Pop quiz, hot shot. If I make sparkling wine in Argentina, can I call it champagne? To your friends, or just in general? In general, should I? Should I call it? Should you? No. Yeah, the answer is no. I say no. And why? Because the French are very controlling. Just champagne was, yes, historically could be. But this goes back to my wine police thing. All right. Right, I mean, everything's controlled, especially in the old world, which is Europe. But yes, you're right, they kind of own the term, but you can't call a sparkling wine champagne unless it comes from Champagne, France. Right. So remember, Jeff, that wines from Europe are named from the region that they come from, right? From the region where they're grown and produced. It's kind of a bit difficult if you're beginning in wine because that's a lot of stuff to memorize. Sancerre is a place, the grape that makes Sancerre, the blanc is Sauvignon Blanc, and then you can go from there. So champagne, obviously, it's everybody's favorite. But if you're drinking some $10 kind of whatever, that's good value, but it's from California, it's not champagne. It's not champagne. No. As much as I want to tell my friends, it's definitely not champagne. So we're here talking about everything champagne. I am Kristen and this is Jeff, the gentleman who is in the hot seat tonight. And we're here. Kristen Ellis, who knows everything there is to know about wine. Of course, I'm Jeff Carlin, who doesn't know much about wine. Yeah. I know enough. But you know everything about fashion, let me tell you. Thank you. Your shirt. You can't get over my shirt. I say how it is. I remember that. Back to the fizz. Yeah. So we call it lovingly fizz. All of us wine geeks, that's what we call it. You might recognize more bubbles. You know, I'll say fizz and kind of the wrong crowd. Yeah. And they'll be like, huh? Like, what did you say? I'm like, it's fizz, baby. But no, they don't get it. So anyway, champagne is sort of my thing. I love this stuff. And we have a couple of glasses in front of us. We'll get to the tasting shortly. But notice that I poured you two samples and they're not in a flute. I did. Why do you think that's in a regular glass? I mean, I prefer it this way. Most people in my geek circles do as well. What do you think the benefits are to pouring it in a regular glass? This, and correct me if I'm wrong, the flute was more of a marketing thing. It was something that was developed seemingly to be like, hey, this is a little fancy for toasting or tasting. But in reality, that wine still needs oxygen to really get all its flavors out there. Basically, what it is with the flute, and I can't really speak to the historical impetus of marketing ploid, but the flute does hold some merits for the length and actually the width of the glass, the fact that it's very skinny, small glass that actually holds the dissolved CO2 in longer. So you get more of the effervescence for a longer period of time, which carries the aromas and actually is all the fun part about drinking champagne is the fizz. If you have this larger bowl that allows this aeration to happen on a faster rate, then of course you're going to lose the bubbles and you're going to end up with just kind of weird, in-between-y, still wine kind of thing that I will still drink, just so you know, but it's just not the same. But the merit of the larger glass is that because of the aeration, you get more of the bouquet of the wine, more of the aromatics to actually smell it. So when you guys go home and you buy some champagne, pour some in a flute and pour some in a white wine glass and see which one performs better. I think 99 percent of our listeners are going to find that it's the white wine glass that does and performs better with the champagne. Second pod quiz, hot shot, what are the three grapes in champagne that we normally use? Do you know? I have no idea. Really? Do you know one? I'd say Pinot Noir, but that's just a guess. See, so good. So Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, which now we're just calling Meunier to separate. Then four other outliers that make up maybe, maybe 3% of plantings, maybe. So you're not going to find those too often in your run of the mill champagne. It's made in a special method called the traditional method. The way that we get this dissolved CO2 inside champagne is it undergoes a secondary fermentation. What's special about champagne and other wines made this way, because of course, champagne isn't the only sparkling wine made with this method in the world. It's just the only one that can be called that, of course. The secondary fermentation happens inside each and every bottle. It's made in a special method called the traditional method. So they make a base wine, a blend of the Pinot Noir, Meunier or Chardonnay. After that blend is created, they