Sparkling wine can be better than Champagne. Fact. (If you didn't know...Sparkling wine is the official term for 'Champagne' made anywhere outside of Champagne, France). Although this geographical delineation serves to protect some of the wonders of Champagne, it allows others to get away with murder…

It’s only when you are lucky enough to taste the best Cava’s, Sussex sparklers or Tasmanian ‘chuzwozzas’ that the true joy of sparkling wine is revealed. Please read on…



Most quality sparkling wines (including Champagne) are made from a blend of grapes or otherwise one or more o. These grapes are squished and juice fermented to make a still base wine. Base wines can be blended to achieve certain characteristics associated with that producer. The next stage is more interesting: the bottles are filled with the base wine and then dosed with a small amount of yeast and sugar. A secure metal cap is then used to seal the bottle and then the magic begins...

The yeast begins to eat the added sugar which produces carbon dioxide (the fizz), the longer this second fermentation takes the better, a quality fizz will have a long fermentation at cooler temperatures. This encourages good integration of bubbles and added complexity of flavours. When the yeasties have eaten all the sugar they die, which is sad, but at least they went out with a bang!

Anyway, the longer the wine is allowed to stay in contact with these dead yeasties (lees) the more flavour the wine will have. 18 months to 2 years is the minimum for a quality sparkler.

The dead yeast cannot be buried at sea, so they must be removed! The bottles are slowly rotated and elevated form a horizontal position to a vertical position. This is called riddling, the idea is to allow the dead yeast to move down the bottle into the neck without causing too much disturbance. Once this is accomplished the long departed yeasties have to come out, in order to do this without losing 'the precious' the bottle neck is frozen.The metal cap can then be removed along with the yeast.


Now depending how dry or sweet the fizz is to be, the bottle is topped up with sparkling wine and if necessary a tiny amount of sugar. The cork is then inserted, the bottle cleaned and wrapped and ready for sale. Fin. Well almost...

Vintage sparklers tend to be treated slightly different. The lees contact tends to be much longer, for example the Canals Canals Gran Reserva Limitada has spent 8 years in contact with its lees. The resulting wine is astonishingly complex, with layers of nutty, biscuity and dried fruit flavours, even figs. It is truly delicious, yet very affordable.



Not a lot of people know this, but after disgorgement the wine is allowed to rest for a month before being sold. From this point on the wine is at its best, for this reason Canals Canals add the disgorgement date to their back label. So then if you're buying good quality fizz like this we recommend you drink it at breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea, dinner and supper and at any time in between. Not that we encourage binge drinking in anyway!

The Festival Wines ethos is that we believe in quality wines which represent good value. Big brands and ‘bling’ are not on the list. The beauty of great sparkling wines is that they’re affordable. The added bonus with the sparkling wines we have selected is that they come from vineyards with incredibly healthy soils and beautiful vines. The same sadly cannot be said of some Champagne houses, many of whom have terribly polluted soils and 'buy in' grapes to maintain their big brand status.