Domaine Sérol Turbullent Champs Libre Rosé, Vin de Table, France NV (£19.37, stannarywine.com) Buying sparkling wine is so much more complicated than it used to be. That’s a good thing for the most part, reflecting as it does how many more very good sparkling wines are being made these days in so many different places. Indeed, bubbly, along with the various experimentations being made with leaving white grapes on their skins (aka orange, or skin-contact white wines), is perhaps the single most creative corner of the wine world right now, a far, distant cry from the days, not all that long ago, when it was basically champagne plus a few cheaper, largely inferior alternatives. Like orange wines, much of the novelty in new-wave sparkling wine is actually about reclaiming once-unfashionable or forgotten styles, such as méthode ancestrale aka pétillant naturel (or pet-nat), where a wine completes its fermentation in bottle, leaving behind plenty of fizz-giving CO2. It’s a style which, in the case of Domaine Sérol in the Côte Roannaise east of Lyon, is utterly, joyously juicy and light (10% abv), a rejuvenating tonic for the days between Boxing Day and New Year.
Jansz Premium Cuvée, Tasmania, Australia NV (£14.49, reduced from £18.99, until 1 January 2024, Waitrose) If the pet-nat/ancestrale method is responsible for some gloriously fun and funky fizz, the traditional method, as patented in Champagne (and also known as the méthode champenoise), is still the choice of most ambitious sparkling winemakers, not least in the French region itself, of course. If only The Real Thing will do for your New Year’s Eve toasting, current Champagne favourites of mine include the stylish, patisserie-creamy Tesco Finest Premier Cru Brut Champagne NV (£25), the mouthwatering elegance of Henriot Brut Souverain NV (from £29.97, northandsouthwines.co.uk; thewinesociety.com), the resonant depth and precision of Philipponnat Royale Réserve Brut NV (£47.21, justerinis.com). The appetisingly savoury but pin-sharp and racy Michel Gonet 3 Terroirs 2018 (from £44.95, corkandcask.co.uk; shrinetothevine.co.uk). For good-value traditional-method alternatives, meanwhile, try an apple-tangy example from the Loire, such as Domaine du Clos des Aumônes Vouvray Brut NV (£14.50, thewinesociety.com) or a tried and trusted old favourite Tasmanian from Jansz.
Breaky Bottom Cuvée Sir Andrew Davies, East Sussex, England 2016 (£35.70, corneyandbarrow.com) England’s collection of top sparkling wine producers continues to expand. Among the Blighty-based bubbles I would be delighted to say goodbye to 2023 with are a super-zippy offering from a relatively new player, The Grange Classic Brut, Hampshire NV (from £34.99, thewinesociety.com; hhandc.co.uk); and a virtuoso bottling from one of the English scene’s earliest pioneers in the East Sussex South Downs, Peter Hall, a cuvée named after the English classical music conductor with a bright, incisive style that builds into an appropriately orchestral swell of citrus and English red apple. Trentino in Alpine northern Italy is another cool-climate hotspot making increasingly impressive sparkling wines, among them the very pure-fruited Ferrari F1 Edition Brut NV (from £27.97, northandsouthwines.co.uk; Harvey Nichols). And Germany’s take on bottle-fermented sparkling wine, sekt, is as good as I can remember, with standouts including the tangfastic Dr Loosen Extra Dry Sekt NV (£14.99, down from £18.99 until 1 January 2024).
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