put that wine in the bottle, and they inject with it yeast and sugar. So another alcoholic fermentation takes place inside each and every bottle. It's crazy. So what you get is an elevation of alcohol and carbon dioxide. It can't escape out of the bottle, so it dissolves inside the liquid. And that's the fun part. That's the fizz when you pop that cork. The bubbly. The bubbly. So that's how it's done. It's really laborious, very expensive, and it takes a long time. So on top of just the method in which it's done, it's also aged for a long time. Statutory minimums for both non-vintage and vintage, which gives it its unique flavor. And you said that Pinot Noir may be one of the grapes they use, but it's a white wine. How do they get that? How do they lose that color? So the pulp inside Pinot Noir is white. The skins are red. In absence of those skins, you're going to make a white wine. So actually in the winery, they're very careful during the pressing process to make sure that they avoid any extraction of color or tannin or phenolics of this way to go ahead and make a white wine from it. The process, the blend, the history, and just the style is what makes champagne so special. So it ages, like I mentioned, for a long time. So we're talking years, right? The minimums that are required for aging champagne, they're far exceeded by the majority of producers in the region. And so the wine picks up what we call autolytic characteristics. Have you heard that word before? Not in a chance. Well, so when the yeast eat the sugar, they're having a good time, they die. And then they are left in the bottle. And those yeast cells, as they decompose in the wine, they create different flavor profiles that are called autolytic flavors or aromas. These are the kind of brioche and biscuit and baked goods that you smell. The longer the wine sits on the leaves, the more you're going to get. So we find the majority of these aromas come from at least 18 months aging in bottle, and they really come about after 5 or 6 years. So your very top-end champagnes are going to be aged far beyond this, sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10 years in the cellar, because they get so much more of this complexity being aged in this way in these dark chalk caves that are many, many meters underneath the ground. And that's the perfect place for champagne to age. It's dark, I mean, it's pitch black, it's about 50 or so degrees, and the wine just sits and ages slow and easy for added complexity as well. Man, champagne, no wonder it's so much fun. So much goes into it. Well, I know. And so if you think about all the steps, A, where it's grown, it's a very difficult place to grow grapes. The soils are very poor. Harvesting must be done by hand. Production, the aging, holding on to it. And the fact that it's, on average, maybe 50 bucks a bottle is a steal. There is no better value out there than champagne. Wow, that's amazing. And that really answers that question, too. People always think champagne, it's always more expensive. It's always got that higher price point. But it is this intricate process that creates that unique thing. Think about all the steps and all the hands that came into place here to get this bottle of champagne on the shelf and on your table. The fact that it can be 40 bucks is crazy. Yeah, I feel guilty now when I put some orange juice in it. So we've got two wines here, two different styles. We've got on your left, we have what is called a grower champagne, or what we call in the business farmer fizz. What it means is this is a grower who has 100 percent control more or less of their vineyards. They are allowed to bring in 5 percent of grapes to make their stock every year, and that's it. So 95 percent of their yield must come from their own vineyards, and they make their own wine. So oftentimes, these grower producers are very small producers, they're artisan, and they make long family history making wine. But they were sort of dominated for so many years by these larger firms, and everyone knows those big names, and these guys are called negotiants, and these large maisons are allowed to then source grapes from all over the region to go into their huge stocks of wine. So they might own their own vineyards, a lot of them definitely do, but they also, to manage their stocks and make the amount of wine which they make, they must bring in grapes from other growers around the region. So grower champagne means that they control it 100 percent basically from start to finish, and these other larger houses or maisons as they're called, they buy grapes from other people. So on the left, we've got, here it is, your grower, this is... My farmer fizz. Your farmer fizz. This is Henri El-Balzin. I love this, this comes from an importer distributor here in Chicago named Robert Hood. I