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Champagne's bubble bursts
Bottles of champagne are seen on display at a Costco store in South San Francisco, Calif.
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Kai Ryssdal: We're about halfway through the 2009 holiday marathon. Christmas behind us. New Years just a couple of days away. Which prompts one to ask whether you've bought your Champagne yet? If you have, you'd be among the minority. The industry's lost a lot of its fizz the last couple of years, along with the rest of the economy. Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson reports that's created a bubble of its own.
JEREMY HOBSON: I'm not going to do a story about Champagne without actually tasting some, so I invited wine writer and blogger Alice Feiring down to a Manhattan restaurant called Balthazar.
We started by talking about the way things used to be. The year was 2007. The stock market was up. Unemployment was down. And there were a lot of corks-a-popping.
ALICE FEIRING: The Champagne industry finally had arrived. They were complaining there wasn't enough Champagne for the world.
Then, as you can you can probably guess, the bottom fell out of the Champagne market. These days, Feiring says, some Champagne is going back to France, where it came from.
Hobson: They actually had to send some back?
Feiring: Send some back because they were taking up too much room in the warehouses.
Feiring says sales are down between 50 and 90 percent from the peak. And come Thursday night, she says, many Americans won't be clinking glasses of the good stuff.
FEIRING: If you're going to be having a small intimate dinner, I would bet money on it that you would hear that pop, and that pop is going to be Champagne. If you're going to have 15 people or more, it's going to be some semblance of sparkling wine.
Ahh, sparkling wine. The cheap cousin of Champagne not grown in the region with the same name. In France, it's called "Cremant." In Spain, it's called "Cava." In California, it's called sparkling wine. And in Italy, it's called "Prosecco."
FEIRING: Champagne is going to stop you. Oh my God this makes me so happy. Prosecco is we need bubbles, and it's gotta be cheap.
Not far from Balthazar, you can see the Prosecco craze firsthand.
Astor Wines and Spirits is one of the sparkling wine hubs of New York. And Lorena Ascencios is the wine buyer there.
LORENA ASCENCIOS: People still want sparkling wine, but they can't afford to spend you know $40, $50, $60 for a great bottle of Champagne.
So instead, she says, they're buying Prosecco.
ASCENCIOS: It is a sparkling wine, not as full sparkling as true a Champagne. It is more accessible, it's not as rich, but it is very, very drinkable and very affordable. You can get great Prosecco, we have one for $6.99. It's one of our best sellers.
What's the difference?
Well, I had a taste test with Alice Feiring back at Balthazar. Wisely, she started me off with the non-Champagne bubbly.
Hobson: It tastes pretty good.
Feiring: It's bubbly. It's bubbly, it's grapey.
As for the actual Champagne...
FEIRING: It's got way more finesse, it's got less headache produced. Oh, they're going to hate me.
While we were tasting, diner Evelyn Skorochode walked over to offer her thoughts.
EVELYN SKOROCHODE: I come from Paris, and I drink a lot of Champagne.
And to put it mildly, she does not approve of the world's newfound appetite for Prosecco.
SKOROCHODE: I mean Prosecco is a little bit of fashionables, because it's less expensive and people just buy bubbles without the taste of Champagne and believe me, it's completely different.
Well, come on it's not that bad.
And consumers certainly seem to like it. When the sales figures for Champagne's busiest season come out in February, it's likely Americans will be telling producers what Ella Fitzgerald and others have been singing for decades.
ELLA FITZGERALD: I get no kick from Champagne...
In New York, I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
FITZGERALD: So tell me why should it be true that I get a kick out of you.
About the author
Jeremy Hobson is host of Marketplace Morning Report, where he looks at business news from a global perspective to prepare listeners for the day ahead. Follow Jeremy on Twitter @jeremyhobson
A lot of talk about "lower" champagne prices, but I did not see evidence of it anywhere I've been in the Bay Area. Maybe a dollar or two, but that's it. Including domestic sparkling.
But for between $13-$16, you can get a terrific sparkling from Gruet. I love the Rose, but they have several options. And the kicker...it's made with grapes from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico!
However, the family is from the Champagne district of France, thus the beautiful product. (I find it in Whole Foods and Bev Mo in San Francisco)
I was a wine importer at one point and completely understand the relative quality differences between Champagne and other sparkling wine. The problem is that Champagne is usually (but not always) better, and certainly isn't worth 2-5 times the price of a good sparkling wine! Ontario Riesling Sparkling, Cremant de la Loire, and Ca Del Bosco Franciacorta! Hopefully Champagne producers will get the message, and we can all afford it again! The first house to release a $20-$30 Champagne will make sales history!
Alice is hardly an idiot. She's definitely opinionated, however. Never has there been a more devoted fan of "natural wines" (i.e. wines that haven't been manipulated by the winemaker), and her love of those extends to small Champagne producers.
Of course, news reports coming out on BusinessWeek and Financial Times talk of Champagne producers cutting prices (locally in France, at least) to stay competitive versus Prosecco and Cava. Imagine that, market forces working even with Champagne...
As an employee of a fabulous wine store in Atlanta and a true lover of bubbly wine, I am appalled by any person with "wine knowledge" saying such ridiculous things about Prosecco. Yes if you are pretentious and snobby, then Prosecco is the cheap cousin of Champagne but if you understand that Prosecco is purposely made in a different style and using different methods than Champagne then you understand that each wine has a special time and place. With that, you understand the beauty of this Italian bubbly. I raise my glass to the high quality, yet affordable Proseccos and will gladly drink you along with an overpriced bottle of Champagne this holiday season!
Unfortunately, this segment contained a lot if grossly misleading and false information. It is doing a disservice to those who are curious about wines.
"Sparkling wine" is not a qualitative label. It is a merely the collective term for wine that has been infused with sugar and undergone a secondary fermentation. (This is what makes the "bubbles").
There is only one thing that makes Champagnes special. Each authentic French Champagne is a premium quality sparkling wine. The grapes must be grown and processed in the Champagne region, using the original “methode champenoise†(secondary fermentation in the bottle). And all French Champagne producers have long ago banded together to keep strict quality controls and do joint marketing. This has been quite successful in convincing the world that Champagne is automatically the king of all sparkling wines.
When it comes to non-champagne sparkling wine, a little more research is needed. Before grabbing something off the shelves, a good wine store clerk as well as reputable food and wine literature are excellent sources to consult.
How can you compare two things—either by price or taste—that are produced using two very different methods? Traditional Champagne, from Champagne, is made using a method where the second fermentation happens in the bottle. To clarify, all wine is fermented once; sparkling wine (including champagne) gets its bubbles from a second fermentation. Now, “traditional†Champagne is fermented (the second time) in the bottle. Prosecco, on the Italian “knock off†is produced using the “cuvee close†method—that is, the second fermentation happens in a giant steel tank and the yeast is taken out in a filtration process rather than the traditional disgorgement process. And because of the legality, any sparkling wine made using the traditional method has to be called the same thing as the stuff made by the cheaper cuvee close method. Just ask Michigan wine maker, Larry Mawby, based in Traverse City, Michigan. He makes both. And in the sense that wine is not created equal, it cannot be compared, by bubbles or otherwise, by the same measure. I am slightly deflated (or defizzed?) that Jeremy Hobson didn’t look further into the differences between Prosecco and Champange—or, for that matter, between traditional Sparkling and the cheap stuff.
