Cheers to a Sparkling 2024

There are so many ways to toast the holidays and New Year with bubbly beverages.

The list is long: Champagne, Cava, Prosecco, and a plethora of sparkling wines sold by wineries globally including California and Livermore Valley.

One of my favorite California sparkling wineries is Domaine Carneros in Napa. The wines are overseen by Remi Cohen, the winemaker-general manager who highlights her wine’s ability to pair well with food. Since Taittinger, a leading Champagne house, owns the winery, Cohen produces the wine in the same way as the parent company with two fermentations in the bottle, aka méthode champenoise.

I have traveled to many wine regions in France but never Champagne. For an occasional splurge, I like the most famous bubbly with its toasty notes and fine bubbles. But Champagne prices have risen. Due to EU regulations, nine other regions in France such as Burgundy and the Loire make wine in the strict méthode champenoise but must call it Crémant. These wines taste like their big sister Champagne but generally cost less.

Closer to home in the Tri-Valley, Page Mill Winery currently makes excellent sparkling wine using the méthode champenoise in Livermore. Owner Dane Stark, sources the best grapes from a prized Livermore vineyard and then follows the labor-intensive method of two fermentations and three years of aging his Blanc de Blanc in bottle.

“I decided to shoot for the proverbial stars with the first vintage in 2008. In Champagne, the best sparkling wines develop in the bottle for three years. That is the route we took,” said Stark. The vintner only makes Blanc de Blanc every few years; the current vintage is 2016. I found the crispness of the wine pairs well with cheese.

Longtime Tri-Valley residents may remember the Wente Vineyards Sparkling Wine Cellar which opened in 1985 at the former Cresta Blanca winery in Livermore. For many years, Wente used the méthode champenoise for their sparkling wine which included second fermentation and aging in the wine cave. I toured the wine cave when the guides explained each winemaking process, and many attendees considered it “Champagne.”

Now, said Aly Wente, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience, they make the base wine in Livermore from their Chardonnay grapes and ship it to a Northern Calif. facility where the second fermentation takes place to produce the bubbles. The bottles of sparkling wine return and age in the Wente wine cave. The current vintage, 140th Harvest Sparkling Brut, honors the heritage of the winery. I tasted the refreshing, salmon colored Wente Sparkling Grenache several months ago; the wine has since sold out with no expected release date.

At Las Positas Winery in Livermore, winemaker Brent Amos said their Sparkling White Wine has been produced for 10 years and is a popular call in the tasting room. The description notes “pear, Meyer Lemon and candied ginger.” When I took my family to the tasting room, we noted the ginger spiciness in the wine. Though the other Las Positas wines are made from estate grapes, the Chardonnay grapes for the sparkling wine are sourced from multiple Calif. appellations, and the wine is not made at the winery. During December, said Amos, “The wine is 55 percent off for a case purchase we want our customers to have plenty for the holidays.”

Pruett Winery, established a decade ago at a historic Livermore vineyard, has sold out of their first three vintages of their sparkling wine. Owner Bob Pruett does the two-step vinification in house resulting in an artisanal product. He calls the dry, not sweet Vibrancy because he picks the Chardonnay early with high acid and doesn’t age the wine long enough to develop the complex, toasty “Champagne” notes.

In my wine travels, I have discovered delicious, value-priced sparkling wines from Spain and Italy. At Codorniu in the Catalonia region of Spain, I observed their production which similar to Champagne called método tradizionale. Here the wine bottles are stored in traditional A-shaped frames for riddling.

Spain was an early adopter of gyropalettes or mechanical riddling of the bottles during the second fermentation, thus reducing labor and production costs, and lowering prices. Though most Cava is released after 9 months, bottles with increased quality and longer aging are labeled Reserva, Gran Reserva and Paraje Calificado.

In Northern Italy a few years ago, I had a close look at the gyropalettes at Rotari sparkling wines in the Trento DOC appellation. These Trentodoc wines are lively, refreshing and well-priced.
photo: Rotari Brut in rotating cages – Deborah Grossman

Forget the barrels, riddling frames and gyropalettes. Prosecco is made in tanks. The second fermentation for the base wine is made in pressurized tanks to produce the desired level of sugar and bubbles. This method produces inexpensive sparkling wine because it can be produced on demand in the tank.

In the Valdobiadenne area of the Veneto of Northeastern Italy where the top hillside vineyards for Prosecco reside, I visited Bacio della Luna winery, part of Schenk Wines group, and met up with a R2-D2 look alike.

An easy quaff, Prosecco is a good mixer for spritz style cocktails. Like many sparkling wine, Prosecco can be paired with a variety of food from appetizers to dessert. Prosecco also has categories of production, including Superiore Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOCG produced by Valdo, an awarded producer.

Let’s toast the holidays and a fresh year that bubbles up with good food and beverages enjoyed with family and friends.