVMH, previously told Decanter, ‘My great-grandfather had a salon de musique in the 1920s and 1930s.

‘When I joined [the business], my dad explained Krug to me using musical analogies. He said his role was the conductor.’

Beyond the concept of translating specific cuvées or growing seasons through sound, there has been research into how music may influence the taste and enjoyment of wine.

Susan Lin MW recently wrote about her work exploring music’s potential to enhance the sensory experience of tasting wine.

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Champagne has long been the liquid symbol for celebration, poured at coronations, christenings and Christmas tables with inevitability. Yet the assumption that only one region can produce suitable sparkling wine is beginning to feel tired.

What began as borrowed prestige founded on another’s reputation and nomenclature has given way to a new seriousness: sparkling wines of artisanal quality, defined not by loopholes but by their distinct terroir and a commitment to the regional ‘house style’.

This is not an imitation. It is translation: French blueprints reinterpreted in Californian sunlight, tempered by maritime breezes and rooted in soils ranging from chalk to diatomaceous earth. The result is wines that can compete on merit rather than marketing.

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The sparkling foundation

Laetitia Vineyards & Winery lies just a few miles from the coast in the cool Arroyo Grande Valley.

The winery was founded in 1982 by Deutz, a well-known Champagne house. Laetitia has spent more than four decades proving sparkling wine can be more than an eccentric sideline in California.

A corporate interlude under Vintage Wine Estates brought updated machinery (though they kept their impressive original Deutz era wooden press for show in their tasting room), rigorous laboratory work and expanded cellar staff, raising quality even as the estate was folded into a wider portfolio.

In 2024, second-generation winemaker Eric Hickey – who began in the cellar in 1988, led by his father – led a buy-back with local families, restoring Laetitia to independent stewardship.

The wines are sharper for it: the 2021 Blanc de Blancs shows crystalline focus and chalky drive, while the 2021 Cuvée M delivers complexity, toast and richness fit for December tables.

Pinot roots and a sparkling future

Not every Central Coast sparkling house was born to bubbles. Riverbench, founded in the Santa Maria Valley in 1973, built its name on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay before branching into méthode champenoise in 2008. Its sparkling wines lean into orchard fruit and brisk acidity, deepened by lees ageing.

Sea Smoke, better known for plush and velveteen Pinot Noir, has followed suit, folding a selected lot of estate fruit into a sparkling programme that is more than meets the eye. An understated generosity and energetic acid profile highlight the oceanic minerality of the Sta. Rita Hills.

While on the fuller side, their Sea Spray remains brut nature with no dosage added, highlighting the producer’s commitment to showcase the integrity of their estate-grown grapes, reminding us that estates once defined by undeniably Californian Pinot Noir can turn their hand to cellarworthy sparkling.

Then there is Flying Goat Cellars, founded by Norm Yost, named Vintner of the Year by the Sta. Rita Hills Wine Alliance this past August.

Cultish in reputation, Flying Goat specialises in nerdy, small-lot sparklings, often from Bien Nacido, Riverbench and Solomon Hills vineyards. If Laetitia offers polish and Racines a French accent, Flying Goat is the eccentric professor – idiosyncratic, cerebral and deeply respected.

Franco-Californian fusion

If Laetitia represents endurance, Racines embodies evolution built on French traditions.

Founded with its first vintage in 2017, Racines is the brainchild of Burgundy’s Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve, joined by Rodolphe Péters of Champagne Pierre Péters.

Their presence in the Sta. Rita Hills is no vanity project. Fog, wind, and ancient marine soils share some similarities with their Champagne counterparts, albeit with a bit more sunshine.

Wines from Sanford & Benedict, Bentrock and La Rinconada carry Champagne’s discipline of precision intact and minerality, yet the presence of Sta Rita Hills’ unique terroir in the glass makes it easy to distinguish their Californian roots.

The new wave

The next wave of California winemaking talent is pushing sparkling further still, with each producer bringing a distinct philosophy and style to their glass.

Loubud, the personal project of Laura Hughes (currently the assistant winemaker at Sanford), focuses on small-lot, coastal-influenced wines. Her sparklings are generally lean and vibrant, showing saline energy, tension and shaped with artisanal precision.

From there, the tone shifts with Lady of the Sunshine, where winemaker Gina Giugni uses regenerative farming as the foundation for wines of both vibrant freshness and earthy botanical nuance.

Her sparkling solera cuvées are different, with flavours that can be both fresh and oxidative, unembellished by heavy sulfur additions – these wines are wonderfully refreshing for those who value originality and authenticity above adornment.

Meanwhile, Tyler and Lieu Dit, both associated with Justin Willett, have begun weaving méthode champenoise into their already acclaimed portfolios.

Best known for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay of crystalline precision, their sparklings carry the same exacting approach: lean, mineral and unapologetically terroir-driven.

Why here?

The Central Coast thrives on paradox. Ocean winds cool the fruit while the Californian sun ensures ripeness. Chalk, clay and diatomaceous earth give both texture and tension. It is this collision – between generosity and restraint – that makes the region so apt for sparkling wine.

In short, Champagne’s climate is impossible to replicate, but Sta. Rita Hills and the Santa Maria Valley come closer than one might ever expect.

The Northern counterpoint

Quality California sparkling did not begin here. Schramsberg in Napa and Domaine Carneros in Carneros have long set the standard.

Schramsberg supplied the Nixon-era White House; Domaine Carneros, with its château façade, has become a must-try sparkling-only tasting location for American wine lovers. Both deliver consistency and broad appeal, with volumes to match.

Yet scale brings compromise. Both labels produce reliable classics, but lack the crisp mineral and saline imprints found in soils of the central coast.

Bigger names up in California’s North Coast offer consistency and recognisable branding, but can sometimes feel more corporate than soulful. Nevertheless, these wines remain essential markers of quality-driven California sparkling wine.

Sparkling-only houses up north also seem to offer one thing we don’t often find on the Central Coast: a wider range of sparkling styles with a spectrum of dosage levels that can be found in almost every tasting room, and even the occasional demi-sec bottlings, reminding us that America’s romance with sugar is alive and well, despite ‘dry’ being the most requested style in tasting rooms and restaurants alike.

Within the bounds of the Central Coast, most producers have found the sweet spot of ripeness and freshness thanks to the proximity to the coast and protection of morning fog.

This can be achieved with little to no dosage, keeping in line with consumer trends without compromising on flavour, which allows for a sharp yet balanced result.

A crown all its own

For decades, American sparkling has hovered between aspiration and apology, alternately borrowing Champagne’s name, undercutting its price.

The Central Coast suggests another way forward: sparkling wines that neither imitate nor rebel, but speak fluently of their own place.

The reflex may still be to reach for the prestige of French Champagne or the affordability of Italian Prosecco. But the smarter money – and, given tariffs, more sustainable and often better value for quality – can be found on bottles from Arroyo Grande, Santa Maria and the Sta. Rita Hills.

They deserve not only a place at the table but perhaps a new tradition altogether: a toast to life with a coastal accent.

Brilliant bubbles from California’s Central Coast: seven to try

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A luxurious state banquet for US president Donald Trump and first lady Melania was hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle on Wednesday night (17 September), with a menu seemingly designed to honour both countries.

Menus and wine lists for such occasions are usually created with meticulous attention to detail.

UK officials offered up a lavish menu to mark Trump’s official visit to the country, which has also been marked by protests.

Vintage English sparkling wine featured during the banquet at St George’s Hall, with Wiston Estate, Cuvée [Brut] 2016 poured for the 160-strong guest list, according to widespread media reports of the menu.

California’s legendary Ridge Vineyards also made an appearance via its Monte Bello 2000 vintage, 25 years on from harvest.

Trump reportedly doesn’t drink alcohol, and so the contents of the bottles were likely only enjoyed by other banquet guests.

Other wines served included 2018-vintage Corton-Charlemagne grand cru Burgundy from Domaine Bonneau du Martray, which is owned by US businessman Stan Kroenke, plus Pol Roger ‘Extra Cuvée de Reserve’ 1998 Champagne; Pol Roger was a favourite of Sir Winston Churchill.

