In choosing a bottle of champagne, you must pay attention to four factors:
- Marque. Mercifully, the list of most famous champagne marques (brands) is relatively short, so if you can remember it -- or even just a few items on it -- you will never fail to find something familiar in a liquor store or on a restaurant menu: Bollinger, Charles Heidsieck, Krug, Moet et Chandon, G.H. Mumm, Joseph Perrier, Ruinart, Taittinger, Veuve, and Cliquot-Ponsardin. While each of these marques is a great champagne, you will need to taste many different marques before you can determine your own preference.
- Vintage. As with any wine, quality varies across the years, in harmony with the quality of the grapes harvested that year and the weather of the harvesting season. However, champagne is generally made from a blend of grapes from several years. Therefore, all vintages of a given marque are usually pretty similar.
- Size of bottle. We won't get into too much detail, but keep in mind that once a bottle is opened, you can't save it for another day. So get as much champagne as you're planning to drink.
- Dryness. As with all wines, dry is simply the opposite of sweet. As a quick guide, here is a list of the levels of dryness that you can choose in your champagne (from driest to sweetest):
- Extra Brut, Brut Sauvage, Ultra Brut, Brut Integral, Brut Zero
- Brut
- Extra Dry, Extra Sec
- Sec
- Demi-Sec
- Doux
This is largely a matter of taste: choose the level of dryness that you like best. Be warned, even if you are a sweet tooth, champagnes rated as Doux should be used only as a dessert wine. The most popular style will be Brut, and champagne makers save their best grapes for this category.
SoYouWanna know more? Check out our full-length article SYW enjoy champagne?
