Schooled by a Bubbles Hipster (Think Hot Yoda with a Champagne Flute)

If you’re hosting a champagne tasting party, we suggest you scribble Christy A. Canterbury at the top of your invite list. We’re not sure what we appreciate most — her heightened wine senses or the hip way she explains her craft. Her cool factor? High. Her intimidating, “where’s jeeves” luxury-house vibe? Massively low. You can find her at New York’s Italian Wine Merchants or knee deep in bubbles in the South of France.

The pros use flutes, for function not for show.

we’re hosting a champagne tasting … can you school us in the how to?

Christy A. Canterbury: Plan for the number of guests and the number of bottles you will need. Each 750 ml bottle has 25 ounces, so if everyone is really just tasting, one bottle can take care of 14 people. If everyone is really drinking, well, plan accordingly (How many boozers? Is the party on a Saturday or a school night? Who will politely try the wines while chasing them down with beer….?)

Next, pick a non-vintage grower champagne and a classic “grande marque” house to explore the differences in the two.

what about palate cleansers? fact or fiction?

Frankly, no palate cleanser is the best palate cleanser. Whatever taste you pick up from eating will be with you on your next sip of wine. Professional tasters don’t really use palate cleansers unless they’re tasting dozens and dozens of wines and there’s massive amounts of acidic or tannic wines. If anything, still mineral water works best to neutralize acidity (municipal water can be a palate train wreck), while keeping most tastes out of your mouth.

My three rules:

1. 1. Use clean glasses! No wine smells right in a smelly glass nor does it look good in a water-stained glass, especially champagne when the sight of the bubbles is important. Detergent in glasses can also detract from how the bubbles form, so be aware if you’re looking to provide a serious experience.
2. 2. Taste from the right glasses. Now, you have to decide which characteristics you most want to evaluate. Bubbles or aroma? You really need flute if you are evaluating the bubbles and white wine glasses work best for really getting the aromas. In all circumstances, keep your hip Marie Antoinettes in the cupboard for your next martini party. I cringe just thinking of bubbly served in those. It is a shameful, double disaster: You can’t see the bubbles and you can’t smell a thing.
3. 3. Have the correct number of glasses. How are you comparing the wines? In flights (say 2 or 3…or 5…at a time) or one after the other? Chances are, you’ll be tasting them one after the other, but I thought I’d throw this in here to stress out the pro wanna-be’s.

to have a range of different taste experiences, what do you recommend serving?

A beginner’s list: House versus Grower for:

• Brut Non-vintage
• Rose (NV or not)
• Blanc de Blancs (NV or not)
• Blanc de Noirs (NV or not)
• Zero Dosage
• Demi-Sec

If you can find a few styles from one producer, it helps demonstrate the differences between these styles. A few additions for a geek’s list:

• Malo-lactic fermentation (MLF) vs non-MLF
• First fermentation in wood versus stainless steel
• Same wine — “bottle aged” from a previous bottling versus “recently disgorged” (if you include this in your tasting, please invite me at cc@italianwinemerchants.com!)

what are you looking for when you sip? diamonds, it’s the 4 Cs, what about champagne? Aspects to look for:

1. Color — pale color can suggest youth. Deep color can suggest age. Hints of pink in a style not purposefully made as a rosé style are considered a fault in Champagne, but are fairly common in other regions (it’s about how fast and gentle the grapes are pressed.)
2. Bubbles — in the glass and on the palate. Are there lots of them and do they stream constantly? High quality. Have they significantly diminished in number and how quick they stream by the time you’ve tasted through a flight of 6? Not so “très bon” in quality. Is the wine really nutty, deep gold and without many bubbles? You may have a really old champagne in your glass. And, again, all of this is affected by cleanliness and shape. On the palate, is the perlage —aka bubbles—delicate, which indicates good riddling and likely more time on the lees or foamy, less good riddling and likely less time on the lees.
3. Acidity — how cool was the year? Once you’re really geeking out, you can judge acidity to determine the vintage when applicable or if the wine underwent MLF. This is a secondary fermentation that changes malic acid, think a tart green apples kind of acid, to lactic acid, think not-so-acidic milk acid. Some of the big houses and many growers don’t use MLF. It’s a definitive element of style.
4. Mid-palate creaminess — an indication of time on the lees in the bottle and/or MLF.
5. Fruit profile — do you smell red fruits like strawberries, raspberries, plums? Red fruits indicate red grapes: Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are the primary red grapes in Champagne. If you don’t get those aromas and get lots of apple and peach or other white fruits, you’re likely in Blanc de Blancs territory — all Chardonnay in the case of Champagne.
6. Smells other than fruit — nuttiness, earthiness, mushroom-iness indicate an older wine.
7. Finish — the longer the finish, the finer the wine. Particularly helpful in nailing the best wine when you upgrade your next tasting party to a blind tasting!

any other tasting secrets?

Use your nose — that’s the only way you can taste! You know how you lose your appetite when you have a cold and how food doesn’t “taste” like anything? That’s because you only taste sweet, salt, bitter, sour and maybe umami — remember that fourth-grade science lesson? With this knowledge in tow, when you say you taste chalk in a champagne and someone snidely asks you if you ate blackboard chalk as a kid to know what it tastes like, calmly shoot back that taste is truly smell and that the whole event should really be called a “wine smelling.” You’re just using the widely accepted terminology.

and what types of bites would you pair with a tasting?

The nicest thing about champagne is that is plays well with everything! It drinks alone and with food. It’s great for fried foods and Asian foods. Bubbles are the only wine that pair with popcorn. Some of the funky, big, vinous wines can even work with steak. Gotta yell about this while I have your attention: Brut Champagne does not, has not and will not ever taste good with wedding cake. Get real and serve Demi Sec. Please. You don’t drink Sauternes with steak and this the same thing, just in reverse.

The thing to snack on with champagne are gougères. They are quintessentially Champenois. I ate 2 dozen a day when I was in Champagne in February.

how would you describe the perfect tasting presentation?

Ideally, lined up in flights because you’re tasting the wines against each other to compare styles and notes so you know how they were made. Of course, just drinking champagne with friends is pretty perfect.

any other ways to take a champagne tasting party over the top?

Find an older bottle. So few people get to drink well-aged wines and even few drink well-aged champagnes. A more recession-friendly option: Include sparkling from other regions. Lots of champagne houses make wines in the U.S., Australia and Argentina. So you get a good sense for what the Champenois think are good sparkling wines from other places.

your cool off-the-radar champagne and glass recommendations?

1. 1. Roger Coulon— his champagnes drink like still wines
2. 2. Diebolt Vallois 1958 — hand disgorged by the winemaker in the cellar!
3. 3. Dom Perignon 1975 — recently disgorged and from Magnum in the Abbey d’Hautvilliers, 1968, 1964
4. 4. Riedel Vinum Extreme Champagne Glasses — the rest of the Vinum Extreme line is pathetic and useless (I know because I fell in love with the design and now have them at home), but their bubbly glass gives you the flute for the bubbles and a broader opening to get some of the aromas better than in most flutes.