A special US-UK cocktail was mixed to mark the occasion, ‘blending smoky whisky with the bright citrus of marmalade’, said the Royal family’s social media channels.

‘Crowned with a pecan foam and garnished with a toasted marshmallow set on a star-shaped biscuit, the cocktail aims to evoke the warmth of a fireside s’more.’

After dinner, spirits and fortified wine lovers among the banquet guests were also spoilt for choice.

There was a 1912 Hennessy Grande Champagne Cognac, reportedly representing the birth year of Trump’s Scottish-born mother.

A Warre’s 1945 vintage Port was also offered, possibly reflecting Trump becoming the 45th US president back in 2017 but also potentially marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

Meanwhile, there was a rare Scotch whisky on the table after officials brought out a bottle of Bowmore Queen’s Cask 1980.

A cask was filled in that year during the late Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to the Islay-based distillery off the west coast of Scotland, and the contents were bottled for her Golden Jubilee in 2002.

Before that, state banquet guests were served a dinner featuring ballotine of organic Norfolk chicken wrapped in courgettes with a thyme and savoury-infused jus, according to menu details reported by several media, including The Independent.

As a starter, diners were given ‘Hampshire watercress panna cotta with Parmesan shortbread and quail egg salad’. 

State banquet menus are always written in French as the first language, as noted during French president Macron’s visit to the UK earlier this year.

During the banquet for Trump, King Charles III spoke of the long-standing close ties between the US and UK.

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A court in Reims sentenced ex-winemaker Didier Chopin, 56, to prison earlier this month over his role making and selling hundreds of thousands of bottles of fake Champagne.

Chopin, from the Aisne area, was jailed for 18 months with another 30 months of prison time suspended. He was also fined €100,000, and his holding company was fined €300,000, according to French media.

However, Chopin’s lawyer confirmed to Decanter that he would appeal against the court’s ruling, as also reported by several French media outlets this week, including France Bleu.

At the recent trial, the court heard of a fraudulent scheme estimated at several million euros.

Flavourings were added to still wines sourced from France’s Archèche region and also Spain. Wines were then carbonated with carbon dioxide gas, before being passed off as genuine Champagne, the court heard.

It was reported that more than half a million bottles were produced in the scheme, which ran between 2022 and 2023, although a more precise figure wasn’t given.

News of the appeal created fresh uncertainty around the case. Chopin’s lawyer had previously argued for a suspended prison sentence, according to France 24 / Agence France Presse.

At the recent trial, regional wine body the Comité Champagne joined the prosecution as a civil party.

Following the court verdict on 2 September, Charles Goemaere, managing director at Comité Champagne, said: ‘We welcome this ruling, which severely condemns a serious attack on the common heritage of Champagne winegrowers and houses. We are determined to defend the integrity of the Champagne appellation worldwide.’

In a separate court case in July, three people were convicted in a high-profile trial regarding human trafficking of Champagne harvest workers.

The Comité Champagne also joined the prosecution as a civil party in that case, reiterating its ‘zero tolerance’ approach to offenders.

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There are few wine regions in the world where vintage means as much as it does in Champagne.

But what exactly are vintage Champagnes, and is this once-exalted category starting to fade in importance?

Tom’s pick of the best vintage Champagnes listed below

Champagne aficionados of the first half of the 20th century would likely find themselves baffled by today’s Champagne terminology: non-vintage, multi-vintage, single-vineyard, limited editions, late-disgorged releases, vintage, premium vintage, prestige cuvée, library releases…the list goes on.

Fitting today’s Champagnes into neat style categories is rather complex.

What’s more, Champagne houses regularly have six to 10 cuvées in their range, where once there may have been two or three.

Up until the 1970s, though, the choice was simple: either non-vintage or vintage.

Vintage Champagne: What does it mean?

The region’s appellation regulations help to simplify things somewhat: a non-vintage Champagne cannot carry a year of production on the label; it may be produced from a blend of harvests; and it must spend a minimum of 15 months ageing before release.

A vintage Champagne, on the other hand, is the product of one sole harvest (which has to appear on the label), and it must spend a minimum of 30 months ageing before release (although they are regularly aged for much longer).

Price gap

Vintage Champagnes have always been more expensive than non-vintage Champagnes. Today, the price gap has widened further.

André Simon’s 1962 book The History of Champagne reports that a 1945 agreement between the Ministry of Food and the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, aimed at suppressing the black market after World War II, stipulated final selling prices of grandes marques vintage and grandes marques non-vintage as 28 shillings and 25 shillings respectively.

Hardly much of a premium when you consider that today’s vintage Champagnes are commonly around two or three times the price of their non-vintage counterparts. Take Taittinger for example, whose non-vintage currently retails at £36 while its vintage is £61.

The emergence of prestige cuvées

By the 1970s, the idea of a category even more exalted than vintage began to form.

According to writer Cyril Ray in his 1971 book Bollinger, Tradition of a Champagne Family, Bollinger realised in 1961 that it was ‘expected to produce a premium quality wine’ above its non-vintage and vintage offerings.

This premium offering later became Bollinger’s prestige cuvée, RD.

This followed on from the early successes of Moët et Chandon’s Dom Pérignon and Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne.

Since then, the basic understanding of Champagne’s quality has been three-tier: non-vintage, vintage and prestige cuvée.

But is the middle child now being forgotten about?

Vintage squeeze

Ray writes of grandes marques producing single-vintage wines as ‘a means to getting talked and written about’.

Today, however, it’s the prestige releases that tend to steal the limelight, with the vintage category languishing.

Champagne’s 2024 export report showed that prestige cuvées represented a huge 18.9% of the region’s value, while the vintage category was the smallest of all at 1.5%.

Some houses, such as Billecart-Salmon, have stopped making vintage Champagne altogether. Others, such as Ruinart, make such tiny quantities that they are not even found in the UK market.

Value hiding in plain sight

Even if quantities are small, though, many of the major houses still make mid-tier vintage Champagnes that retail between £70-£100.

Producers such as Lanson, Piper-Heidsieck, Deutz, Taittinger and Laurent-Perrier all make vintage cuvées that offer serious value, regularly available for £80 or less.

That value stems from an excellent growing season, top-notch base wines, rigorous blind tastings and an open-minded approach to finding the grapes that best tell the story of the year, even if they’re not from the sort of prized grand cru sources that are used for prestige cuvées.

To illustrate this last point, Elise Losfelt, former cellar master of Charles Heidsieck, says that the house’s 2018 vintage relied heavily on Chardonnay from a rather unlikely source: the little-known village of Trigny, in the Petite Montagne de Reims.

Surprisingly, it had a ‘kick of freshness and concentration’ from a vintage that could be ‘heavy and mature,’ she says.

Perhaps Trigny’s Chardonnay will never step into the limelight again, but it’s a perfect example of why the blending of vintage Champagne tests the winemaker’s creativity, rarely using the exact same ingredients from one year to the next.

Vintage cuvées evolve

Elsewhere, inventive producers have taken to re-imagining their vintage cuvées, with names and identities beyond a simple millésimé.

At Champagne Palmer & Co, vintages are made in top years, but only released once the quality is deemed high enough after a six year ageing period.

It’s a sort of ‘double selection,’ according to managing director Rémi Vervier. Palmer & Co’s vintage cuvée is now known as Grands Terroirs, to highlight its link to the vineyards of the northern Montagne de Reims.

Other houses are also seeking to lend these more expensive wines a stronger stamp of identity and heritage than simply the vintage.

Louis Roederer, for example, which makes its vintage release from Pinot Noir from the clay-rich terroirs of the house’s own La Montagne estate in the northern Montagne de Reims. By contrast, the shallower, chalky plots are selected for the (much larger) production of Cristal.

Philipponnat’s cuvée 1522 is another example. ‘Clos des Goisses [the estate’s top wine] is a single-vineyard cuvée, and I felt we needed a superior vintage cuvée,’ says head of the house Charles Philipponnat, ‘so we created 1522 in the year 2000 as a homage to our ancestors, who owned vines in the [lieu-dit] Le Leon in Aÿ in 1522.’

