One of the wine trends from 2011 is the rise of Champagne with American consumers up over 20% from  2010. Another trend was Moscato coming out of nowhere to become nearly an overnight success. This could be in part due to the charms of the lightly sparkling frizzante made from this grape in Italy.

Sparkling wine is one of the most versatile at the table with styles to pair with nearly every dish. From bone dry to sweet, single variety to blend, sparkling wine is something we should all drink more of. And it’s made all over the world using the classic process perfected in  Champagne. In Germany it is known as Sekt, Spain calls it Cava, in Portugal it goes by Espumante, and in Italy Spumante covers a lot of ground. But great sparkling wine is also made in the New World with world class wines coming from California, New Mexico and Australia. I even hear some very nice sparkling wine is being made these days in England, the country who started the style back some 400 years ago.

So the theme of Wine Blogging Wednesday 74 is Value Sparkling Wine.

Just pick a sparkling wine from any appellation, made from any grape but make sure it sells for $25 or less a bottle (€20, £16). This should open up a lot of interesting selections, from Crémant de Bourgogne, to Cava, to California & New Mexico sparkling, sparkling Shiraz, to even well chosen grower Champagne. Just post your notes by February 15th and ping me @winecast on Twitter or email me with your link at winecast (at) gmail (dot) com. I’m hoping we can once again circle the virtual wagons and taste some great bubbly.

Join us.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #73 "Spark" Round-up

Thanks for all who participated in Wine Blogging Wednesday #73 this month. We had a pretty small but empassioned turnout on my theme, "Spark". The intent was to bring our readers back to the time we decided we needed to blog about wine, and write about a wine that inspired you. Most of us are juggling the exponential rise in wine data running past our eyes and ears --pouring in from Twitter, Facebook and traditional media, while trying to find the time to blog. I hope this did spark people's writing fuse and get us all back writing! 

Roddy at Sentir le Bouchon (Smell the Cork) wrote about a wild one!

Bob at 2001 Bottles took the opportunity to recount some of his favorite wine moments that keep him going, including an '82 Grange!

Tim at Winecast was taken in by Mike Grgitch's Zinfandel. Hooked. 

Gwendolyn at Wine Predator got Sparked by one of our own, blogger and vintner, Jeff Stai at Twisted Oak. 

Mike at Undertaking Wine was grabbed by an aromatic Gewürztraminer.  

 David at Cooking Chat was also sparked by Zinfandel. His choice for WBW was a wonder!

 Colin at Grape Fan went back. Way back. To the rosé that started it all.

Chrissie at Awaken Your Senses found the one spot in Argentina that did it. 

My Entry at the Corkdork (below) rekindled my love for Zinfandel.  

 

Let's all keep those Wednesdays free to blog once a month, shall we?

 

January 22, 2012 in Wine Blog Wednesdays, Wine Musing | Permalink