Sparkling Wine Tasting 2002

Every winter, we do a Champagne and sparkling wine tasting to see what new bubblies might be of interest for the holidays and new year. You can look through the Champagne Tasting Master Index to see the notes from all of these. For 2002, we started with an assortment of 10 Champagnes and sparkling wines, and narrowed it down to six for this tasting. We set aside the other four for a tasting to be done in a few days.

The six bottles of wine we chose to taste together were:
* $18 Chandon Riche sparkling wine, from California
* $19 Argyle sparkling wine, from Oregon
* $32 Pol Roger Champange
* $33 Perrier-Jouet Champagne
* $49 1995 Moet & Chandon Champagne
* $63 1995 Veuve Clicquot Champagne

Read along to learn how we did this tasting, how to do a Champagne tasting of your own (they're great fun!), what sorts of appetizers and desserts we found went really well, and of course what the results of the tasting were!

Planning and Executing the Champagne Tasting
The Appetizers and Desserts
The Results of the Tasting
Images of the Bottles
The Madeline Recipe

Tasting of the Gruets, Sparkling Shiraz and Taittinger

The Basics of Champagne
Methode Champenoise - How Champagne is Made