The 1522 cuvée is based heavily on Pinot Noir from the Le Leon lieu-dit.

A vertical back to the original 2000 release confirmed what many in Champagne know well: despite their relative insider status today, these meticulously made wines, sourced from some of Champagne’s top villages, can age beautifully, even if they may reach maturity a little before their prestige siblings.

Tips for buying vintage Champagne

Current sweet spots for vintage Champagne range from the 2008 to 2012 releases.

Well-stored vintage releases back to the mid 1990s are also well worth exploring.

It can be worth trading up to magnums at vintage level, too. The 1996 shone at a recent tasting, and even promised further ageing potential.

Even if prestige cuvées have taken vintage Champagne’s seat at the top of the table, this remains a happy hunting ground for anyone in search of true value.

Identifying the cuvées may be a little more complex than it was in 1945, but as a way to explore the heights of long-aged, well-sourced Champagnes – and even plan fascinating comparative tastings without breaking the bank – the vintage category is hard to beat.

Top 15 vintage Champagnes to seek out:

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‘This wine is a lot of work,’ says Laurent-Perrier oenologist Constance Delaire as we taste the current release of the house’s Cuvée Rosé, one of Champagne’s best-known rosés.

Most rosé Champagne is made using the assemblage method, which sees red wine from Pinot Noir added to a white base wine before bottling for the second fermentation.

Laurent-Perrier’s Cuvée Rosé, on the other hand, is made using a different method, and it’s an approach that many Champagne houses would consider unthinkably complex for making a rosé at scale.

Scroll down for notes and scores for Laurent-Perrier’s rosé Champagne

Although commonly referred to as saignée in Champagne, the method used by Laurent Perrier is more accurately described as maceration.

Outside of Champagne, saignée technically refers to rosé wines made from bleeding off pale must from red wine ferments.

In Champagne, however, saignée is used, albeit inaccurately, to refer to rosés made from red grapes which are destemmed, macerated for a precise amount of time to extract colour and flavour, pressed, and then fermented.

It is usually the preserve of small Champagne producers and growers, due to how labour-intensive it can be.

Such are the demands of this method, in fact, that Laurent-Perrier has built an entire winery dedicated solely to this one cuvée.

True dedication

Olivier Vigneron, the new cellar master at Laurent-Perrier, joins our tasting late, having been checking in on his wines after a few weeks of travelling.

‘I’m a cellar master of the cellar, really,’ he says, as opposed to a public ambassador for the house, as many other cellar masters are today.

‘At harvest time, Olivier and Michel would pretty much sleep next to the tanks for Cuvée Rosé,’ Delaire says of Vigneron and longtime predecessor Michel Fauconnet, who still consults at the house.

The making of a rosé icon

‘You have to start in the vineyards with a very strict selection,’ says Delaire, ‘the whole harvest for the rosé goes through a sorting table’.

This in itself is fairly extraordinary in Champagne. Sorting tables are vibrating units where individual bunches, or indeed grapes, are picked over by hand. They are a rare sight, except for top prestige rosé production.

‘We keep only the berries, separated by village, in cold maceration for 48 to 72 hours,’ says Delaire.

Perhaps sleeping next to the tanks doesn’t seem so crazy after all: the timing for pressing off the juice before it becomes too extracted is crucial.

‘You can miss it, even by an hour,’ says Vigneron.

So what’s the point of this process? ‘The idea is to get perfect extraction of the fruit,’ says Delaire.

Laurent-Perrier’s rosé comes out a shade darker than many.

Thanks to its 100% Pinot Noir makeup (compared to most rosé Champagne which also includes some Chardonnay and Meunier), it is fragrant and rich in red fruit characters.

What’s more, thanks to long lees-ageing (unusual for a non-vintage Champagne), there’s none of the slightly raw youthfulness that saignée – maceration – styles can sometimes display.

The current releases are based on the excellent pair of vintages, 2019 and 2018.

A step further

As if Laurent-Perrier’s unique approach to non-vintage rosé production wasn’t enough, its Grande Cuvée Alexandra Rosé has an equally unusual conception.

‘We wait for the maturity of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at the same time’, says Delaire – meaning this cuvée can only be made when the two grape varieties ripen concurrently.

It’s a sort of hybrid winemaking, where a strict selection of Pinot Noir – all from grand cru villages on the Montagne de Reims – is macerated and added to freshly pressed grand cru Chardonnay from the Côte des Blancs.

‘It’s a really complicated wine to make,’ she says.

Complicated it may be, but the grand cru Chardonnay brings excellent longevity, which means this exceptional bottling can age into one of Champagne’s greatest rosés.

As we taste a library edition of the 2007 release, its beautiful aromas of dried strawberries, preserved citrus, truffle honey and pastry cream fill the room.

The colour has started to turn a little copper, and the mousse settles into silky maturity.

It’s a fine reminder of something that the team at Laurent-Perrier knows extremely well: sometimes you have to do it the hard way to get the greatest result.

Laurent-Perrier rosé:

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It’s no secret that Champagne prices in the UK have shot up since the Covid pandemic.

A recent report by consultancy firm Wine Lister found that between December 2021 and December 2024, prices increased by 21% among 15 top-selling brands. This is considerably larger than for any other sparkling wine type.

In 2024, Champagne sales declined significantly, by 9.2% overall and 10.8% in export markets.

In trying to explain this slump, Maxime Toubart, president of Champagne’s grower association SGV (whose members sell their grapes to Champagne houses), accused the houses of ‘disproportionate’ price rises compared to the prices paid to grapegrowers.

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Infrastructure & vintage struggles?

Houses will argue that small and difficult vintages, such as 2021, and significant cost increases in areas such as energy, vineyard work and shipping, have led to these price rises.

In practice, most of the leading grandes marques set recommended retail prices above the £40 mark today, and the long-held sense that Champagne ought to be available in the UK for around £30 is certainly being tested.

In search of value, then, I tasted 50 white Champagnes that can be obtained at a full price of £40 or below per bottle in the UK. The top 15 are featured below.

What sort of quality can we expect from Champagne at that price point, though?

How much of the bottle price is actually going to the wine producer, and how much is eaten up with taxes and various costs, including distribution and promotion?

I spoke to Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, who has sourced Champagnes for the UK market, to find out how the numbers stack up.

Howard-Sneyd estimates that about £15 (€18) of that £40 full price will make it to the Champagne producer (see box, below).

Their costs then include at least €8-€9 for the grapes or base wine (assuming these are largely bought-in, rather than grown by the producer, which they usually are at this price in the UK), €2-€3 for dry goods and €3-€4 for cost of production, leaving €2-€5 profit for the producer.

‘It’s the UK government and the retailer’ who make the most money, says Howard-Sneyd.

Vital statistics for a £40 bottle of Champagne in the UK

Price before VAT is added: £33.33

Before retailer margin: £23.33

Before UK duty: £20.67

Before shipping, warehousing, deliver & ERP (packing costs): £19.77

Before distribution, marketing & promotional support: £17.77

Before in-market promotion & discounting: £15

A question of style

The Champagnes tasted here fell into two camps: wines that made efforts to taste bold and flashy, despite their price; and wines that seemed to put their resources into getting the basics right – fruit quality, balance and refreshment.

Including large amounts of reserve wine in the blend (even if those reserves might not be of the best quality), or adding lots of dosage (in the form of a rich, aged liqueur d’expédition) when topping up after the disgorgement stage can help fairly basic wines get some warm, biscuity-type tones that feel expensive for a single glass, but can get tiring for more.

Cheaper Champagnes often use more tailles – the must resulting from harder pressings of the grapes – which can bring a juicy fruitiness and low acidity to the wines, although, as was sometimes found in the tasting, can also increase bitterness, needing a little more sugar in the dosage to compensate.

The top-scoring wines here all avoided those pitfalls with aplomb, proving there are still a few treasures to be found without stretching the budget.

Tom Hewson’s 15 affordable Champagne recommendations

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National Prosecco Day is celebrated annually on 13 August, and what better way to join the celebrations than by popping open an award-winning bottle of the bubbles?

