Our first tasting video of a sparkling wine! ‘Quite characterful with apple juice concentrate, grapes and sherbet on the nose and palate.’… ‘Fresh, clean and fragrant, well balanced.’ – Wine International, Cava & Prosecco Tasting, August 2005.

To view product page and for more details, click on Domenico de Bertiol Prosecco Spagorosso.

With the kids out in the garden at every opportunity this time of year, the last thing I want to be doing is spending a lot of time cooking. Even picking up the ingredients for this beautifully simple appetiser from Niall couldn’t be easier, as there’s only three. And cooking could just as easily be done on the barbeque, although a griddle pan is a lot less weather-dependent!

This is summer’s evening, canape-style snacking, so what better way to wash it down than a refreshingly inexpensive glass of fizz, ideally something crisp and lemony to lift the prawn over the delicious salty ham.

We’ve just got in this critically acclaimed Prosecco Spago from the Montresor family winery in Verona and at €12 is a bit of an ‘an bord snip’, even if we do say so ourselves.

Mille gracie to Niall and co. at Look and Taste.

“Come, for I am drinking stars!” -Dom Perignon

You’ve probably been to a party, event or some kind of celebration where sparkling wine was served. If you didn’t like it, the chances are you aren’t drinking the right stuff. Proper sparkling wine isn’t just mass produced carbonated grape juice, dressed up in a pretty yellow price tag on our supermarket shelves. I’m not talking about the sugar-loaded, fizzy alcoholic pop.

Yes, sparklers do start out as regular bubbleless wine. The secret to it all is the second fermentation, which requires the addition of yeast and sugar. A little more alcohol and a lot of heavenly bubbles are a result of this second phase, with the natural carbonation (no dry ice is used for these babies) and complex flavours developing the once still wine into something else all together.

The tank method of fermentation stops the carbon dioxide gas from escaping. It dissolves into the wine, which is bottled under high pressure in order to retain the bubbles.

Bottle fermented wines are more labour intensive and production costs are higher, but when it comes to quality, there are two mains advantages. With the extended contact the wine has with dead yeast, complex bready and biscuity flavours develop. Secondly, the bubbles are much smaller and longer lasting.

According to many, the best sparkling wine in the world is Champagne. And surprise, surprise, it’s made by the traditional bottle fermented method. On top of this, there is the demand. Champagne carries value in its name and you’ll pay for that too. Is it worth it? Personally, yes, but its not an everyday wine. You wouldn’t be opening one in front of Coronation Street on a Monday night. It’s for special occasions. Christmas, birthdays, weddings and so on.

Then we have our less expensive alternatives. Don’t turn your nose up. There are many, many really good sparkling wines, particularly from Spain and Italy, that use the bottle method or the tank method of fermentation. Spanish Cava and Italian Prosecco‘s offer beautiful, fruit driven sparklers that are becoming more and more fashionable.

If you’re keen to try an affordable Cava in your next case, don’t miss out on our award winning Mas Macia Cava Brut, currently on sale with the rest of our Spanish range. €14.39 won’t break the bank, and for that special occasion, there’s the Sommelier Gold Listed Lallier Champagne to wipe the floor with any other Champagne within its price range, or the Decanter 5 star Duval Leroy Grand Cru Champagne 1996, which is our true sparkling star.