The Right Bubley...

[RockADS21]

I need some help. I love champagne but most of the bottles that I order tend to be more on the dry side which my wife isn't particulairly fond of. Can anyone suggest a few decent champagnes/sparkling wines that are a bit more fruity and less dry? Thanks...

[Jason Perlow]

Well, basically you dont want anything thats a "Brut" because that will be very dry. Same goes with Non Dose or Zero Dosage because it doesnt have any sugar added at all (yes, thats right, they add sugar to champagne).

Basically, champagne comes in a few basic "flavors"

see http://www.champagne.fr/gb/portail-gb/index-gb.html

-- regular (Traditional Blend), a mixture of Chardonnay and

Pinot Noir, and to some extent  Pinot Meunier  which has various sweetness classifications:

Brut – very dry

Extra Dry – slightly sweet

Demi-Sec – fairly sweet

-- Non Dose' which is like the regular but is not "dosed" with sugar

Other types of champagne:

-- Blanc de Blanc "white of whites" which is 100 percent Chardonnay and yeilds very light wines with almost no body.

-- Blanc de Noir "white of dark" which is 100 percent Pinot Noir, thus yeilding very full bodied wines

-- Rose' which is usually mostly chardonnay but has a bit of pinot noir in it with the color from the pinot noir skins, and is sweeter than your regular champagne.

Blanc De Blancs tend to be on the dry side because they are entirely made of chardonnay which has very little varietal character to begin with. The Rose's and the Blanc de Noirs (if you can find them) are much fruitier.

Typically speaking as you get into vintages over 5 years old a dry champagne will exhibit drier taste characteristics as it cellars.  A young wine will always be much fruitier and bolder.

I happen to be a big fan of Bollinger, but only the non-vintage stuff if you still want fruity (~ ุ per bottle). Also Pol Roger.  Egly-Ouriet, which is a grower champagne (RM) has been making the rounds in better wine shops and makes a full range of great champagnes.

In the non-champagne category, a sparkling reisling (Reisling Sekt) is going to be very fruity and sweet by comparison. Italian Prosecco is essentially the exact same formulation as Champagne (Chardonnay/Pinot Noir with sometimes a little pinot grigio thrown in) but they tend to be sweeter.

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Heres some additional info that I posted on Chowhound a few years back:

A couple of things that are important to understanding what is good and bad about champagne is that probably the best champagnes are the ones we hear least about. Companies like Dom Perignon, Moet, Perrier Jouet, Tattinger, Cliqout , Mumm and Louis Roederer spend the most advertising dollars and thus we -think- they are the good ones, when really they are very commercial and not that good. As noted in the previous message, there are many smaller producers that make much better champagnes for less money.

Champagnes can be devided into three major types -- These are the "Codes" you find on champage labels.

Negotiant Manipulant -- These are companies that buy grapes from growers and make champagne. All of the ones I mentioneed above are NM. Most NM's are commercial champagnes, but some like Bollinger are exceptional.

Recoltant Manipulant (RM) or "Grower Champagnes" are made by the grape producers themselves, they are hard to find in the US and virtually all of them are superb. If a wine store carries these this is the sign of a very good wine shop.

Cooperative Manipulant (CM) - a Co-op co-producer. There are 11,000 of these growers who pool their resources to market their own brands. There are 150 such firms, most of these are pretty pathetic.

Marque de Archeteur (MA) - Buyer's Brand. Always the cheapest on the shelf, made from second pressings and inferior quality grapes. Execreble.

Finally there are also the Methode Champenoise -- wines made in the champagne style but from other countries. Some of these can be very good, like Italian Prosecco and sparkling German Weisserbugunders-- and are MUCH less expensive than champagne, 8-13 dollars a bottle.

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[Steve Klc]

Dry is a relative term Rock--as Jason started to point out.  Perhaps it would be better for you to tell us which brands and bottles you've had already--that weren't sweet enough?  And when are you considering having them--as an apertif or at the end of the meal?  My recommendations would probably be different. That might help us narrow it down and suggest a few specifics.  Apart from house styles, it may be that your "dry" is really dry--or your dry is already somewhat sweet.  It's all relative.

[Fat Guy]

Why not do a holiday Champagne/sparkling-wine tasting with your wife and some friends? Let her taste several side-by-side and let her choose the one she likes.

