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A Taste of Home - England v France in the bubbly stakes
I had the pleasure of recently attending a wine tasting event courtesy of a supplier - pitching Champagne against English fizz. I'll keep you guessing as to who won...
The tasting involved three rounds of two wines each - one English, one French. On each occasion, we had to guess which was which, pick from a series of tasting notes and estimate a price. Meantime there was a (progressively drunken) quiz going on. I'm glad to say that my table won the overall competition...
The wines we tasted were:
Perrier Jouet NV
Ridgeview Bloomsbury
Nicolas Feuillatte 2002
Breaky Bottom
Nyetimber Classic Cuvee 2002
Veuve Cliquot 1999
It was very interesting to be able to see, smell and taste the difference between English and French fizz - while some of us are happy to see English sparklers getting more attention, I hadn't really appreciated the differences. Though the climate and terroir of Champagne and Southern England are similar, they are not the same and the subtle differences come through in the wines.
English wines tend to be a touch more acidic - owing to a slightly shorter ripening period. This is not necessarily a bad thing and I think it actually makes them better for drinking with certain foods. Somewhat paradoxically, the English wines can be a little sweeter too, owing to more sugar being added at the tirage stage to counterbalance the extra acidity. Generally speaking the English wines are a little greener than their French cousins.
Of the tasting couplets, it was the last pairing that was the most interesting. The Veuve Clicquot was very nice indeed - hazlenuts, rich and honey might be the sort of words a more pretentious man than me would use (and there are a few, believe me!). But at £45 a bottle, it ain't cheap. And it didn't come close (IMHO) to the Nyetimber. It was simply delicious. Big, rich, full-bodied, yeasty, nutty, buttery... and at £26 a bottle, good value.
Some people have all the luck! Though I don't think my (old) palate would
be able to distinguish much. I do like champagne, rather too much OH
says...
I can't bear to tell you that the overall winner in the 'tasting' stakes
is... tea-total - he didn't drink any of it but did it by sight and smell
alone. Sadly, I drank most of his as well as my own - I think drunkeness
didn't really help when tasting!
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