For those aiming to put a bit of fizz into festive and New Year celebrations, champagne might seem like a bit of an expensive treat. But there's a decent range of cheaper French fizzes on offer this year at budget supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl.
For well-known "posh" brands of champagne you're looking at spending anything from £30 upwards for a 75cl bottle. But most supermarkets now offer their own-brand versions at a much cheaper price than that - with Aldi and Lidl weighing in with the cheapest this year.
Only wines made in the Champagne region of France are allowed to call themselves "champagne". So you know you're getting the real deal if a bottle bears that name on the neck or label.
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But for fizz fans, is there much of a difference on taste between the cheapest champers and pricier alternatives? To give it a test, we compared two of the cheapest champagnes for sale in supermarkets right now - at Aldi and Lidl - with perhaps the most well-known of champagne brands, Moet.
For balance, we also added in a mid-range supermarket own brand champagne, from Marks and Spencer.
I roped in three friends to help me out with a blind taste test of all four, which we then combined with our thoughts on the fizziness, the style of the bottles and value for money, which would give us an overall winner.
Aldi - Nicolas de Montbart - PRICE: £9.99 (down from £13.99)
As soon as we popped this one we could smell the lovely fizzy fragrance, and on first sipping could taste strawberry and cream flavours.
This one also stayed fizziest the longest with a pleasing spread of bubbles in the glass. The bottle describes it as "easy drinking" and it certainly is that with a smooth and sweet flavour.
Looking at the bottle, this one also looked pretty classy too we all felt.
Lidl - A Carpentier - PRICE £13.99
Oh dear, this one lost its fizz very quickly on pouring - and I'm afraid the taste fell flat with all of us testers too.
It had the biggest "pop" when we took out the cork and very large bubbles on the first pour, but they evaporated pretty quick. On the taste front it was very pear-like, and there was no getting away from that lack of fizz. Very disappointing.
The style of the bottle also didn't impress - not helped by the fact that the label also did not survive well from the ice bucket treatment sadly.
M&S - Louis Vertay - PRICE £18
This one fizzed really nicely and had a really interesting creamy taste to it. On the label it described its flavour as "red apple and brioche" - I totally got the brioche but didn't find it fruity at all.
It held its fizz well, and one of my friends had this down as her favourite. The bottle itself looked pretty class with extra gold embossing.
Moët - PRICE: (purchased from M&S for £34, down from £39)
This was the easiest bottle to pop, and we all felt made the most "champagne-y" popping sound - if there is such a thing. You can't knock the bottle either - it has the classic image that screams quality doesn't it with its red, black and gold logos.
This one had a nicely refined fragrance to it, and on tasting you got the hint of nuttiness that perhaps marked it out as something a bit different from the rest of the fizz we'd been testing.
Personally, I found it left a rather round savoury end note in the mouth, and I much preferred the sweeter end note of the Aldi fizz. But there's no mistaking this is a great tasting fizz.
Our ratings and Overall winner
When we considered both the taste, the fizziness and value for money, here are our marks out of 10 for all of the champagnes.
And a clear winner for us was the Aldi bottle. It boasted the best fizziness, a quality label, a gorgeous easy drinking style, all while being the cheapest bottle we could find on sale.
My friend summed it up when she said: "If I had £30 to spend, would I want one bottle of the Moet, or three bottles of the Aldi? The answer is three bottles of the Aldi".
1) - Aldi - £9.99 - 9/10
2) - Moet - £34 - 8/10
3) - M&S - £18 - 7/10
4) Lidl - £13.99 - 5/10
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