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French Champagne, Cape Cap Classique, Sparkling Online. | Editor's favourite: Tanzanite Brut MCC |  We offer an amazing selection of gorgeous sophisticated bubblies on our website. Our bubbly loving editor's new favourite is Tanzanite Brut from Worcester, selling at R100 p/b. A delicate MCC, with a smooth lingering finish. A Michaelangelo Gold Medal award winner, this one is a must for any party. Our portfolio continues to grow, if you cannot find the bubbly you want, please email us and we will endevour to source it for you. ~ Leslie Maliepaard, Les Bubbly Editor
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CONTACT US: | We would love to hear from you. Call us with your bubbly requirements! We aim to offer a friendly, personalised service. Email: Click here
Tel: +27 (0)21 418 9998
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Bubbly Glossary| Champagne Types | | Non Vintage (NV) | Blended from wines of several years to achieve a constant "style de maison" House style. This blend will depend on the art and history behind the house and its winemaker. Many NV Champagnes are a blend of thirty or forty different wines. | | Vintage | Vintage Champagne is a blend of wines from a particular year, when the quality of the harvest was sufficient to declare a "Vintage". Obviously, not every year is a vintage year, but the vintage is left to the individual houses themselves to declare. Therefore, some houses declare a vintage Champagne in a year where others did not feel the quality justified it. | | Rosé | Rosé Champagne can be made in one of two ways: First by maceration of black grapes during pressing, so that the colour leeches out from the skins (the juice from black grapes is white) or by adding a small proportion of the red wine form the Champagne region (often Bouzy Rouge) to give the wine a rosé tint. The former method (de saignée) is more expensive and difficult to control, but many would say produces the better Champagne. An excellent Rosé is Laurent-Perrier, produced de saignée. | | Prestige Cuvée | Most Champagne houses produce a special bottle in a vintage year and these are normally deemed to be "Prestige or Deluxe cuvées". Probably the most famous of these is Moët's Cuvée Dom Pérignon. They cost around three times more than a Non-Vintage, and around double the price of a Vintage. Why so pricy? The grapes will have been hand picked (like all Champagne grapes) but they will have come from the top-producing vineyards, and more or less hand selected. Then they will be very carefully pressed, the resulting wines carefully blended and bottled in a specially shaped bottle. The Champagne is left to mature for five to seven years, after which the bottles will be riddled by hand prior to disgorgement. |
| Champagne Styles | | Extra Brut | This is an uncommon style these days, resulting in a very dry wine. The sugar content or dosage is from 0-6 grams of sugar per litre. Only Laurent-Perrier's recently introduced Ultra Brut is widely available in this style. | | Brut | Most Champagnes come into this category. The sugar content is from 0-15 grams per litre. In exceptional harvests the grapes have enough natural sugar to be a "Brut" style without any dosage. | | Extra-Sec | Very unusual style 12-20 grams of sugar per litre. | | Sec | Very unusual 17-35 grams of sugar per litre. | | Demi-Sec | This style is ideal with desserts and foie gras. Most houses do a Demi-Sec. The sugar content is between 35-50 g. per l. Mercier have recently introduced a Demi-Sec Rosé which is very unusual, but very good. | | Doux | This style is intensely sweet at over 50 grams of sugar per litre, and extremely rare. The early Champagnes, particularly those favoured in Russia (which was a major Champagne market until the revolution in 1917!) were of this style. |
Bubbly Store
~Buy South African Cap Classique, Sparkling wine, French champagne. Didn't find what you are looking for? Email us your request and we will endeavor to source it for you. Personalised friendly service, delivery to your door~
Tel: +27(0)21 418 9998 Fax: 0866 287 727
Email: Click here |
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