Recently announced, Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2025 results saw 173 Prosecco wines awarded a medal by some of the world’s leading wine experts, including one Platinum and seven Golds (two of which are Value Golds – wines under £15).

Well-crafted wines can be found from Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, with the Platinum medal (97 points) awarded to a wine from Prosecco Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze and four Gold medals (95-96 points) awarded to Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore.

Scroll down to discover 15 top-scoring Prosecco wines from DWWA 2025

Established in 2009, and updated in 2019 to include the official identification of 43 hillside sites or ‘Rive,’ wines from this DOCG have attributed to the recent surge in Prosecco quality, accompanying this wine’s rise in global popularity. At this year’s competition, Nebbia, Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore Rive 2024 received a Gold medal with 95 points.

But it’s not just quality to note of the top-scoring Proseccos from DWWA 2025 – there’s style to consider too, with various examples ranging from floral and fruity characteristics to savoury and nutty.

As a guide, in both Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, Proseccos tend to be more fruity in character, whereas to their west, the smaller DOCG Asolo Prosecco produces styles that are more mineral, savoury and linear.

For complexity, quality and a diversity of styles and sub-regions, the below 15 award-winning Prosecco wines from Veneto are well worth a try this National Prosecco Day and beyond. Discover many more on our results site at awards.decanter.com

What will you be toasting National Prosecco Day with? Share with us on social @decanterawards.

DWWA 2025: 15 award-winning Prosecco wines to try

Ruggeri, Brut, Prosecco Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze 2023

Platinum, 97 points

Exuberant lemon blossom, ripe pear and apple aromas glisten over the creamy mousse which ripples elegantly through the palate. A fine tension of acidity adds to the charm and culminates in a lush tropical fruit finale. Alcohol 11.5%

Dei Vescovi, Brut, Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore 2023 magnum

Gold, 95 points

Enchanting sweet florals, pears and citrus vibrate across the tangy palate, with a soft, supple mousse, salty acidity and freshly cut melon note to end. Alc 12%

Le Manzane, 20.10 Extra Dry, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore 2023

Gold, 95 points

A rush of green apple and lemon energy leaps over the nose and palate with a soft, bready note to follow. Creamy and fresh with a salty finish. Alc 11.5%

Montelvini, Collezione Serenitatis Extra Dry, Prosecco Asolo Superiore NV

Value Gold, 95 points

Delicate fresh green pear and apple infuse gently with the creamy abundance of the mousse, perfectly underpinned by a firm acidity and lush, sweet lemon length. Alc 11.5%

Nebbia, Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore Rive 2024

Gold, 95 points

Scatterings of fresh herbs, jasmine flowers and lemon rind dance under the nose and linger over the fleshy nectarine palate. Long and vital with a fine perlage. Alc 11.5%

Spar, Extra Dry, Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore NV

Value Gold, 95 points

Authentic and pure with green apple, lemon and pear fruits which merge flawlessly with the supple, orange blossom mousse. Zippy and crisp on the finish. Alc 11%

Terre del Cima, Extra Dry, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore 2023

Gold, 95 points

Brilliant lemon and apple flavours with hints of almond and bread. Dazzlingly fresh and limpid with a refined mousse and beautiful saline finish. Shows great typicity. Alc 11.5%

Naonis, Extra Dry, Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore 2024

Silver, 94 points

Wonderful freshness and fruit with lemon and green apple characters leading on to a harmonious palate with a long, fine mousse. Alc 11.5%

Tenuta degli Ultimi, Biancariva Collalto Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore Rive 2013

Silver, 93 points

A complex, mature style with lots of dried flower, honey and bruised-apple fruit. Very dry palate, fresh and structured, vibrant. Alc 11.5%

Andreola, Col del Forno Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore Rive 2024

Silver, 92 points

Restrained aromatics of lemon rind, white flowers and pear. Complex and zesty on the palate with a fine mousse. Alc 11.5%

Biancavigna, Extra Dry, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore 2024

Silver, 92 points

Hints of alpine meadow and yellow fruit on the nose. Fresh notes of flowers, minerals and sea breeze with a lively finish. Alc 11.5%

Col Vetoraz, Dry, Prosecco Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze 2024

Silver, 92 points

Fine bubbles and a citrus, acacia nose with pear and marzipan suggestions. Lovely texture, complexity and persistence. Alc 11.5%

Divigna, Valderustè Biologico Extra Brut, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore 2024

Silver, 91 points

Exuberant pear, blossom and white peach aromatics. Lovely purity. Bright and drier than expected on the palate; nice creamy mousse. Alc 11.5%

Luca Ricci, Le Fade Extra Dry, Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore NV

Silver, 91 points

Fragrant almond, lemon and subtle brioche notes on the nose. Elegant with subtle stone fruit characters and a mineral finish. Alc 11%

Sacchetto, Fili Prosecco Extra Dry, Prosecco NV

Silver, 91 points

Clean, floral nose with apple and elderflower characters. Rich and complex palate with fresh, linear acidity and good length. Alc 11.5%

Search all DWWA 2025 results

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Across all UK wine categories, sales volumes were up 3% from 2023, according to new data from the wine team at the Food Standards Agency.

‘A 3% growth in sales is a notable achievement given the current economic climate, recent regulatory changes, and the fact that our producers continue to face considerable economic barriers not seen in mature markets,’ said Nicola Bates, CEO of WineGB.

Volumes of still wine sold totalled 2.9 million bottles – a 10% increase on the previous year – outpacing sparkling albeit from a small base.

Sales of sparkling counterparts last year matched the 2023 figure of 6.2 million bottles, an encouraging performance given that Champagne sales were down for the same period.

The amount of wine sold on the export market also grew by 35% year on year, now accounting for 9% of total sales.

Following the record vintage of 2023, which equated to 21.6 million bottles, last year saw just shy of 10.7 million bottles produced. This was largely down to crop losses from persistent wet weather leading to associated vineyard diseases.

The overall yield was still the fourth highest of the last decade, however, thanks to the growth in vineyard plantings in recent years.

The UK is now home to 99 different grape varieties, which include Sauvignon Blanc, Gamay, Albariño, Merlot and Riesling, while the six most-planted grapes remain unchanged from last year. Champagne varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier lead the way, followed by Bacchus, Seyval Blanc and Solaris.

A further 25 wineries were established last year, and 74 vineyards, bringing the totals to 238 and 1,104 respectively. The total land under vine now comprises 4,841ha, an increase of 510% since 2005.

The majority of vineyard plantings are in Kent, followed in second place by West Sussex, but recent additions in Essex have elevated the county to third in terms of land under vine, ahead of East Sussex and Hampshire.

Sustaining growth does of course come hand in hand with hiring the talent necessary to carry the industry forward. This year’s WineGB Industry Survey suggested that the next three years will see an increase of 21% in full-time roles.

‘Our industry shows resilience and remains in a growth phase with planting and employment continuing to show an upward trend,’ Bates said.

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Living and working conditions for more than 50 Champagne harvest workers, including undocumented migrants, have been the focus of a high-profile human trafficking trial in France. 

A criminal court in Châlons-en-Champagne this week sentenced three defendants to prison sentences of varying severity, according to French media.

Charges related to the treatment of workers recruited to pick grapes for the 2023 harvest, and regional trade body the Comité Champagne joined the prosecution as a civil plaintiff.

One victim reportedly told the court that workers were treated ‘like slaves’.

Video footage published by France 3 / France Télévisions showed the poor state of the workers’ accommodation in Nesle-le-Repons.

There was no running water or electricity and the group was required to work 12-hour days, from 7am to 7pm, with ‘rotten sandwiches’ offered for food, one victim said.

Three defendants were convicted on human trafficking charges. 

One of them, a woman from Kyrgyzstan in her 40s who was director of a service agency, was sentenced to four years in prison – with two years suspended, according to France24 / Agence France Presse. The report said her lawyer described the ruling as unfair and added she would appeal.

Two men in their 30s also received part-suspended prison sentences, and the defendants were ordered to pay €4,000 to each victim, the report said. 

