Champagne May Be in Short Supply—but You Can Still Get Your Bubbly
Bad news for Champagne fans—there may be a shortage of your favorite festive fizz, just as we're entering prime season for celebrating with sparkling wine. You can blame it all on a decrease in French Champagne production due to the pandemic and some crop-damaging weather, coupled with the same supply chain woes that have created hiccups in your holiday shopping. And the import slowdown may impact other favorite sparkling wines, like Cava from Spain and prosecco from Italy, creating a gap in the market.
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Fortunately, with a little strategizing, you can still get your sparkle on this holiday season. Try these tips to make sure there's plenty of bubbly for toasting from Thanksgiving all the way into 2022.
Shop for your sparkling wine early
The early bird gets the worm—or in this case, the perfect sparkling wine for your holiday toasting. This might be the year to stock up a little on your favorites, well in advance of New Year's Eve. "Sparkling wines have a fairly long shelf life—if you have a cool, dark place to keep them, it wouldn't hurt to stock up," says Adam Edmonsond, CSW, senior sommelier at The Sommelier Company.
Think domestic
Get around the sticky import issues with something homegrown. "There are certainly great domestic sparkling wines to explore—including some that are produced in California by famous Champagne houses," Edmondsond says. "Domaine Carneros, owned by Taittinger, Mumm Napa, and Roederer Estate are three examples that are widely available."
"For other domestic sparkling wines, try cool-weather regions," Edmondsond says. He recommends wines from Los Carneros, which straddles the southern parts of Sonoma and Napa counties; the Sonoma Coast along the Pacific Ocean; and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. "Oregon is now a strong global contender as far as pinot noir and chardonnay are concerned, both grapes which are used in sparkling wines," Edmondsond says.
For east coast wines, Edmondsond recommends sparkling wines from Virginia or the Finger Lakes area in New York.
Opt for less famous sparklers
If your heart's set on an international wine, opting for lesser-known sparkling wine types could yield a tasty substitute that may have more supply available. "I often recommend the wines from one of the world's finest little-known places for sparkling wine, Franciacorta in the northern Italian region of Lombardy," Edmondsond says. "Franciacorta wines were the first in Italy to be required by appellation regulations to be made using the same traditional method as Champagne. You would have to be quite experienced to taste the differences."
If you want to keep it French, Edmondsond recommends opting for sparkling wine from Alsace (labeled Cremant d'Alsace) wines from Limoux in the Languedoc region, or Vouvray in the Loire Valley.