kind of always say if you see the words Robert Hood on the back of the bottles, the importing license, just buy. Oh, good pro tip. Yeah, he, man, he takes so much time out there in the world to pick the best stuff that it's a good value. This is $36.99, beautiful American sense. The one on the right, the is the Negotiation Chef. It's a Blanc de Blanc. It's made from 100% Charnet from a Negotiation called Enrio. So we have Enrio, Baza, and then Enrio. You can easily mess up a wine consultant at Binny's if you're not really pronouncing your brands correctly. Why don't you give it a smell for me and see if you can kind of pull out one or two things. Yeah, I'm definitely getting like a light melon almost, maybe a little bit of like a little bit of honey. I like that. Yeah, I get that. Not a ton and then a little bit of citrus in there too, but I can't place it. I mean, almost like a lemon maybe. Yeah. But not like a vibrant lemon, more like a softer lemon. I don't like a young lemon, if you will. Okay. Like I think of more kind of Meyer lemon, citrus lemon juice, maybe or like lemonade. I get a lot of apple here, but it's very nutty. This is 50% pinot noir and 50% chardonnay. And these grapes are sourced from what is called Grand Cru and Premier Cru villages. If people are familiar with the terms Grand Cru, Premier Cru, and so on, these come generally from places where the Chateau, the brand, the house, the producer, or the vineyard are rated Grand Cru being the top. In Champagne, it's different. They go ahead and they rate the whole village. Oh, jeez. Yep. These guys come from Versailles or Versaillet. Every grape that's pinot is Grand Cru. So it's not just the village, but it's also a specific variety associated with that village. I might grow Meunier or Arbonne in this area, but it's not going to be Grand Cru fruit, maybe just the pinot noir that comes from this area. And that rating comes from, I mean, I'm assuming the soil, the climate. Basically, in a nutshell, the best grapes come from that village. The best possible position for growing that grape in that, right there. Yep. And before the free market took over in Champagne, it was a way for producers and growers to kind of solidify the best prices from these best places with long-term contracts. But a lot of that is not done anymore because it's just not fair. Got you. It's a value, I think, these growers, because there may be, gosh, I would estimate about 500 or so growers in the entire region. But oftentimes, you can get just great value for the money. On a label, if I see that, I mean, how would I differentiate a grower or farmer? Should I look for something? Because this is really good. I mean, this is a little more complex than most Champagne I try. So producers and whatnot, there are different ways that they kind of rate themselves. Then you can tell where it comes from by a certain acronym that's on it. So you'll see in tiny little letters and numbers on the label. Sometimes for producers, it's on the front, sometimes it's on the back, but you'll see the letters RM. If it says RM, that means it comes from a grower. Récolte en manipulant. I mean, that's my craft French for it. Grower, farmer, fist. And if you are looking for a larger house, they are in négociants. Remember, négociants are all-inclusive. They buy wine, they buy grapes, they buy from outside parties. So if you see NM on the label, that's your Moet, your Vove Clicquot. In this case, our Henriot Blanc de Blanc. They are sourcing grapes from other farmers around the region. So RM is farmer, fizz, NM, négociants, larger houses. Cool. Good to know. So here we have our Blanc de Blanc. It's white wine from white grapes. So if you see Blanc de Blanc on the label, you know it's probably 100% Pinot Noir. Go ahead and smell this and tell me how you think it's a little bit different. And maybe go back to the Bazin, that's 50-50 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Definitely smell a difference there, huh? Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's, I feel like this has more of a pronounced bouquet. I mean, I feel like there's a lot more going on there than the other one. It's just, it's not complex, but I feel like there's more effervescence, a little bit more aromatic. Well, when it comes to Chardonnay, and remember we talked about the way it's aged on those dead yeast cells and it picks up those otolytic characteristics, Chardonnay shows them more than any of the three major grapes in champagne. So if you've got 100% Chardonnay, you're going to get more of that complexity based on the aging process simply by the varietal you've chosen to use here. So that's why you kind of get a little bit more of that characteristic here than versus the other. But I find it to be on the palate, very linear, a lot of finesse, but high acid, very crisp