‘Zero tolerance’

Following the case, the Comité Champagne said, ‘We have already said this, and we will say it again: the events that occurred in 2023 are serious and unacceptable. 

‘They required an appropriate response, and sanctions were taken accordingly. We had a duty to stand by the victims.’ 

It added, ‘You do not play around with the health and safety of seasonal workers. Nor do you play around with the reputation of our appellation.’

Officials said they won’t hesitate to join the prosecution on such cases, if required.

‘Our position remains unchanged: zero tolerance for this type of behaviour,’ the Comité Champagne said. ‘We will systematically act as a civil party if any further cases lead to legal proceedings.’

Last year, the Comité Champagne and other regional partners launched a new action plan designed to better safeguard harvest workers in Champagne vineyards.

Named ‘Together for the Champagne harvest’, the plan emerged from a working group set up in October 2023 to examine health and safety guidance for seasonal workers.

Around 120,000 seasonal workers help to pick and process grapes in Champagne each year.

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Vintage UK sparkling wines emerged as a major success story at Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2025.

DWWA is the world’s largest wine competition and its rigorous judging process, involving leading experts in their field, means consumers can buy all medal-winning wines with confidence.

And this year’s results show there’s never been a better time to delve into the UK’s high-quality fizz.

It’s a sector that continues to blossom. UK sparkling sales rose 187% between 2018 and 2023, to 6.2m bottles, said trade body WineGB last year. High-profile fans include Royal family members, too.

Magnum success for English sparkling

This year marked the first time DWWA’s magnum category was opened up to sparkling wines beyond Champagne, and one UK producer took full advantage. 

Sugrue South Downs, The Trouble With Dreams 2009 in magnum won one of 50 Best in Show medals. These highly coveted accolades represent just 0.3% of all wines blind-tasted by judges.

Only 600 magnums were made of The Trouble With Dreams 2009, which is a blend of 60% Chardonnay, 25% Pinot Noir and 15% Pinot Meunier from Jenkyn Place vineyard in Hampshire. The magnums spent 12 years ageing on lees and another two years under cork following disgorgement.

DWWA 2025 judges said the wine is ’still a youngster, full of energy and jubilation’ – demonstrating the staying power of top UK sparkling wines in the cellar.

They added, ‘Fifteen years in glass has given the always-masterful English acidity the brooding time it needs, and the result is fresh, wide and bracing on the nose, and searchlight-deep on the palate.’

This was the inaugural vintage of The Trouble With Dreams and a BIS medal at DWWA 2025 is further recognition for talented winemaker Dermot Sugrue, profiled by Decanter magazine editor Amy Wislocki in 2024, and the wider team.

Sugrue’s wife, Ana, a winemaker and former lecturer in oenology at Plumpton College, joined in 2021, and subsequent investment from hotelier Robin Hutson OBE enabled the couple to build their own winery, which also recently began by-appointment tastings. 

The winery has increased its focus on magnums, particularly in ageworthy vintages. While magnums of The Trouble With Dreams 2009 have sold out, it made 1,000 magnums of the 2020 vintage (60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir from vineyard sites in East and West Sussex), with a release likely from September 2025.

‘Magnums are the winemaker’s dream ageing vessel,’ said Sugrue. ‘They allow for slower maturation, resulting in additional layers of complexity and even more grace than a standard bottle.’ 

Vintage English sparkling on top form

Eight more vintage English sparkling wines produced from classic ‘Champagne’ grape varieties won top medals at DWWA 2025, with two securing prestigious Platinum accolades and six scooping Gold.

One Platinum medal went to a pink fizz in the shape of Digby Fine English, Rosé Brut 2018, a highly regarded vintage. 

‘Bounteous and rounded with a red fruit mousse and quenching thrill of piercing acidity,’ judges said of the wine, a blend of 58% Pinot Noir, 22% Pinot Meunier and 20% Chardonnay.

Pinot was again the focus for Platinum-winning Bluestone, Blanc de Noirs Brut 2019 from Wiltshire. Combining 51% Pinot Noir and 49% Pinot Meunier, judges highlighted apricot, peach, cherry skin and floral aromas on the nose. 

They added, ‘Focused and vibrant with a tapering acidity and a tingling black tea element to close. Long and rewarding.’ 

Gold medallist Hoffman & Rathbone showcased the quality of 100% Pinot Meunier sparkling wines with its ‘Blanc de Noir Brut’ 2015, released on 1 June after nine years of ageing on lees.

Meanwhile, a magnum of Squerryes, North Downs Brut 2015 also won Gold. Aged on lees for 101 months and disgorged in August 2024, judges praised its combination of chalky mineral tones, ‘svelte acidity’ and ‘underlay of nutty brioche’.

Squerryes Estate, in the same family for more than 300 years, was once approached by a major Champagne house but decided to plant its own vines in 2006.

Big wins for ‘Blanc de Blancs’

Four of the six Gold medals for English sparkling at DWWA 2025 went to 100% Chardonnay wines, echoing strong recent results for this style in a Decanter magazine panel tasting of UK vintage sparkling wines. 

Pioneering winemaker Peter Hall planted vines to establish Breaky Bottom near Lewes in East Sussex back in 1974, but the Gold medal winner at DWWA 2025 represents his first 100% Chardonnay wine: ‘Cuvée Geoffrey Aldred’ Brut 2018.

‘Glowing with citrus, stone fruit and chalky minerals that glide flawlessly over the silky mousse and graceful acidity,’ said judges.

Other Gold winners included Oxney Organic Estate, Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut 2019, also from East Sussex, as well as Ashling Park Estate, Blanc de Blancs Brut 2014 from West Sussex. 

Kent-based Gusbourne also saw Gold for its Commanders Vineyard, Blanc de Blancs Brut 2019, described as ‘blissfully complex’ by judges.

Several UK sparkling wines also won Silver and Bronze medals at DWWA 2025 – the latter category including two from Pembrokeshire in Wales – giving fans of great fizz plenty to explore. 

Search all UK sparkling medal winners at DWWA 2025

DWWA 2025: Three top-scoring UK sparkling wines

Sugrue South Downs, The Trouble With Dreams 2009 (in magnum)

Made with fruit from Jenkyn Place Vineyard in Hampshire. Grapes for the current-release 2020 vintage are sourced from the winery’s vineyards in East and West Sussex. 

97 points | Best In Show

DWWA judges said: ‘Fifteen years in glass has given the always-masterful English acidity the brooding time it needs, and the result is fresh, wide and bracing on the nose, and searchlight-deep on the palate. Yes, the acidity is still very much the structuring agent here, but it’s not hard to imagine stone, sand and salt on the move in the background: you’ll find texture and even glycerol as the acid wave pulls back after you’ve swallowed. It’s still a youngster, full of energy and jubilation.’ Alcohol: 12.5% abv.

Digby Fine English, Rosé Brut, West Sussex 2018

97 pts | Platinum

DWWA judges said: ‘Vivid floral notes quilted beautifully into ripe strawberries and spice on a backdrop of dried herbs. Bounteous and rounded with a red fruit mousse and quenching thrill of piercing acidity that glides towards the finish.’ Alc: 12%

Bluestone, Blanc de Noirs Brut, Wiltshire 2019

97 pts | Platinum

DWWA judges said: ‘Myriad apricot, peach, cherry skin and floral aromas bask in the soft, broad texture and supple mousse. Focused and vibrant with a tapering acidity and a tingling black tea element to close. Long and rewarding.’ Alc: 12%

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Susie Barrie MW, Simon Field MW and Rebecca Palmer tasted 85 wines, with 8 Outstanding and 42 Highly recommended

Vintage English sparkling wine: Panel tasting scores

85 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 8

Highly recommended 42

Recommended 29

Commended 6

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release traditional-method sparkling wines (brut and drier styles only) produced in the United Kingdom using grapes sourced from a single vintage and labelled as vintage from the last 10 years (2014 and beyond)

Scroll down to see the top-scoring wines from the Vintage English sparkling wine panel tasting

Going from strength to strength

Numerous recent tastings have demonstrated very clearly, to my mind, that the quality of UK sparkling wine is well and truly in the ascendant. This line-up was no exception.

