The increasing sophistication of the wine drinker is evident across the marketplace, but the explosion of the consumer\u2019s savvy suaveness is perhaps most pronounced when it comes to fizz. After all, are there any wine buffs and connoisseurs that don\u2019t profess to be able to capably discern between French fizz and local sparkling white; or Italy\u2019s rising star, prosecco? And surely it would be as obvious as the proverbial when a sparkling was served that wasn\u2019t bottle-fermented in the methode champenoise style?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re not all doyens and aficionados when it comes to wine and sparkling, but most of us know what we do and don\u2019t like in terms of style, character and level of sweetness. And to many palates, a frizzante white varietal like pinot grigio or a pink Moscato is preferred to an expensive bottle from a centuries-old champagne house. Dry, sweet or demi-sec, amongst the sparkling wines on offer, there\u2019s bound to be something for every consumer\u2019s palate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was this wide range of offerings and palates that led me to try a little experiment with four sparkling wine lovers \u2013 a panel comprising of two oenophiles and two rookie champagne lovers. Their task was simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No experiment of this type could exclude some French Champagne, so in five different flutes were a Champagne, a genuine Italian prosecco, an Australian prosecco from a Mornington Peninsula producer, a sparkling pinot grigio and an Australian sparkling from a well-known Yarra Valley producer. How hard could it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What my fizz-swilling \u201clab rats\u201d weren\u2019t told, however, was that the Australian prosecco and the sparkling pinot grigio were, in fact, just lightly spritzed wines out of a can! These RTDs are sold in packs of four, which work out at about $4.50 each for the prosecco and $6.00 for the pinot grigio and the response was mixed. One of the rookies found the Squealing Pig pinot grigio to be the least palate pleasing of all of those on offer, but ironically, one of the experts quite liked it and thought that it had \u201cbeautiful funk\u201d! As for the T\u2019Gallant spritzed prosecco, our \u201cexperts\u201d thought it was light on fruit but the novices thought it was \u201ceasy to drink\u201d and \u201cnot too bad\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked which of the sparklings was the most and least appealing, unsurprisingly, the French Mumm champagne was voted most pleasing in our blind tasting, while somewhat unexpectedly, our group of testers found the Yarra Valley Chandon to be the one they\u2019d be least likely to hurry out and buy! Fancy that – they\u2019d rather drink the spritzed wines from a can than an Aussie sparkling white made using the same varietals and largely using the same technique as the French!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the task of naming which wine was which, this proved somewhat problematic with no-one getting all five correct in their first attempt \u2013 though all were able to tell which was the genuine French fizz. Even our experts only managed to correctly identify three of the five in their first go at the assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have to admit to being a tad surprised at the apparent palatability of wines from a can, but perhaps there\u2019s an object lesson in it for me about my natural bias against any wine that doesn\u2019t come out of a bottle! Apparently, it\u2019s better than some of the bigger names that come in a fancy bottle!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The increasing sophistication of the wine drinker is evident across the marketplace, but the explosion of the consumer\u2019s savvy suaveness is perhaps most pronounced when it comes to fizz. After all, are there any wine buffs and connoisseurs that don\u2019t profess to be able to capably discern between French fizz and local sparkling white; or…
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