[A Balic]

Rock, after Jason's excellent comments I have little add, except that while in Champagne I was told that "Extra Dry"  champagne was made for the USA market. All part of the long tradition of producing different types of champagne for different countries.

[Bux]

To my mind, fruity is apart from dry or sweet, although most people tend to think of fruity as less dry. We had an interesting champagne a few weeks ago. It was one I did not recall seeing before and don't know how widely available it is. It was Gaston Chiquet Tradition Brut Carte Verte NV. We found it very citrusy, lemony really, but dry.

[A Balic]

Quote: from Bux on 9:55 am on Dec. 11, 2001

To my mind, fruity is apart from dry or sweet, although most people tend to think of fruity as less dry. We had an interesting champagne a few weeks ago. It was one I did not recall seeing before and don't know how widely available it is. It was Gaston Chiquet Tradition Brut Carte Verte NV. We found it very citrusy, lemony really, but dry.

Quite right, bone dry wine with plenty of "fruity" characteristics is so often called sweet, #### stupid english language. I have noticed that US sparkling wine is quite sweet (residual sugar sweet), to me at least, compared to the Australian version. At first I put this down to house styles etc, but now I am inclinded to think that the two countries differ in what they consider to be "Dry" or "Sweet".  To expand on my comments about "Extra-Dry" champagne, I was told at Mumm that it was a made-up term to get people who like sweeter wine, but think they like dry wine to buy a sweeter wine (does that make sense?). There was a lot of winking going on, so they may have been telling me a tall tale to make me feel good about buying Brut. I would be interested to know how much various house styles have changed over time to suit changing tastes in wine. Have they remained basically the same or have they bent with the wind?

At the end of the day I like all styles, but with different food. Extra-Dry with Oysters? Not to my taste, but with ripe strawberries yes. Brut with strawberries? Both wine and fruit end up tasting acidic/metalic.

[Ron Johnson]

"Dry" refers to the residual sugar in the wine.  "Fruity" refers to the flavor of the wine.  The two are not mutually exclusive, but most Americans are so used to drinking wine that tastes like wood that when they taste wine that tastes like fruit they say it tastes sweet.  This phenomena drives me crazy.

A wine can be bone-dry and have great fruit flavor.  Unfortunately, most American chardonnay, which is the most consumed noble varietal of white wine in the U.S., is made to taste like: a) Sawdust; b) Campfire; c) Pledge furniture polish; or d) all of the above.

However, this has little to do with champagne or methode champenoise sparkling wine because these are rarely made to taste of fruit, but usually toast, chocolate, cream, and other flavors.

[A Balic]

Yeh, taste is a little subjective. Wine nomenclature is a bit dodgy too. To clarify, "fruity" do you mean the flavours of fruit in the wine or the intrinsic flavours of the mother grape? If the former is the case, then I have to say that I do find fruit flavours in champagne and co, but this may just be me. Certainly, grapefruit/citrus and white peach flavours in blanc de blanc, red fruit flavours in rose styles.

[Ron Johnson]

True, some fruit flavors are found in certain types of sparkling wine, and your mention of grapefruit is an apt example.  

[Bux]

Push me to the wall hard enough and I could remember grapefruit, not lemon. ;)

[A Balic]

Quote: from Bux on 2:46 am on Dec. 12, 2001

Push me to the wall hard enough and I could remember grapefruit, not lemon. ;)

What's all this about being pressed up against walls and remembering grapefruit? Not exactly Proust's lime flower tea and madeleines is it.  :shocked:

[Bux]

The tastes of food liberated memories of Proust's past. In my case certain situations will liberate the memory of a flavor. ;)

Push me hard enough and I'll remember anything you want to hear.

[yvonne johnson]

Quote: from A Balic on 9:14 am on Dec. 10, 2001

I was told that "Extra Dry"  champagne was made for the USA market. All part of the long tradition of producing different types of champagne for different countries.

According to Leslie Brenner's "Fear of Wine", the call for brut champagne is quite new. Historically, the French liked it on the sweet side. However, they exported a lot to England and the English liked it bone dry.  The French thought this odd, so they called the dry stuff "brut" (="crude or raw".  About sums up the English, some might say).

Brenner goes on to say this "is also why 'extra dry' appears in English when it appears on champagne bottles."