OZ CLARKE'S WINE COLUMN

Planning a celebration? OZ CLARKE, host of the Microsoft Wine Guide CD-ROM, and wine correspondent for the Daily Telegraph in the UK, has been tasting a range of sparkling wines picked out for him by UK retailers.

In Search of Sparkle

Continuing his search for value-for-money wines that offer good flavour, character and individuality, Oz Clarke turns his attention to that ever popular style - sparkling wine. He asked supermarkets and wine stores across the UK to send him their current fizzes from around the world. He was sent 100 wines, chosen by the retailers, and put them to the test.

WHEREVER YOU FIND GRAPES that will not ripen, you'll find a winery keen to put bubbles into their acid juice. The best of the sparkling wine regions that were born out of thin, mean-flavoured wine is Champagne - a huddle of slim hillsides and cossetted river valleys to the east of Paris, and only a couple of hours drive from Calais.

This is bleak, windswept countryside, most of which could never even half-ripen a grape. But the mesoclimates provided by the twists in the river valleys and the rumplings of the limestone hills protect favoured parcels of land from the wind and rain, and slant the vines southwards towards the precious rays of wan sunlight.

For hundreds of years these Champagne vineyards made thin, still wines that enjoyed sporadic popularity owing to the proximity of the region to Paris and the channel ports. The British discovered that if you shipped barrels of wine in the early spring they retained a brisk sparkle from unfinished fermentation and that a few glasses of this foaming liquid made you dance and sing with unwonted abandon. Methods of bottling the wine to retain its sparkle were rapidly developed - and Champagne as a great, globally popular sparkling wine was born.

The success of Champagne soon spread the idea to other areas that found it difficult to ripen their grapes - Germany, the Loire Valley, Burgundy, and more recently, New York State, Tasmania and New Zealand.

Sadly, thin, sour wine per se isn't enough. Thin, sour fizz can easily result. You need quality grapes, whatever the state of ripeness. Champagne uses the fine Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier varieties. The Loire uses the harsh Chenin; Germany uses Riesling that is often impossibly raw, and Spain uses those viticultural dullards Parellada, Xarel-lo and Macabeu.

The Champagne producers, so jealous of the geographical integrity of their delineated Champagne region in France, spread out across the Americas and the Antipodes, presumably in the quest for profit. However, what they achieved was the creation of the 'New World' style of fizz and, unwittingly, for the first time a genuine rival to their own product.

Well, the two wines that gained three stars at this tasting are both the real thing - Champagne. All the pretenders cluster together on two stars. If I had to say which country seems to be catching on fastest about how to develop its own style, it would be South Africa. Australia, New Zealand and California need to smarten up their act. Most of the rest of the world needs a new act altogether.

THE TASTING

If it's good news you're wanting, fistfuls of recommendations detailing really tasty cheap fizz, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you. I don't have fistfuls to offer.

Indeed, my offerings are meagre in the extreme. A solitary three-star fizz at under £6.00 (the equivalent of $9.00)? Can things be this bad? And only one two-star fizz under six quid? Just one? Surely we can do better than that? No, I'm sorry, we can't.

After the excitement over the smashing quality and affordable pricing of Cabernet (see Oz's Column, December) on our shelves at the moment, comes the painful realisation that most cheap fizz is acid, raw, sulphurous, and likely to scour the enamel off your teeth rather than fill your heart with hope and your eyes with glee. Dear oh dear.

At under £6.00 you won't even get a sniff of the nutty, yeasty, yet vivacious style of true Champagne, though the three-star Chateau Yaldara rosé is a splendid drink. But at up to £11.00 (which equates to $16.50) we should get a fair idea of Champagne styles as well as high quality of a less derivative sort in the non-French wines.

OZ'S CHOICE

These winning wines are the ones that I like best of the 100 wines I was sent, and that I think you will like best.

[Supermarkets and wine stores across the UK were asked to submit their choice of sparkling wines from around the world currently available on their shelves, for Oz's blind tasting. The only criteria specified was that the wines fall into one of two price brackets: under £6.00 and under £11.00.]

(The prices given below are approximate UK retail, with the equivalent in US dollars)

UNDER £11.00

Champagne Brossault NV (£10.00-£11.00/$15.00-$16.50)

Really classy wine with a heady smell of malted milk, yeast and grilled nuts.

Champagne Paul Hérard Demi-sec NV (£11.00/$16.50)

Delicious, full-bodied but not sweet fizz with lovely ripe fruit and a perfume of fresh brioche.

Lindauer Brut, New Zealand (£7.00/$10.50)

1990 Seppelt Salinger, Australia (£10.00/$15.00)

Madeba Brut, South Africa (£6.30/$9.45)

Champagne Louis Raymond NV (£9.00/$13.50)

Mumm Cuvée Napa, California (£9.00/$13.50)

1992 Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel, South Africa (£8.95/$13.40)

Champagne Albert Etienne NV (£10.50/$15.75)

1993 Krone Borealis, South Africa (£7.00/$10.50)

UNDER £6.00 ($9.00)

Chateau Yaldara Rosé, Australia (£6.00/$9.00)

Lovely frothy, creamy pink wine, young and carefree with a delightful aroma of strawberry and crème fraîche.

Yalumba Angas Brut (£6.00/$9.00)

WHAT'S HOT

France: Almost all the top Champagne names are now good to very good, and there's some tasty stuff at the lower price levels. And there are some good Crémants de Bourgogne, but most cheap French fizz is horrid.

Spain: Each year sees fresher and fruitier Cava, especially when a dollop of Chardonnay has been added.

Italy: The semi-sweet Asti Spumantes are delicious. Otherwise Italian fizz is refreshing but expensive.

Germany: Deutscher Sekt, sadly, is usually frightful in the UK, though I've had good stuff in Germany.

Australia: Patchy. Australia is struggling to match booming sales with quality, though the right brand can sometimes still be excellent.

New Zealand: Also suffering a bit of an identity crisis but potentially the best of the New World producers.

California: Generally dependable at fairly high prices.

South Africa: Making great strides in the mid-price fizz market.

England: Well, it's not far from Champagne, and Kent and Sussex have the same chalk soils. Already some excellent examples and surely more to come.

The above article is taken from Oz Clarke's wine column for the Daily Telegraph (London), Saturday December 2, 1995