Much like the feel of fine velour on your thighs, we all crave the taste of fine champagne on our palettes, especially when we all have to buy new calendars.  However, that shit is expensive and really kinda pointless.  As you probably know, champagne is fizzy wine that comes from a particular region of France after which it is named.  There is no need to point this out at parties, because people either already know and will find you to be an interminable bore, or they’re really the sort of people you don’t want to be hitting on with fun wine facts.  For some reason, fizzy wine from other locales, while often just as good, or even better, is cheaper!   This is mainly due to the differences in the way the wines are processed, but it’s more hipster to act like you know something everyone else doesn’t and are therefore getting an better deal because they’re totally ignorant and are totally a slave to the mainstream fizzy wine barons.  Throw off your chains and enlighten the masses about cava, from Spain!  Just don’t throw in your travel stories about Barcelona.  No one wants to hear those, and I hope you took your penicillin.

Without further delay, here are some reviews and tasting notes on the four cheap-ass sparkling wines that I happen to own a bunch of right now.  I bought these by the case, but if purchased at your local place of alcohol purchasing, these should range around $8 – $15ish.  Plus tax, probably.

Fizzy #1 : Jaume Serra Cristalino Cava

I drink the shit out of this stuff.  It is frequently on sale via Peapod for $85/case, and while I do tip well, I don’t have to carry a case of fizzy wine up my stairs.  If you ever hear me talking about drinking sparkling wine, odds are, this is it.  A sticker on the bottle proclaims it as Wine & Spirits Value Brand of the Year for 3 consecutive years.  Now, stickers like that are suspicious, after all, Pabst won a blue ribbon at the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893 and still has their damned beer named after it.  However, in this case, it’s totally legit.  This is probably the least you will pay for something which a) doesn’t lie and call itself champagne, and b) you can actually enjoy drinking without mixing.  This is not super dry, but it is certainly dryer than most cheap fizzy wines, which try to mask their crappiness with sugar.  It’s got a mild, almost bready flavor, and pairs well with pretty much anything.  Pretty much anyone will try a sip of this, be mildly surprised at how acceptable it is, then totally forget about it and finish their glass.

Fizzy #2 : Fincalegre Cava

Basically the same thing as above, but probably more widely available and a dollar or so more expensive.  These are both Brut cavas, which explains most of the similarity.   Brut denotes less than 12 grams of sugar per “litre” which I’ve been told is some fancy European unit of measure, and cavas tend to have similar grape profiles.

Additional notes about cava : The brand you’re most likely to see is Freixenet, which is fine, but maybe not quite a cheap as the ones above.  Cava is also a regional wine, with the EU designating it as a specifically Catalan product.  There are also rose cavas, and while rose wines have kind of a shitty reputation, it’s not really deserved.  Back when Americans knew fuckall about wine, and assholes everywhere decided that women wouldn’t drink anything that wasn’t sweet enough to cause instant diabetes, some dickhead was like, “Hey, rose is pink!  Girls like pink!  Let’s dump a bunch of sugar in there and pretend this is real wine!  WE’RE ALL GETTING LAID TONIGHT!!! ***does a bunch of cocaine*** WOOO!!”  Anyway, actual rose is not particularly sweet and rose cava can be pretty damn good.  Plus it’s pink and we’re all getting laid tonight!

Fizzy #3 + 4: Abbazia, Cuvee Prestige and Asti

I’m doing these together both because they’re the same brand and because I get to talk about fizzy wine terms some more!  These are from Italy, specifically Piedmont, but don’t automatically assume they are proseccos.  Prosecco is designated by the type of grape used, and isn’t even always sparkling.  Asti has a regional designation and uses mainly muscato grapes, which, if you’ve had muscat, you know means SWEET.  This guy is no exception.  It’s really, really sweet.  Weirdly enough, it’s actually not horrible.  I despise sweet wines, and pretty much any sweet liquid grosses me out, and maybe it’s the fact that this was my second bottle of the day, but this stuff just tasted like honey.  It was like super-fizzy mead.  This would make a hell of a bee-sting.  The Cuvee Prestige actually is a prosecco, and also comes with the designation ‘extra dry’ which allows 12 – 17 grams of sugar/litre.  This still gives a nice crisp and refreshing flavor.  It’s not as bready as the cava, more light fruit with some citrus or something..

More prosecco stuff : Prosecco is probably the most common non-crap budget sparkling wine you’ll find, though cava is becoming more popular.  While you will find brut, extra dry, and dry prosecco, you aren’t going to see sweet proseccos.  This is partially in the name, since “secco” means dry.  Things can be “semi-secco” which means 32-50 gm/lt of residual sugar, or “not fucking secco at all” which is 50+ gm/lt.  You’ll see the Cupcake prosecco around a lot, and the La Marca.  Both of these are good, and if you order prosecco in a restaurant, you’ll probably get one of these.  Except you’ll be paying for a glass what they paid for the bottle.

TL;DR

Don’t buy domestic crap that pretends to be champagne.  Cava, prosecco, or some less common regional version of sparkling wine will be way better, and while not quite Andre cheap, it can be pretty close.  Don’t be afraid to try something new, use the descriptors to pick something to the sweetness you want.  Here is a handy chart!

BONUS SECTION :

It’s a bit more expensive, but if you really want people to be all like, what’s that crazy shit you’re drinking?!  You can buy sparkling reds, the easiest to find is Australian sparkling Shiraz.  I recommend throwing stuffed koala bears at people and calling them “mate” while drinking this.

DOUBLE BONUS SECTION :

How to open a fizzy wine bottle with a saber.

You know it’s dumb, but you know you want to.  You can actually use any knife with a decently long blade, including a standard 8″ chef’s knife.  You aren’t trying to chop the top off the bottle, which for some reason is the popular misconception of how this is supposed to work.  Seriously?  You’re trying to be festive and get drunk, not make a prison shiv and drink bits of glass.  You hold the knife low on the neck of the bottle, with the flat of the blade almost resting against the neck.  You then run the knife up the neck, maintaining the low angle, and basically smack the cork from the underside with the blade.  The force is almost parallel to the neck of the bottle, and there should be no impact on glass.  All you’re doing is nudging the cork up to give the carbon dioxide encouragement to do the rest of the work.  The cork will explode out, and you really don’t want to put someone’s eye out when they’re watching you be all awesome, so do aim somewhere safe.

TRIPLE BONUS :

The reason people say champagne, or other fizzy drinks go “straight to their head” isn’t because they are total lightweights (though this may also be true.)  Any carbonated drink will get you drunk faster than a non-carbonated drink.  There have been various theories about why, but while the effect has been documented, it hasn’t really been studied enough for anyone to agree on a cause.  So bullshit away!