As Simon Field MW stated afterwards, it was ‘a fascinating and successful tasting’. In terms of style, as Rebecca Palmer said, ‘blanc de blancs was a real standout’.

This was also true of Chardonnay-dominant blends – something that came as no surprise given the quality of Chardonnay that the UK has in recent years proved itself capable of producing.

The high-scoring rosés were also impressively characterful and expressive, reinforcing my belief that this is another style that UK producers are increasingly mastering. The bulk of the wines came from the 2018 and 2019 vintages, closely followed by 2020 and 2021.

In general, the older vintages (of which there were admittedly fewer) performed less well, though 2016 was the anomaly, with two of the three wines entered achieving an Outstanding rating.

Given the UK’s marginal climate, you’d be forgiven for assuming that vintage variation must play a significant role when it comes to wine quality.

How encouraging to find that this wasn’t the case and that the skill and ambition of our winemakers is such that even ‘poorer’ vintages can and do yield fabulous wines. For the record, and to illustrate this point, we each chose a different vintage as our current favourite.

What this tasting demonstrated above all is that winemaking approach and technique often have a greater impact on style and quality than vintage, or indeed region.

Oak in particular was often present, to a greater or lesser extent, in the better wines, with Field rightly stating that ‘an impressive tally of the Outstanding wines used oak’. Extended lees ageing was also a recurrent theme in the top-scoring wines.

These are wines that we would definitely recommend you buy. Several are ready to drink now, but the better ones will also keep and develop, and bring pleasure for years to come.

What to eat with vintage English sparkling wines, by Fiona Beckett

Given that English sparkling wine is of a similar quality to Champagne these days, is there anything to say about partnering them with food, other than that they’re likely to work with similar dishes to Champagne? 

Well, here are some thoughts about the standout styles – blanc de blancs and rosé – looked at from a British perspective. 

The first is that the former would be great with our excellent seafood – especially shellfish such as lobster, crab and scallops; also, given that we Brits are particularly good at them, with a fish pie or maybe, at this time of year, salmon en croute – sparkling wine has a real affinity with pastry. 

When it comes to rosé, think of a summery Sunday lunch with rare roast fillet of beef or a butterflied leg of lamb, again rare; it’s the rareness that makes red meat work so well with a delicate sparkling wine. 

And don’t overlook the great pairing of mature fizz with white-rind cheeses, of which the UK has some impressive examples in Baron Bigod and Tunworth.

Vintage English sparkling panel tasting results

Wines were tasted blind

The judges

Susie Barrie MW is an awarded writer and broadcaster. As well as being a co-chair of the WineGB Awards, she is co-host of the acclaimed

Wine Blast podcast and her book titles include The Essential Guide to English Wine (IWFS, 2018)

Simon Field MW was formerly a buyer for merchant Berry Bros & Rudd and now writes on areas that particularly interest him, including

Bordeaux, Champagne, the Rhône, Spain, the Loire valley and fortified and English wines

Rebecca Palmer is associate director and head of merchant buying for Corney & Barrow, covering most world regions, as well as managing key projects such as sustainability. A longstanding DWWA Senior Judge, in 2025 she judged on the UK and Asia panels

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President Macron and his wife, Brigitte, ended the first day of their UK visit with a luxurious state banquet hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle, and the official menu showed a clear Anglo-French slant.

Wines featured Bordeaux first growth Château Haut-Brion 1996 and grand cru white Burgundy in the shape of Etienne Sauzet, Corton-Charlemagne 2022, according to a rundown of the menu reported by ITV News. 

For pre-dinner drinks and the official banquet toast, however, an English sparkling wine with a distinct French twist was poured for guests, who included music stars Sir Elton John and Sir Mick Jagger, as well as other Royal Family members.  

King Charles toasted the French president’s state visit with a glass of Kent-based Domaine Evremond’s Classic Cuvée ‘Edition 1’. 

First released this year, it marks the fruition of an English sparkling wine project announced by Champagne house Taittinger and its UK agency, Hatch Mansfield, almost a decade ago.

King Charles III referred to the meteoric rise of the UK’s winemaking scene during the banquet.

‘This evening, we have drunk English sparkling wine made by a French Champagne house. This would have been scarcely believable to at least some of our predecessors,’ he said.

A non-vintage Champagne from prestigious producer Louis Roederer – Carte Blanche NV – also featured on the banquet menu.

Chef Raymond Blanc OBE, an ambassador for the King’s Foundation, helped to create the dinner for Tuesday night’s state banquet at Windsor Castle.

Pre-dinner canapés were followed by a first course featuring a ‘selection of tender summer vegetables from the gardens of Le Manoir with sage, raw tomato and extra virgin olive oil dressing’. 

Next up was a ‘supreme of Rhug Estate chicken with Norfolk asparagus and tarragon cream’, followed by ‘iced blackcurrant parfait on a blackcurrant-soaked sponge with elderflower jelly’. 

This is a translation of the formal menu; British state banquet menus have been written in French since the 19th century, as the ‘classical language of cookery’, according to the Royal Collection Trust. 

After-dinner drinks included Taylor’s 1977 Vintage Port – a particularly well-regarded vintage that also represents Macron’s year of birth.

Alongside that, guests had the option of enjoying a 1948 Grande Champagne Cognac from Frapin & Co, also representing the year of Charles’ birth.

It isn’t the first time that president Macron and King Charles III have enjoyed an evening of fine wine together.

Château Mouton Rothschild 2004 was among the wines poured at a banquet held at Versailles palace in 2023, during Charles and Camilla’s tour of France – which also included a visit to Château Smith Haut Lafitte in Bordeaux.

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Champagne Louis Roederer launched the latest edition of its Brut Nature Blanc and Rosé from the 2018 vintage at the Grand Palais in Paris in late May 2025.

The Brut Nature wines are a collaboration with French designer Philippe Starck.

Back to the roots

Speaking at the launch event of the wines underneath the domed glass roofs of the Grand Palais, Starck said that, ‘my whole life, I tried to strip everything down to the core. I wanted to go back to the roots, all my life I said “less is more”.’

Indeed, Starck’s ideas of minimalism and purity inform the wines.

For Louis Roederer’s cellar master Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, this meant stripping everything that could be classed as artifice away from the wine and creating a ‘minimalist’ Champagne.

Scroll down for notes and scores for the new releases

Bare essential from a single hillside

To strip things down to these bare essentials, the fruit that makes Roederer’s Brut Nature cuvées is co-harvested, departing from the usual philosophy of keeping every plot separate to be blended later.

The plots dedicated to the Brut Nature wines are on a south-facing, concave hillside in the village of Cumières, sloping down to the Marne river, on soils of heavy clay on top of a chalk subsoil.

These are some of Roederer’s earliest ripening plots, giving the wines the requisite roundness and amplitude to be made into a brut nature style (wines without any addition of dosage).

Here, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grow as a field blend and are co-harvested and co-fermented.

Over the past few years, cellar master Lécaillon has supplemented these plantings with Pinot Blanc, Arbane and Petite Meslier.

The newly launched 2018 wines are the first to contain ‘a touch of’ Pinot Blanc, which, according to Lécaillon, adds ‘a kind of sweetness, of roundness.’

Petit Meslier and Arbane, which will form part of future releases, will ‘stretch acidity.’

Malolactic conversion is avoided to retain and preserve freshness.

Lécaillon says that the rosé is achieved by harvesting the, ‘ripest, darkest Pinot Noir grapes’ five days ahead of the main harvest, destemming the fruit and giving it a cold-soak.

Its pink free-run juice is then co-fermented with the juice of the main harvest, adding colour.

Everything is amplified

The Brut Nature wines thus stand apart from Roederer’s usual modus operandi.

Lécaillon says he looks at these non-dosed wines ‘more as a still wine with bubbles’.

‘Everything is amplified,’ he says, ‘it is not addition but subtraction. It is not about creating a harmonious blend [as per the house’s usual blends], but about taking things away’.