and clean, a lot of Meyer lemon, a lot of lemon curd. You don't really get that nuttiness that you get from this other grower's champagne. It's their worlds apart, but both very, very good. Yeah. This is more traditional when I think of champagne. I think of a Vouv or whatever. This is what I imagine. I'm like an old world. If I'm going to do something cool, I like to do an old world wine with a little more tannin quality. Yeah. This grower hits that point for me. I feel like it checks all those boxes. Sure. I like with a wine. Well, it's got 50 percent pinot, so that adds weight and depth, so it sits on the palate a bit heavier. It's a bit rounder, more mouth-filling than you're going to get from a classic blanc to blanc like this. And the on-reel, we have, I think it's 54, 56, 99. It's a bit kind of funny on the going through these different websites. As I study champagne and some of them are fantastic. Obviously, those big Maisons, Moet and Vove, they have their crazy awesome good websites. And you go to these little farmers and you look and it's just like site under construction, you know, and it's just like shows a picture of the label. Geocities, what? Yeah. And you're just like, okay, this is great. You know, true guy, he's out there. You know, working for that. Absolutely. So I did that. What's a better gift than a bottle of champagne? I'd say a $20 gift card to Binny's Beverage Depot. I tell people often, if you want to get me a gift, just give me, even though I work for Binny's, I don't care. Give me a gift card to my own company, because the money's going there anyway. I like to buy wine. If my boyfriend is listening, honey, just a gift card to Binny's. So yeah, folks, you guys can go ahead and write into us, at Binny's Bev on Twitter. And if you pick your question, then we're gonna give you 20 bucks. We use you on the podcast, 20 bucks coming your way. Pretty sweet. All right, so Brooke Walsh, she wrote in, she says, What's a good lineup of wines to have at the table when hosting a holiday dinner with friends or family? Good lineup. And we kind of did this on an episode before, but it was more Thanksgiving. I think it was our nine, episode nine. We look back, yeah, episode nine. So Brooke, if you go ahead and listen to our episode nine, we dedicated a whole 15 to 18 minutes on what to do for the holidays. So peruse that episode, but suffice to say, fizz. Fizz, yeah. Champagne. And it goes to everything. And that's kind of what every wine person is gonna say. I think it's their default answer. I mean, you can wake him up at 3 in the morning in the middle of the night and say, what do I drink? They're just like, just shut up, drink champagne and let me go back to sleep. Yeah, exactly. How did you get in here? Yeah. They're not even worried about that. They're sommelier. They've seen it all. So it's the refreshing acidity. It's the fact that it's cool. It's low in alcohol. You can sip it all day. Very, very versatile with all kinds of food. It does well with light, does well with heavy. In terms of comparing, matching, contrasting, all sorts of ways that we kind of look at food and wine pairing, champagne really, really does it all. So there are bubbles in that matter. If you want Prosecco, you want Cava, sparkling wine from the States, it kind of all feeds into that almighty wine to have on the table. But I like to have different selections all day long. Let's say you're having just that quintessential feast. You've got grandma and crabby, whoever, and funny, whoever. You've got all these flavors represented on the table. So the wine can follow suit, have different flavors of wine, have your reds, your whites, your rosés and everything in between. Just watch for the holidays with this very savory food. We want to watch tannin, we want to watch oak. So favor reds that have a little bit less tannin and don't really go for those big oak wines for this time of year with this kind of food. But the more the merrier, when it comes to wine, just like you have a plethora of dishes, a plethora of wines are going to go well. So, I mean, what you're saying is the perfect line up is a red and a white that's kind of matching flavor profile what you're going to serve, but the topper to it all and the must have is the Fizz. Yeah, exactly. Hey, man, reds, pinot noir, game or Beaujolais, whites, classic sauvier blanc for sure. Things like pinot grigio, pinot gris, un-oaked, clean classic whites are going to do very well, and then Fizz is just going to surmount all of that as the best pairing. The winner of the holiday marathon is champagne. Excellent. So for another episode of Barrel to Bottle with Binny's Beverage Depot, I am your host, Kristen Ellis. And I am, of course, Jeff Carlin. Thanks for coming, Jeff. Thanks for listening, folks. Keep tasting and we'll see you next time.