Canada vs. The World: Sparkling Wine

Champagne and Fried Chicken

Jun 10, 2025

We’ll get this out of the way first: only sparkling wine from Champagne, France can be called Champagne. Chances are if you’re reading this you already know that. But there was a time—in the ‘70s and ‘80s, mostly in California—that wines used terms like Chablis, Burgundy, and Champagne to denote a style of wine, but they were eventually forbidden from doing so.

But for some reason, (some) people still call all sparkling wine Champagne (and I even slipped up once in the video below.)

What is Sparkling Wine?

Sparkling wine starts as still wine (either white, rosé, or red) and then, through the addition of sugar and yeast, goes through a secondary fermentation, producing CO₂ (carbon dioxide bubbles.) There are different methods used to achieve this, the two most common being in the bottle or in a tank.

Bottle fermentation is also called “traditional method” or “méthode champenoise,”which is how Champagne is made. [Side note: It’s interesting to note that still wine is also made in Champagne, which has the AOC designation of Côteaux Champenois.] While all Champagne is made in the traditional method, still wines from many other regions and countries use this method to make sparkling wine. Two examples would be Cava (from Spain) and Crémant (from other regions in France.) The interesting thing about Crémant is that even though it’s made in France, it still can’t be called Champagne because it doesn’t come from the Champagne region, even if it uses exactly the same grapes, and in the case of Crémant de Bourgogne, it comes from the region surrounding Champagne! French wine laws are very strict.

The tank fermentation method is also called the Charmat method, which is how most Prosecco is made. As the name would suggest, the second fermentation happens in a large, sealed tank prior to bottling.

Grapes Used in Sparkling Wine

Sparkling wine can be made from pretty much any grape, and as mentioned above, can be white, rosé, or even red. It can be dry (e.g., Brut, Extra Brut, or zero dosage) or sweet (Sec, Demi-sec, Asti, etc.)

In Champagne, the only grapes that can be used are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. Each winemaker will decide which grape(s) they want to use, in which proportions, and that can vary from year to year, depending on how the grapes develop. Most of the time in Champagne wines made in multiple years are blended together to achieve a product that is consistent from year to year. These are called “non-vintage” wines, so you won’t see a year on the bottle. Sometimes, the quality of the grapes in a particular year are so good that the winemaker will declare a vintage year, using only grapes from that year’s harvest, and the year will be printed on the label.

In most other regions around the world the choice of grapes is not usually as strictly controlled, so it would be the winemaker’s choice as to which grape(s) to use. For example, I’ve had sparkling Riesling (Broken Stone Exuberance, Prince Edward County is fantastic) and Lambrusco, an Italian red grape made into a sweet sparkling wine.

Blanc de blancs (white from whites) refers to a sparkling wine that is made with 100% white grapes (in Champagne, that would be Chardonnay.)

Blanc de noirs (white from black) refers to a sparkling wine that is made with 100% black grapes (in Champagne that would be Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier.)

There is so much more to write and to learn about sparkling wine (a book I read and loved is called “Press For Champagne” by Christopher S. Ruhland, which I highly recommend) but I just wanted to give the basics so that we’re all on the same page going into this tasting.

The Contenders

It’s really hard to compare sparkling wine from any other country or region against Champagne, but that’s what I set out to do. My goal was to match the styles in terms of which grape(s) were used and the level of residual sugar since (for me) that’s a major factor in my tasting preference. Unfortunately, due to limited availability at my local LCBO, I had to choose between matching the grapes or matching the sugar content, and I chose the former.

You can see that the Rémi Leroy (R) is so very slightly deeper gold than the Cuvée Catharine (L).

Henry of Pelham, Cuvée Catharine, “Carte Blanche,” Estate Blanc de Blancs, 2017, Short Hills Bench (Niagara, ON), 7g/L RS, $49.95
Rémi Leroy Blanc de Blancs, Champagne 2015, 2g/L RS, $105.75

Given that she’s the sparkling wine afficionado, I invited Cousin Jano over to do the tasting with me. I lured her with the promise of some great sparkling wine and home-made fried chicken (more on that at the end.) Here’s the video of our tasting if you want to watch, but I’m also summarizing our discussion here, so excuse any repetitions.

[Holy crap, YouTube, could you have picked a worse screen shot for this video??]

We tasted the Cuvée Catharine “Carte Blanche” first. Henry of Pelham has several sparkling wines in their portfolio, the most popular being the Cuvée Catharine Brut ($29.95) and the Cuvée Catharine Rosé Brut ($29.95) which are both widely available (and delicious.) This one, made from 100% Chardonnay grapes (hence the “blanc de blancs” on the label) is from the 2017 vintage, with hand-picked fruit from the best of their estate-grown vineyards. You can tell this wine is made with care. Pale gold in colour, with very fine bubbles, it had lovely bready aromas on the nose, along with the characteristic lemon notes of a cool climate Chardonnay. On the palate, the bubbles were fine and delicate, just how you want them to be. While the wine is dry, you do get just a hint of sweetness when it first hits your tongue, helping to bring out the lemony fruit flavours. I loved this wine, and it’s definitely not one for making mimosas!

The Rémi Leroy was not a Champagne I was familiar with. My budget usually only allows for bottles in the $80 range (mostly because I’m not a huge lover of sparkling wine) so at over $100, this is not a bottle I would normally have bought. Lucky for me, this bottle was on sale ($20 off) and I had some Aeroplan points available, so it only cost me $55. It also was pale gold in colour with those fine bubbles you expect from Champagne. In comparison to the Cuvée Catharine, it was just a tiny bit deeper in colour. On the nose, this one was a bit more complex, especially as it warmed up a bit. On the palate, it was bone dry, again with those primary flavours of lemon. As Cousin Jano noted after we’d let it warm up for a bit, an aroma and taste of dried apples started to come through. This wine was lovely (Jano preferred this one) though it was drier than I tend to prefer in a sparkling wine.

I posted my final verdict to Instagram, which you can see here:

noreciperequired.ca

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Fried Chicken

What’s the deal with Fried Chicken and Champagne? Maybe it’s the High/Low feeling, or maybe it’s just that the richness of the fried chicken helps bring out the flavours in the wine. Regardless, we had to jump on the trend.

I can’t remember the last time I made fried chicken (and it was kinda mid, to be honest,) so I broke out the cookbook to find one that was truly epic. I chose the Buttermilk Brined Southern Fried Chicken recipe from Serious Eats. Oftentimes when I make something from a cookbook, I don’t always stick to the recipe, but this time I did. This was the best fried chicken I have ever had, hands down. Kenji López-Alt does all the hard science-y work to perfect the recipe so that we don’t have to. Just follow his recipe for perfect fried chicken. For me, the total brining time was a little over 24 hours. And I didn’t even buy any special kind of chicken, just what was on sale for about $7 for an entire bird. I cut it up myself, but you don’t have to. Just buy whatever chicken pieces you like (though I’m not sure how it would turn out with skinless chicken—give it a try and let me know.)

No Recipe Required with Lesley Taylor

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