This, he suggests, is in order to reveal the purest sense of that Cumières hillside, of fruit harvested, co-fermented, made sparkling and disgorged without dosage – as opposed to creating a blend of various sites.

Both wines, for now, seem embryonic, and will gain complexity with more time in bottle.

Louis Roederer first made a brut nature wine, inspired by Philippe Starck, in 2006, and again in 2009, both times only in white.

In 2012, 2015 and now 2018, both a white and a rosé wine were made.

The wines will initially retail exclusively at Harrods for £105 and £115 for white and rosé respectively from July until October, from when they will be more widely distributed.

They will also be poured at Raffles London.

Louis Roederer 2018s and 2015s tasted and rated:

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Dom Pérignon has released the highly anticipated P2 – or Plénitude 2 – edition of Dom Pérignon 2008.

The launch event in London in May was littered with a star-studded list of artistic collaborations, including actress Tilda Swinton, musicians Anderson .Paak and Iggy Pop, dancer Alexander Ekman, visual artist Takashi Murakami and chef Clare Smyth.

Away from the glitz, though, the wine itself stands as tall as any Dom Pérignon release of recent times.

Scroll down for Dom Pérignon P2 2008 tasted and rated

A true vineyard wine

Amid the glamour of the brand, it’s easy to lose track of Dom Pérignon’s grounding as a true vineyard estate, rather than as a wine assembled, as is the norm in the region, from a range of fruit both owned and purchased.

While technically difficult to define due to its incorporation into Moët Henessey’s considerable vineyard holding in Champagne, the core of the Dom Pérignon estate is around 300ha of grand and premier cru vineyards, which forms the basis for almost all Dom Pérignon releases.

This represents a grape-to-glass operation of mind-bending detail and scope, which today benefits from parent company LVMH’s considerable investments into soil health and sustainable viticulture.

It is also a brand which is not, as some might assume, defined by volume.

Chaperon says that in the extremely difficult 2017 vintage, Dom Pérignon was made in much, much smaller quantities than usual. Whereas in 2014 none was made at all, as the vintage didn’t meet the team’s quality expectations (despite being widely produced elsewhere in Champagne).

Chaperon took the reigns at Dom Pérignon after the release of the 2008 vintage made under Richard Geoffroy.

He successfully continues Geoffroy’s role as technician, artist and at times philosopher, presenting at the launch a series of figurative drawings made during the blending process for the 2024 vintage to represent the wines of various crus.

After all, the blend is the art here, given the vast number of possibilities imaginable each vintage from such a range of base wines.

The aim is what Chaperon calls ‘emotion through harmony’.

Grey skies of Champagne

Geoffroy’s blend for the 2008, equal parts Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, always seemed destined for a Plénitude release thanks to its pristine structure and drive, where a Dom Pérignon vintage is aged for an extended period on lees under a cork, rather than crown cap seal.

This means around seven years extra ageing for a P2, or around 15 years extra for the rare P3 releases.

The 2008 growing season was marked, in Chaperon’s words, by ‘the typical grey’ of Champagne skies. It was rather cool, cloudy and late maturing, yet finished with a perfectly timed period of dry, sunny weather which brought in ‘luminous and precise’ grapes.

The year’s sometimes forcibly high acidity is still markedly present in many wines today, although the best have stayed beautifully integrated.

P2 sees the textural plushness and reductive energy of lees ageing – bringing a bright, charry, toasted-nut richness – meet the vivid 2008 fruit in perfect harmony.

Is it better than the original release? Not necessarily. A side by side tasting would highlight the richer, caramelised tones that the original is developing on cork versus the superbly fresh, creamy decadence of the P2. Both, though, are unmissable.

Dom Pérignon P2 2008 tasted and rated

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Centred around the cathedral city of Winchester, ancient capital of England, with the Isle of Wight off the coast to the south, Hampshire is known for the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs, the mystic woodlands of the New Forest and three river valleys: (from west to east) the Test, the Itchen and the Meon.

These ancient, crystal-clear chalk streams are the veins and arteries of the county – shaping the landscape, nurturing farmland and offering clear, tranquil waters famed for fly-fishing.

Some of the region’s well-exposed slopes, with their shallow topsoil and free-draining belemnite chalk – the same type found in Champagne’s Côte des Blancs sub-region – are also home to ranks of Pinot Noir, Meunier and Chardonnay vines, Champagne’s three main varieties, that are now producing some of England’s highest-quality sparkling wines.

Scroll down to see notes and scores of six dazzling sparkling wines from Hampshire’s bucolic hills

Up to the challenge

Although Hampshire has a higher concentration of chalk, it isn’t unique in England for this soil type – ‘[Kent, Sussex and Hampshire] all share the terroir of the South Downs,’ says Emma Rice, former head winemaker at Hampshire-based powerhouse producer Hattingley Valley and now an independent consultant.

If anything, the county is hit first by the prevailing southwesterly weather before it reaches the counties further east, she explains.

Indeed, climatic markers point to challenges in achieving ripeness.

In his 2023 harvest report for WineGB, viticultural consultant Stephen Skelton MW listed Hampshire’s average growing degree days (a measure of heat accumulation during the growing season) for 2018-2023, and they were consistently lower than the average for Reims in Champagne.

While humidity during the growing season can be a problem, frost is the top hazard. Augusta Raimes (pictured, above), the fifth-generation owner of her family estate at Alresford, paints an especially vivid picture of a spring night during the challenging 2024 growing season.

When vineyard weather stations sound the alarm, signalling that temperatures have dropped below -0.5°C, everyone springs into action, lighting the costly bougies antigel (anti-frost candles) between the rows of vines to try to fend off the deadly cold spell settling in the lowlands, which can cost them a considerable chunk of the crop overnight.

Yet, despite the drawbacks, Hampshire producers are crafting a solid range of diverse, crisp and exhilarating sparkling wines by defining fine-tuned combinations of microclimate, grape variety selection and winemaking decisions – all mirroring the personalities behind the labels.

Hampshire at a glance

Total plantings: 380ha (10% of UK’s total plantings)*

Soils: Chalk, greensand, clay and sandy loam

Elevation: Most vineyards are between 50m and 150m (average 80m)

Climate: Maritime

Key grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier

*Source: WineGB Industry Report 2022-2023

Grapes that shine on chalk

‘While Kent can ripen Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to still-wine levels in good years, Hampshire rarely can,’ says Rice, drawing on her experience crafting multi-regional blends for Hattingley for more than a decade.

‘The one variety that really stands out in Hampshire is Meunier grown on chalk. Fermenting Meunier in old, neutral oak contributed to some of the very best wines I ever made.’

French oenologist Corinne Seely (pictured, above), consultant winemaker at Exton Park, near Corhampton, echoes Rice’s sentiment.

‘I don’t know if there’s a speciality grape I cherish more than Meunier planted on chalk in England – like here at Exton Park,’ she says, adding that when planted on clay soils, as is often the case in Champagne, the grape’s ‘vibrancy and floral character’ tend to be lost.

Her 2014 Pinot Meunier Rosé – just 2,000 bottles will be released – from Exton Park’s windswept single vineyard, which ranges from 60m to 120m in elevation, shimmers with cherry blossom and white fruits, preserving salinity and vibrancy while revealing the grape’s generous aromatics.

For producers more exposed to frost risk, this late-budding variety is also a favourable choice, adds Zam Baring, managing partner of The Grange, his family’s 10.4ha estate near Alresford, which has more plantings of Meunier (36%) than of Pinot Noir (30%).

Further south lies Hambledon Vineyard – home to the very first commercial vineyards planted in England.

Winemaker Felix Gabillet highlights the ‘minerality and salinity’ of Chardonnay from the estate’s well-aerated sites, which are situated just 16km from the south coast, the regular winds helping to mitigate against frost. (In the more generous 2018 vintage, however, he favoured the charm of the Meunier fruit.)

Chardonnay’s consistency and lower disease pressure make it the preferred variety at Candover Brook, too, according to vineyard manager Samuel Philippot.

The 5.5ha estate northeast of Winchester is named after the chalk stream that runs through its grounds, home to the rare white-clawed crayfish.

