A few weeks ago I wrote about wine myths, including the beliefs that wine is mysterious and that consumers have gone off chardonnay. I asked readers to send me any other myths they'd noticed in circulation, and I had a good response. So, two more today.
Someone suggested "champagne is any kind of sparkling wine" as a myth, and that's a good one to start with.
Around St. Valentine's Day, you often see romantic dinners advertised as including a glass of champagne. I've never checked this out, but I'd bet my last heart-shaped chocolate that not many of these "free" glasses actually hold champagne, even though they might hold sparkling wine.
It's a pretty simple distinction, really: champagne is sparkling wine, but only some sparkling wine is champagne. To qualify as champagne, it must be made in the designated Champagne region of France, and made according to the rules set out for champagne. It has to be made from specific grape varieties, and made according to the approved method, which involves a second fermentation in the bottle -- the actual bottle you buy.
Now there are plenty of sparkling wines made from the designated grape varieties (pinot noir, chardonnay and/or pinot meunier) and made in the approved method. But they're not champagne unless they come from Champagne. It's true that there are some wines on the market called "Canadian Champagne," but that's an abuse of the term that is being phased out. It's like labelling fruit "Australian Florida oranges" or "Spanish California raisins."
The Spanish, who have a big sparkling wine industry, got the idea years ago and started using the name "Cava" for wine made in the same method as champagne. Most sparkling wine producers just call their wines "sparkling wine" (how complicated is that?). And if they want to signal the fact that it's made by the same method as champagne, they no longer print "Méthode Champenoise," but use "Traditional Method" or "Classic Method" instead.
Most do continue to use terms like "Brut" and "Extra Brut" to indicate dryness, as champagne does, but overall there's been a conscious effort to distinguish sparkling wines from champagne. I wish some restaurant wine lists and (probably) restaurants that offer free bubbly at Valentine's would be as careful.
Another myth drawn to my attention is that "high quality wine is expensive." Thank God that's a myth -- or sort of. Overall, I'd say there is a rough correlation between price and quality, because high quality grapes and wine-making are not cheap. But does that mean a $100 wine is five times better than a $20 wine? Even if we could quantify it, I doubt if it would be so in many cases.
While it's true that some of the most memorable wines I've ever tasted were very expensive, I've also tasted very expensive and extremely disappointing plonk. At the other end, there are some outstanding wines under $20 and, in some cases, under $10. Look for many of them in my annual Wine Guide, to be published here Oct. 31.
Four solid reds today, in a nice range of styles.