for people who love champagne and all things sparkling!

Tag: Champagne Christmas

What to serve for a bubbly Christmas!

I am often asked ‘What is my favourite champagne?’, or at our annual The Bubbles Festivals, ‘What is my favourite sparkling wine on our tasting list?’  I try to avoid answering, and sometimes I joke that I answer like a politician – meaning I don’t answer the question! Or liken it to having to name a favourite child.  I love so many different champagnes and sparkling wines and what I choose depends on a range of factors – the occasion, the budget, the weather, what food I’m serving, what do I feel like, who am I drinking it with …?

Everyone’s palate is different, so choosing favourites is entirely subjective. One of my favourite things to do is find new bubbly discoveries, learn from winemakers, and share my knowledge on champagne and sparkling wine. It’s why I created The Bubbles Review and why I include a brief introduction at The Bubbles Festivals, and why I created the Bubbly Appreciation Course and recently, our popular The Bubbles Reviewers Club, where we get to share how different sparklings are created, and all of the things that influence a tasting experience so you can truly appreciate what you’re drinking and understand why you like some sparkling wines more than others.

Choosing bubbly for Christmas is subjective too, and your choices will depend on what sort of Christmas you’re planning? A full sit-down lunch or dinner with a hot meal? Maybe it’s a BBQ, or cold platters of seafood, charcuterie, and salads.

A lot of people tell me they love sparkling reds, especially for Christmas. You may have seen in our blog ‘Big, bold and Bubbly’, and in recent emails and virtual tastings, that I’m not a fan of sparkling reds, but I do appreciate the history of this in Australian sparkling wine, and appreciate that with the right food match it can be a great experience.

We’ve also recently featured some quite different varietals for our The Bubbles Reviewers Club members and our giveaways.  The sparkling tempranillo from Sutherland Estate has been such a hit. The sparkling Roussanne we shared from George’s Folly is so versatile with food matches, as a charmat method it has some lightness on the palate, but also some depth and complexity from the wine making and grape variety.  You could easily serve this throughout the day.

We’ve had so many lovely Aussie sparklings work with us this year, from Tasmania to the Adelaide Hills, to the Hunter, King, Yarra, Barossa, and Swan Valleys.

We’ve featured Italian sparklings and even a sparkling sake!

For champagne lovers we’ve had some wonderful champagnes this year too, some at The Bubbles Festivals as well as giveaways and The Bubbles Reviewers Club partners.  I highly recommend all of them to you at this special time of year. Champagne is not just for pre-meal – you can easily serve champagne throughout the entire menu. I totally recommend staying with bubbles all day! I love a Blanc de Blancs with seafood and look for blends of the ‘holy trilogy’ of sparkling grapes – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier– for more versatility, and Blanc de Noirs and Rosés to match with more robust flavours.  

A family tradition for me is pancakes and champagne on Christmas morning. We enjoy our family meal in the evening, we often have family stay over on Christmas Night, and a Boxing Day tradition is to ‘back it up’ the following day with a champagne breakfast with platters created from lovely festive leftovers.

You may have noticed on our socials recently that the one thing that I refuse to serve is Mimosas! Fine if you want to use a spritzer style sparkling made in the charmat (or even carbonation) method, which are designed to be a mixer like a Prosecco, but please never add orange juice to a beautiful champagne!  Champagne takes years to make, and as you might imagine, I certainly don’t recommend spoiling it by adding a juice! Orange juice is very sweet, you’re not fooling anyone by trying to pretend you’re not drinking bubbles for breakfast by adding a breakfast juice!

Whatever I’m serving, I love sharing the stories behind the wine and always include an introduction to what I’m pouring for my Christmas Day guests.  This year choose something different to surprise and delight your guests.

The most important thing is not to stress, the festive season should be lots of bubbly fun! 

A big shout out to our The Bubbles Festival, The Bubbles Reviewers Club, and giveaway partners in 2023! There were some reliable bubbly favourites and some delightful new sparkling discoveries.  You can see the links to their websites (some still with promo codes) here:

International

Aussie Sparkling

RIEDEL – The Wine Glass Company

You may also like these other blogs:

Champagne for the holiday season

Christmas in Champagne

Why is champagne so expensive

Drinking champagne on a budget

Why that is not a champagne you’re drinking

How to choose the right glassware for your bubbles

Big bold and bubbly!

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Natalie Pickett is the Founder of The Bubbles Review which is for people who like champagne and other bubbles, written by people who have a love of all things sparkling! At The Bubbles Review, we like to debunk some myths, make the art of drinking champagne accessible, explore bubbly regions and champagne bars, and provide events for you to join us and indulge.

Christmas in Champagne

As is the custom in the cities of France, a Christmas market is established in the centre of Reims, with 145 stalls in little chalets in the square surrounding the famous Notre Dame cathedral.  Tourists and locals wander tasting traditional products, drinking wine or cidre chaud (hot cider) and enjoying the Christmas lights.

In Epernay, the historic capital of Champagne, les Habits de Lumière happens with a three day festival on the second weekend of December. Every Champagne House on the Avenue de Champagne opens its gates to the public and light shows are projected on the facades of Moët & Chandon, Perrier-Jouët, Pol Roger, de Venoge and more. The event includes illuminations, projections, dazzling sound and light shows, champagne and gourmet food tastings, and finishes with a vintage car display on the Sunday.

Picture credit – Habits de Lumiere

Picture credit – Habits de Lumiere
De Lumiere at Perrier-Jouët

?#habitsdelumiere #epernay

Posted by Habits de Lumière Epernay on Friday, December 8, 2017

Aside from celebrations, the period before Christmas is very busy for Champagne Houses and growers! Indeed, they receive last minute orders from their customers: wine shops and private individuals. It is a key moment in terms of sales for the whole of Champagne.

In the winery, some start tasting the vins clairs (still wines from last harvest that are in vats or barrels) and will decide later of the assemblages (blends). This year there is great excitement as the Vintage of 2018 is very promising!

In the vineyards, everything is so quiet although some growers may begin to prune, pruning will be much more intense in the first months of 2019, before spring.

But I am sure you wonder how we celebrate Christmas?!  Here is a typical lunch or dinner paired with champagne or wine that we enjoy every year! I will share with you the best match between each dish and a type of champagne.

Christmas lunch menu

Oysters with a very low dosage Blanc de Blancs (Extra-Brut)

Smoked salmon with a standard Brut champagne (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Meunier in equal parts)

Foie Gras with a Vintage Brut Champagne (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in equal parts)

Turkey and chestnuts with a pure Pinot Noir champagne (Blanc de Noirs)

Cheeses, let’s have a break and enjoy some red wines! Why not a red Coteaux Champenois, which is a still wine produced in the Champagne region. Champagne is not only about bubbles! If you like blue cheese (Roquefort, Fourme d’Ambert), try some Ratafia, which is a sweet liqueur produced by many Champagne houses.

Bûche de Noël (yule log) pairs nicely with a demi-sec champagne.  Demi sec, although it translates to half dry, is actually the term for a sweet champagne.

Merry Christmas – Joyeux Noël to you!

Sébastien Lebon was born, raised and continues to live and work in Champagne. Lucky him!  He has worked in a range of roles for some of the big champagne houses as well as grower champagnes. His favourite champagne quote is by Sir Winston Churchill: “Magnum is the best size for two gentlemen to share over lunch, especially if one of them is not drinking.”

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