email this pageQ. I can’t afford true French Champagne. How do I find an admirable stand-in?
A. When looking outside of the hallowed Champagne region of France for your bubblies, reach for labels that say “Méthode Traditionnelle” or “Méthode Champenoise.” This means that the sparkler inside was made with the same intricate, labor-intensive process used to make true French Champagne. This process involves some fermentation in the bottle, which transforms naturally occurring gas into elegant, tiny bubbles. Very often, the result is a complex, aromatic wine with creamy, delicate effervescence.
Less expensive (and some would say less elegant), many sparklers are made using the cost cutting “bulk” or “Charmat” method; here, that bubble-inducing fermentation occurs in large, airtight containers rather than inside the bottle. Bulk-made sparklers tend to be simpler and fruitier and to have noticeably feistier frothiness—a wonderful attribute in soda pop but not necessarily in high-quality sparkling wine.
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