Stop Wasting Money: Tips To Buy a Better Champagne

Buying a bottle of champagne can be an annoying task. No one likes to stand in the wine aisle distracted by labels and French words that are hard to pronounce. Stop wasting your money on bottles that look cool, but end up letting you down. Follow these guidelines when buying your champagne and be more satisfied with your choice.

1.) Champagne or Sparkling wine?

First, you need to understand what bottles you’re looking at. Every bubbly alcoholic beverage is not a champagne. Only a sparkling wine made in Champagne, France that’s made of champagne grapes and fermented by a specific technique is a true champagne. Prosecco, Cava, and other general sparkling wines are fermented, but not a champagne.

2.) Sweet or Dry?

Champagne is typically the driest of all four sparkling wines. To ensure you enjoy your bottle, picking the right sweet level is important. Here is the verbiage used to rate the sweetness of champagne. Look for these words on those bottles.

Doux: Most sweet
Demi-Sec, Sec, and Extra Sec: Still sweetness in demi-sec but moving towards extra-sec the sweetness lessens.
Brut, Extra Brut, Brut Nature: Brut begins the dry flavor. Brut Nature is the driest of them all.

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3.) Eating or Just Drinking?

If your palate is versatile to sweetness consider the occasion in which you are drinking. Champagne is generally great with any food at any time. Still, it can taste better paired with certain foods. To assist in picking a better champagne here are traditional food pairings for sweet and dry.

Sweet: Fried foods, spicy food, fruit, and desserts

Dry: Seafood, popcorn, breakfast foods, nuts, cheese, pasta, and desserts

4.) Want to Spend a Lot of Money…or Nah?

After completing the previous tips, your options should be narrowed down significantly. The deciding factor will be the price. Price points on champagne are decided from the quality of the grape used. A $20 bottle of champagne is a great starting point for a decent champagne. If you really want to impress the party, go higher, but stick to these guidelines. Cheers!

Samantha Wachs