Five Hampshire names to know

Exton Park

This 27.5ha single-vineyard estate, overlooking the South Downs, was founded by the late Malcolm Isaac MBE.

Having crafted grands crus classés in Bordeaux and beyond, French consultant winemaker Corinne Seely is committed to producing English sparkling wines that reflect the local identity.

The signature Reserve Blends are complemented by her innovative ‘limited releases’, including sea-aged vintage sparklings and a BBB (barrel-aged before bottling) prestige cuvée.

The contemporary Exton Hall is open exclusively for private events. extonparkvineyard.com

Hambledon

In 1952, Major-General Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones planted England’s first commercial vineyard on the chalk slopes around his Mill Down House in the village of Hambledon – also the cradle of cricket.

The estate is now under the ownership of UK wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd and Port shippers Symington Family Estates, with wines crafted by on-site winemaker Felix Gabillet, overseen by Hervé Jestin of Champagne Leclerc Briant.

It has recently opened a restaurant, along with a new tasting room and cellar door. hambledonvineyard.co.uk

Hattingley Valley

When he founded Hattingley Valley Wines in 2008, former lawyer Simon Robinson invited Sussex-born winemaker Emma Rice to design his new winery near the village of Alresford.

With capacity for both estate production and contract winemaking across Hampshire and beyond, Hattingley has become a powerhouse known for its cross-regional blends and use of oak.

Led by Rob MacCulloch MW since 2022, the estate is increasingly focused on its own brands (30% exported), highlighted by the Kings Cuvée, with plans to release its library reserve. hattingleyvalley.com

Louis Pommery England

In 2016, Champagne Vranken-Pommery launched its English winemaking venture, having acquired the Pinglestone Estate in Old Alresford in 2014.

The first vines were planted in 2017 on a chalk-rich hilltop that features ‘kaleidoscopic’ microclimates.

With its pressing centre built for the 2024 harvest, the producer will this year debut, in addition to its Brut NV and Rosé Brut NV, its first vintage sparkling – Blanc de Blancs 2020 – commemorating the estate’s inaugural harvest from its own vineyard. louis-pommery.com

The Grange

Originally acquired by Alexander Baring in 1817, The Grange Estate is known as a distinctive venue for opera productions.

The winery was the brainchild of four Baring siblings, with the youngest, film editor Zam, now managing the 10.4ha vineyard overlooking the river Itchen.

The first vines were planted on the south-facing Burges Field in 2011, and the winery has been in operation since 2022.

Tours, a summer-only BBQ & Bar, and cottages for overnight stays available. thegrangewine.co.uk

Clones and varieties

The choice of clones plays a significant role in shaping flavours, too, notes Jacob Leadley (pictured, below), owner and winemaker at Black Chalk, south of Andover.

His team is working to reveal the nuanced characteristics of 36 clones across the three classic varieties on their 12ha vineyard in the Test valley at Cottonworth.

According to Leadley, the Burgundian 777 clone of Pinot Noir is valued for its ‘purity’ on chalk, while different clones of Meunier can display strikingly distinct fruit profiles, even when planted in neighbouring rows.

The clonal expressions, amplified by the varied microclimate, mean that the winery has an ever-changing set of ingredients when blending wines for its vintage-only portfolio each year.

Meanwhile, some producers have chosen not to work with the classic trio at all.

Located on the paddocks of what was once a 19th-century racehorse training yard near Stockbridge on the river Test, Danebury Vineyards has retained its heritage plantings of Madeleine Angevine, Schönburger and Auxerrois Blanc – some of which date back to 1988 – to produce crisp, cleansing sparkling and still white wines, aimed at wine lovers seeking something English yet unusual.

Taming the acidity

The three words that appear most frequently in my tasting notes for Hampshire wines – salinity, nerve and minerality – are perhaps reflective of the climate that defines this part of England.

According to the 2024 WineGB harvest report, Wessex (which includes winemaking counties such as Hampshire, Dorset and Somerset) produced grapes with generally lower sugar and higher acidity compared to counties further east.

Taming that prominent acidity is essential, but how it’s done leaves ample room for stylistic interpretation.

In the search for perfect ripeness, Will Perkins, Hampshire-born head winemaker at Louis Pommery England’s Pinglestone Estate, refers to a solar radiation map that identifies the warmest and coolest spots across the estate’s 27 parcels, which are planted on all aspects of its hilltop site.

A parcel-specific sensory assessment during harvest is key to managing and balancing the sugar, acid and aromatic profiles, he explains.

At Exton Park, Corinne Seely taps into an extensive library of reserve wines, dating back to 2011, for consistency and balance when crafting her signature Reserve Blends.

She opts for no malolactic fermentation – a process that converts the harsher malic acid into the rounder lactic acid – alongside savvy use of nitrogen during harvest to minimise oxidation and preserve the ‘minerality and backbone’, as well as the slender ‘saltiness’, which she believes is linked to the chalk.

Although Hambledon champions non-vintage sparklers as well, the preference there is for a richer, more hedonistic house style, achieved through a more oxidative approach to winemaking that includes full malolactic fermentation on fine lees, partial barrel fermentation and ageing, as well as gentle batonnage (lees stirring) to round off the mouthfeel, says Gabillet.

At Hattingley Valley, which has a significant winery capacity of 600 tonnes, blending fruit from multiple regions is key to achieving consistency, balance and reliable production volumes.

The ‘subtle’ use of oak barrels and extended bottle ageing are crucial in softening the acidity and shaping the Hattingley style, says sales and marketing director Chris Unger.

There are also efforts to modify the planting environment.

B58 Winery in Beaulieu in the New Forest, southwest Hampshire, has adopted polytunnels that enable it to grow warmth-loving varieties such as Shiraz, Merlot and Gewürztraminer, and dedicates itself to ethereal, fruitforward still wines.

Temperatures inside the tunnels are ‘always 5°C higher’ than outside, says owner-grower Sandy Booth, who has been cultivating strawberries under cover for decades.

The real challenge for such modification to be used more widely isn’t the debate about ‘true terroir’, as noted in Skelton’s report, but the high setup costs and the loss of usable land to infrastructure.

Terroir talk

Although there’s little appetite among producers for the establishment of a regional PDO based on administrative boundaries, efforts are being made to find site-derived hallmarks over a smaller scale.

In March, WineGB Wessex held a base-wine tasting, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK.

The aim was to provide an open forum for producers while exploring the characteristics of ‘subregional pockets’, explains Perkins.

Within Hampshire, this could refer to the three river valleys: the Itchen (including Candover Brook, Raimes, Louis Pommery England and The Grange), the Test (Black Chalk and Danebury) and the Meon (Exton Park and Hambledon).

‘Hampshire today is what Tasmania was 20 years ago,’ is how Michael McKenzie, chairman of regional association Vineyards of Hampshire, puts it.

‘It’s still in the entrepreneurial phase, but it’s fast maturing. We have a group of like-minded colleagues with a common vision – and the only way is up.’

Visiting Hampshire this summer

With year-round events celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary, there’s never been a better time to visit Hampshire

The Grange Festival (4 June-6 July)

An expanded program of opera, jazz and dance is set to take place this year at the historic Grange Estate. thegrangefestival.co.uk

Vineyards of Hampshire Fizz Fest (29 June)

Held at Raimes Wine Barn in Alresford this year, the annual event will feature more than 20 wines from eight Vineyards of Hampshire members, along with live music, street food and vineyard tours (£35 per person). vineyardsofhampshire.co.uk

Hambledon Restaurant

A modern take on English cuisine, overlooking Hambledon’s historic Windmill Down vineyard in the heart of the South Downs. hambledonvineyard.co.uk

The Grosvenor

Renovated with a contemporary touch while preserving 200 years of heritage, this country house hotel sits in picturesque Stockbridge by the river Test. thegrosvenorstockbridge.com

Wild Escapes treehouses

Wake up to a horizon of vines in the four Nordic-inspired cottages nestled in the woods beside Black Chalk’s vineyard, just outside Stockbridge. wildescapes.com

Hampshire flavour: Six sparkling wines to try from the South Downs

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