Jancis Robinson’s best bubbly for winter revels

Heavens, we need cheer and conviviality — and what’s more cheering than a convivial glass of fizz? This selection of highly recommended sparkling wines travels upwards in price from some serious bargains to champagnes from the most admired addresses that I think are showing best at the moment.

One category of champagne is missing this year: those produced on a small scale on single estates, wines often known as “growers’ champagnes” as opposed to those from the big houses. Growers have been stung by the official limits imposed on production from the 2020 harvest. Each year, the authorities decree how much base wine for champagne may be made. In lockdown year, the suspicion is, the much-reduced permitted maximum was driven by the need to regulate the big houses’ stocks.

Yet these stringent limits also penalised the smaller growers. Meanwhile, the tiny 2021 harvest has stretched what’s in their cellars further. Planning ahead, therefore, they have been limiting allocations to their loyal customer base and, alas, I have been able to taste far, far fewer examples than usual.

Most of these wines are 12 or 12.5 per cent alcohol, so I have cited ABV levels only when very different from this. I have given prices for single bottles but don’t forget that many retailers, notably Majestic and Laithwaites in the UK, offer substantial reductions to those buying at least six bottles.

Another tip for those who live in Britain: counter-intuitively, one of the best selections of champagnes is to be found at The Whisky Exchange. More predictably, the Finest Bubble is also focused on champagne, with many vintages at its disposal, and can arrange immediate delivery within London.

Cuvée Royale Brut NV Crémant de Limoux
Great-value wine — even at full price — made by the traditional method used in Champagne. Not searingly dry but certainly not sweet.
£9.49 (reduced from £12.75 in December) Waitrose

Prestige Cava Brut NV
Prosecco may be far more popular than cava, but cava is made much more intricately and this one, from Freixenet, is a steal. It is not bone dry but it’s no industrial product — it was aged on lees for 18 months — and leaves the palate suitably refreshed.
£10 M&S

Lubanzi Sparkling Rosé NV Swartland 11%
Lubanzi is an admirable South African project that does its best to protect its natural and social environment. This is pure fun, chock-full of flirtatious fruit sealed with a crown cap and labelled with a creative sense of humour. This would be so easy to love as an apéritif.
£13.49 MJ Wine Cellars or £3.95 per 25cl can The Wine Society

Dom des Aubuisières Brut NV Vouvray
Sparkling Vouvray is one of the wine world’s undervalued treasures and it can age superbly. Made in old oak, Bernard Fouquet’s blend of Chenin Blanc is mainly 2018 with 15 per cent of 2017. Really appetising baked-apple nose with very fine bubbles and a gorgeous toasty hint of toffee on the finish. Not trying to be champagne.
£15.45 Haynes Hanson & Clark

Caveau des Jacobins NV Crémant du Jura
Made with the most delicate of touches from the same grapes as champagne but with a light alpine accent. Very fine, though the label shrieks Jura so no one will be fooled into thinking it’s the real thing.
£17.99 Majestic

Dom Taille aux Loups Triple Zéro NV Montlouis
Jacky Blot is a genius and prides himself on coaxing a wine that is much drier than most champagnes from his Chenin Blanc vines in the Loire. This ages superbly well so it would be worth buying in quantity. Wine prices are not going down.
£21.95 Vin Cognito, Vinified Wine

Bolney, Blanc de Blancs NV England
I preferred this well-made, sophisticated wine from the Sussex estate’s best plots of Chardonnay, with its ripe, baked-apple notes, to Waitrose’s Blanc de Noirs Champagne.
£24.99 (reduced from £29.99 in December) Waitrose

Domaine Mann, Brut Nature 2017 Crémant d’Alsace 13.5%
Sébastien Mann, latest generation at this biodynamic estate, interned at one of the most-admired small champagne houses, Vouette & Sorbée, and it shows. A blend of Auxerrois, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir was aged for 30 months on lees to result in some intense flavours and a level of real sophistication.
£26 The Sourcing Table

Nyetimber Classic Cuvée NV England
It may seem strange to some, but this is a great price for the principal product of England’s pioneer producer of wines that give champagne a run for its money. Two-thirds of the Chardonnay-heavy blend was 2017, enriched by portions from 2015, 2014 and 2013. Nyetimber’s growing range of wines is made by a hugely talented Canadian couple whose output is irreproachable, though the 1086 wines, at £150 a bottle, seem overpriced to this taster.
£29.99 (reduced from £36.99 until January) Waitrose

Rathfinny Rosé 2017 England
Established in 2010, this estate on the South Downs outside Brighton is one of English wine’s most ambitious, and the quality of its produce seems to be rising as the vines age. This deep-orange wine has an almost vermouth character with its lightly chewy herbiness, presumably imbued during its 24 months on lees.
£32.95 Wine Direct and many others

