Preparing to toast the new year with bottles of bubbly
%{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”” data-embed-element=”aside” ]}%
%{[ data-embed-type=”image” data-embed-id=”” data-embed-element=”aside” ]}%
Late on a Thursday night at Ça Va, as trumpeter Hermon Merhari and pianist Ryan Lee fill the small bar with lively jazz versions of Christmas tunes, I corner Jim Coley. The wine director for Gomer’s in midtown is also a partner at this Westport Champagne bar, and it takes relatively little — that is, approximately one splash of a special, off-the-menu rosé champagne he has brought for the evening — to get him talking about a wine region that he loves.
“Champagne is one of my favorite things in the world,” he tells me. “It’s a joyful beverage. It’s one of those that suits any mood: You can be in a good mood and it’ll accentuate it, or you can be in a bad mood and it’ll lift you up. It’s great on its own. It’s food-friendly. It refreshes. It does pretty much everything you want it to do, beveragewise.”
I observe the mostly full bar and the smattering of tables and note the palpable cheer in the air — likely thanks to the preholiday buzz. (In January, when restaurants tend to struggle, I imagine Coley popping bottles on dreary days.) On New Year’s Eve, the most important day of the year for a champagne bar, Coley expects the vibe to be even more festive. Which is kind of funny, he says to me offhandedly, for a drink that was really a “happy accident.”
“No one wanted bubbly wine,” he says. In the 16th century, wine producers in the northern region of Champagne, in France, would bottle and cellar their vintages, but the cold temperatures slowed the sugars in the wine so much that the fermentation process often halted. When temperatures warmed in the spring, a secondary fermentation began in the bottle.
“At that time, the glass wasn’t high-quality, and no one could really control the fermentation process,” Coley says. “Bottles would be exploding in the cellar. They probably lost one out of three bottles of wine for several years until they finally figured out what was going on in the bottle in the 19th century. By then, champagne was becoming something people wanted.”
It wasn’t such a huge jump, Coley says, from drinking champagne on special occasions to touting it as the customary drink for New Year’s Eve.
“In the 19th century, champagne houses were really good at branding it as kind of a celebratory, joyous beverage,” he explains. “If you look at ads from the mid- to late 19th century, champagne was featured as something where people were in a merry situation, and it was like, ‘Oh, here’s champagne!’ Which, of course, lent easily to New Year’s, when people were celebrating the ‘out with the old, in with the new.'”
For Caitlin Corcoran, Ça Va’s general manager, a big part of the mission is in getting people to think of champagne as an everyday beverage rather than something strictly for celebrations. “But,” she says, “if you’re not going to pop open a bottle of champagne on New Year’s Eve, then when are you going to do it?”
To prepare, I taste three sparkling options that Corcoran pours at Ça Va — starting with Le Mesnil Cuvee Sublime, a rosé champagne.
“Le Mesnil is a grand cru village in Champagne, which is a top-tier certification — there is nothing higher than a grand cru champagne,” Corcoran says. “This rosé is a blanc de blanc, which usually means all white grapes, but in this case it’s 90 percent chardonnay with just 10 percent of pinot noir added for color. And it’s a brut, which means it’s the driest form of champagne.”
As Corcoran talks tasting notes — croissant, strawberry jam — I take a sip. This is crisp and dry and light, but there’s an elegance to the ruby-red liquid that isn’t common in the value-priced sparkling wines. There are definitely some yeasty notes — Corcoran’s “croissant” — but I get fresh berries, too, and a hint of cream, despite the absence of sweetness. At $72 a bottle, it’s not a bad deal.
[page]
Next up is the Peillot Bugey Montagnieu Brut, from Savoie in France. This is Corcoran’s midlevel pick, made with chardonnay and two grapes native to eastern France, Altesse and Mondeuse, which don’t appear frequently in sparkling wine.
“The Bugey has this lovely, earthy, rugged characteristic,” she says. “The vineyard that it’s grown in is on a very steep incline, and the soil is literally just rocks. I think you get that in the wine itself, with this heavy mineral quality. I think it’s fairly close to what people think champagne tastes like, but it’s not from Champagne, so it doesn’t have that sticker price — we sell it here for $39 a bottle — but it still has a lot of those really great earthy, dry qualities that people are going for.”
For the final selection, we jump borders for a bottle of Segura Viudas Brut Cava, from Spain.
“When people can’t afford champagne, they sometimes immediately go to prosecco, which is fine,” Corcoran says, “but if you’re looking for something a little more dry and a little closer to champagne, cava is where it’s at. It’s done in the same fermentation method as champagne, so the bubbles are going to be closer to the size of the bubbles that you get out of a champagne bottle, and it’s going to be drier, unlike proseccos, which tend to be sweeter.”
I sip and find none of the bread notes of the Le Mesnil Cuvee Sublime but, instead, a charming crispness. Especially for the money — it goes for $29 a bottle here — it’s a fine dose of bubbles.
But Corcoran says price isn’t the thing anyway.
“I think it’s really about the people you open the bottle with,” she says, pouring another round of the Sublime. “Usually, you’re not going to pop a bottle with some Joe Schmo. You’re going to toast your friends or your partner or something good that happened. Now, we want people to feel like that toast can happen on any day, and make an ordinary day an occasion and a memory. And to be honest, without champagne, New Year’s Eve might just be an ordinary day, too.”
If you’re buying on your own for New Year’s Eve, you’ve got a few options at these local shops.
HIGH-END
Argyle Extended Tirage Brut 2005, Willamette Valley, Oregon — $72 at Underdog Wine Co.
This is a pinot noir-heavy cuvée that is aged on its lees for 10 years and produced only in the best vintages. It’s rich and full and incredibly complex. You’ll taste spiced pear, shortbread, lemon peel and buttered pastry.
— Ryan Sciara
Jacquesson Cuvee 738 Extra Brut — $75.99 at Gomer’s Midtown
This is an old champagne house that is as cutting-edge as any grower. They are all about quality and even stopped making special wines so they could focus on making the best nonvintage they could. This is Extra Brut, so very, very dry, but there’s the yeast and layering of champagne to go with an almost digital quality to its flavors.
— Jim Coley
MIDLEVEL
Ca’ del Bosco Franciacorta Cuvée Prestige, Lombardia, Italy — $36 at Underdog Wine Co.
A sleeper that rivals many true champagnes two to three times its price. You’ll taste baked apple, lemon curd, smoky vanilla and honey.
— R.S.
Pierre Gerbais Grains de Celles Extra Brut — $39.99 at Gomer’s Midtown
This hails from the southern part of Champagne, so very different soils. It’s made mostly of the two red grapes, pinot noir and Meunier, but has great minerality and Meyer lemon-intensity to its flavors.
— J.C.
VALUE
Domaine Collin Cremant de Limoux Brut — $14.59 at Gomer’s Midtown
From the region where sparkling wine likely originated and one of the only estate-bottled wines, lemon and lime and a little floral.
— J.C.
Saint-Hilaire Brut 2013 Blanquette de Limoux, France — $13 at Underdog Wine Co.
This is France’s oldest sparkling wine, dating back four and a half centuries. It’s a whole lot of wine for a little bit of money. You’ll taste poached pear, peach, creamy lime and toast.
— R.S.
If oysters and only oysters will do for NYE, Natalie Gallagher understands.
Looking to book your last restaurant meal of 2015? Try these places, writes Charles Ferruzza.
Among the musicians ready to play out 2015 for you are these acts.
Peeking out the morning after for food and hair-of-the-dog? Consider these places, says Charles Ferruzza.
