KEY POINTS:
What's in a name? Quite a lot when it comes to the vexed question of what to call sparkling wine, champagne or bubbles. If you listen to the radio at this time of year, you will hear constant references to "French champagne" at knockdown prices for Christmas, hence a wine contact complained to me last week that he would scream if he heard it once more.
The reason for his irritation is understandable. To say that champagne is French is a tautology. Only the French can make champagne because they have won the legal right to assert that only bubbles from the Champagne region can be called champagne.
It's several years now since bottles of Lindauer were adorned with large gold letters saying "champagne" and New Zealanders have followed suit by calling our sparkling wine "bubbles". But many of our transtasman neighbours have yet to abandon the use of the word champagne as a generic term.
Now that we've cleared that little matter up there is the more interesting fact that champagne is having its best year of sales, ever.
British magazine Drinks Business reports sales of champagne have grown by 9 per cent to the end of June, compared with the same period last year.
Sales of champagne internationally grew from 300 million bottles between 2003 and 2004 to 307 million bottles in 2005, growth that was partly due to big harvests in 2004 and 2005. This year champagne sales around the globe grew to 317 million bottles and prices have remained consistent, which is testament to great marketing, if nothing else, as there is a global surplus of almost every type of wine.
Not that champagne is the only good fizz to drink, festive season or not.
Two of the three wines of the week are Italian bubbles from the Mionetto winery in Valdobbiadene, Italy; the delineated prosecco region. If your memories of prosecco are less than glowing, you need to update your palate by trying either of these sensational wines. They are a fraction the price of champagne and many other high class bubbles; they over-deliver on flavour and, being Italian, are extremely well packaged.
The sad part about the champagne ruling, is that we could all be using the romantic word champagne to describe any and all sparkling wine we drink. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.
Wine news
Nelson's first four-level gravity fed winery, Woollaston Estates, was opened last Thursday by the Prime Minister, Helen Clark in the Upper Moutere. The winery had its first vintage in 1993 in its previous incarnation as Wai-iti River Vineyard, owned by Philip and Chan Woollaston, who later joined forces with Nevada-based property developer Glenn Schaeffer. The new winery will accommodate growth in production from new and existing vineyards; the winemaker is Andrew Sutherland who makes pinot gris, pinot noir, riesling, rose, semillon and sauvignon blanc for Woollaston Estates.