Gallimard Père & Fils, Cuvée Prestige Brut 2015 Champagne
This is brilliant value for a champagne that already tastes quite evolved, with a gentle mousse and a caress of the palate. Easy to love, although probably not designed for the long term.
£34.95 The Whisky Exchange, also Highbury Vintners and Bottle Apostle

A R Lenoble, Intense Mag 16 Brut NV Champagne
A base of 2016, including quite a high proportion of fruit from grand and premier crus villages, has been deepened with 40 per cent of wine from this family house’s “réserve perpetuelle”, a longstanding solera of older vintages. There’s a wide panoply of flavours on the palate — wild flowers? — and it’s not remotely austere.
£36.95 Thorne Wines and many other retailers

Fox & Fox, Inspiration Blanc de Gris 2014 England
An East Sussex wine made in the image of champagne but mainly from Pinot Gris, which seems to have delivered a huge amount of nutty flavour — or was it the more than four years on yeast lees? Real depth to a dry, emphatic wine that stands up to even quite spicy food.
£39 Quercus Wines

Gramona, III Lustros 2012 Corpinnat
Corpinnat is the newish association of top-quality sparkling-wine producers formed to distinguish their wines from basic cava. Gramona is an exceptional family-owned, biodynamic estate whose best wines, from Catalan grapes, are given prolonged ageing. Very fine.
£40 mysomm.co.uk, £46.75 Great Wines Direct

Leclerc Briant Réserve NV Champagne
Very distinctive Champagne house concentrating (like Roederer) on organic and biodynamically grown grapes. The results are obvious in the glass. A name to watch.
From £40 Berry Bros & Rudd while stocks last

Ridgeview, Rosé de Noirs 2016 England
A Sussex family makes this wine only in the best vintages for Pinot Noir. Aged for three years on yeast lees. Pure fruity aromas with some interesting suggestions of Campari flavours. Brisk and well balanced.
£40.05 Vinum

Louis Roederer, Collection 242 NV Champagne
Roederer’s non-vintage Brut Premier was always superior but it’s been succeeded by even better annually identified blends enriched by as much as 44 per cent of wines older than the four-year-old one on which the blend was based. This is based on 2017, Roederer’s 242nd grape harvest.
£49.99 Majestic

Drappier, Grande Sendrée Brut 2010 Champagne
If you seek a fully mature champagne to serve with food, this single-vineyard wine would be a great choice. Extremely persistent.
£56.96 IDealWine

Bruno Paillard, Assemblage 2012 Champagne
A blend from eight different crus and aged on lees for eight years. Tight-knit, dense and tense but with satisfying richness underneath. Nutty rather than fruity or mineral.
£66.90 Hedonism

Pol Roger 2012 Champagne
Quite a rich nose and fairly rich on the palate too. An anti-Extra Brut? Nicely integrated with some lemon syllabub notes. More of a food wine than an apéritif.
£67.20 Laurence Smith and Son, £69.99 The Wine Press, £75 The Wine Society and many other retailers

Charles Heidsieck 2012 Champagne
A very savoury wine with some smoky reductive notes as well as one of lime cordial. An exciting combination of producer and vintage with real potential. The back label promises it will drink well until 2035!
£69.89 IDealWine and other retailers

Bollinger, PN VZ 16 Brut NV Champagne
A very fine, pale pink wine in a series designed to be made from a single grape and a single village, in this case Pinot Noir from Verzenay. A worthy successor to the 2015.
£74 The Wine Society and many others

Collet, Collection Privée Brut 2008 Champagne
Quite soft and interesting. A good blend of age on the nose and vibrant acidity on the palate that works. The merest hint of the sort of lactones you encounter in whisky.
£74.95 The Whisky Exchange

Taittinger, Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2011 Champagne
The year 2011 doesn’t have the greatest reputation in Champagne, but this all-Chardonnay wine suggests that Taittinger made a very careful selection of ingredients.
£144 The Champagne Company and many other retailers

Dom Pérignon 2012
My favourite current vintage of this wine; its quality belies the quantity made.
From £155 at various retailers

Louis Roederer, Cristal 2012/13 Champagne
A pair of stunning Cristals with the younger wine more ethereal, the older one firmer.
From £180 from many retailers

Krug Grande Cuvée, 162ème Édition NV Champagne
This house is dedicated to the annual task of assembling its non-vintage blend. The current edition is the 169th but this one, based on 2006 but with ingredients going back to 1990, was showing beautifully when tasted last year.
£296 The Finest Bubble

Laurent Perrier, Grand Siècle No 23 NV Champagne
At last, this family house has decided to identify the different versions of its top, Chardonnay-heavy wine, which is always a blend of three different vintages designed to represent perfection and given at least 10 years’ ageing on lees. This deliciously refined champagne is composed of 2006, 2004 and 2002.
£376 (magnum only) The Finest Bubble

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. More stockists from Wine-searcher.com

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