The Battle of the Bubbles

by N.O.Phile, The Tablet’s wine writer. He is also a senior Catholic priest.

Supermarket sales of champagne used to soar during December, returning to normal only after new year celebrations, but champagne’s cachet is not quite what it was. The shift was signalled in recent changes to the UK’s duty regime. Tax on alcoholic drinks rose in accordance with strength, but duty on sparkling wine, including champagne, was cut, on the grounds that it was no longer the preserve of the well-heeled.

Until recently, champagne’s chief competitor was the ubiquitous prosecco, but oversupply and low quality have ended the once-popular Italian bubbly’s bonanza. A stronger challenge now comes from the UK’s own sparkling wine market, yielding in some cases wine equal to and sometimes exceeding the great champagne houses.

The problem with English sparkling wine is neither quality nor character, but still high prices. Meanwhile, a revolution within the champagne market itself is afoot. Keen rivalry among producers is enabling British supermarkets to offer high quality champagne at a fraction of the usual price. In blind tastings conducted by Which? magazine and others, own brands from Aldi, Lidl and the Co-op were preferred to such legendary marques as Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot. Lidl’s Montaudon Champagner AOP brut (£14.99) was chosen by 60 per cent of participants over both Moët & Chandon Brut Imperial, retailing at around £43, and Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label, at around £47. In the same tasting, Aldi’s Veuve Monsigny Premier Cru (£21.99) pipped both in popularity and received Which?’s “Best Buy” award as well.

The highest accolade was reserved, yet again, for the Co-op’s Les Pionniers NV (£22.75), a blend of pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay, producing smoky notes on the nose and smooth creaminess on the palate. Les Pionniers has been the top Christmas recommendation year after year and though its price has inevitably risen since being first applauded in this column, its value remains constant.

The best budget buy, however, with the emphasis firmly on “budget”, is still Aldi’s Veuve Monsigny Champagne NV (£14.99). Though not stellar, it has the distinctive characteristics of champagne in abundance, crisp apples and a long, nutty finish. Its price still belies its quality and character.

In another revolutionary (and bizarre) development reported recently in The Guardian, some of the best-known champagne houses, famed for their attachment to “traditional methods”, are departing from the age-old practice of maturing their wine in the chalk tunnels, crayères, under Reims, in favour of undersea storage. Perfect conditions are needed to age the best champagne and underwater storage affords not only total darkness and a cooler, more constant temperature, but also pressure on the outside closer to that inside the bottle, making for better, long-lasting bubbles.

The practice has resulted serendipitously from the discovery in 2010 of 145 bottles on a shipwreck sunk in 1852, lying 160ft below the surface off Finland’s Aland archipelago. Amazingly, the wine was found to be in perfect condition. Even before being tasted, 11 bottles were auctioned for $156,000 (£124,000) but having now been found to be in a pristine state, one bottle alone recently sold for $190,000. Champagne may yet regain its pre-eminence.