Sparkling wines fit for any occasion

Break out the bubbles for a fine starter or enjoy food-friendly choices with a meal

I am an unabashed fan of sparkling wines in all their various incarnations and I don’t really need any sort of occasion — other than standard thirstiness — to open a bottle. It is a rare gathering that doesn’t start with bubbles of some fashion and I am quite happy to drink them with a meal if they are well-suited to food, and many are. There are effectively two main ways to produce sparking wines; one, the most common and famously associated with Champagne (known as traditional method outside of Champagne), is to induce a second fermentation in the bottle by adding yeast after the initial fermentation takes place in a tank. The other is the tank method whereby the same process is done under pressure in a large tank, as is the case with most Prosecco, for example. The tank method is very costeffective but it does not create the complexity associated with (most) of the wines fermented in bottle.

There have been some great additions to the sparkling wine world in Alberta and I thought we would have a look at few of the noteworthy ones.

Looking for wine in Alberta? Go to www.liquorconnect.com

Geoff Last is a long-time Calgary wine merchant, writer and broadcaster and a regular contributor to City Palate Magazine and other publications. He instructs on food and wine at the Cookbook Company Cooks and was recently awarded a fellowship to the Symposium of Professional Wine Writers based in Napa Valley.