Yes, budget bubbles can sink premium fizz

They’re the champagnes costing as little as £9.99 a bottle — yet aren’t supermarket own brands. But how DO they compare to the posh labels?

Many of us will not be able to celebrate new year’s Eve in the way we’d hoped. yet come midnight we will still want to pop a bottle or two of champagne to usher in — let’s hope — a far better 2021.

With the exception of the French, who make it, no nation drinks as much champagne as the UK — we down around 27 million bottles a year.

Which explains why supermarkets have a raft of deals, with plenty of bottles for £18 or less. Rather than being part of own-brand ranges, these bargains are usually made exclusively for the shops by large champagne houses and have the associated labels of upmarket brands, disguising the fact you’ve scrimped on a cheaper version.

Meanwhile, most of the famous brands cost around £40 a bottle. So whether you want to splash the cash on fancy fizz or opt for bargain bubbles, just how much difference is there?

‘If you sip Bollinger or Pol Roger alongside a supermarket bottle, you’ll see they are a different class of champagne,’ says Helen McGinn, author of The Knackered Mother’s Wine Guide.

‘With champagne, it’s all about the balance of freshness and delicate flavours. Whether you are prepared to pay all that extra money is up to you.’ SoME

experts, however, point out that the big names charge a mark-up for their reputation. ‘With the likes of Pol Roger you are obviously paying a lot for the name,’ says adam Lechmere, wine writer and editor-at-large at Club oenologique. ‘The economics of luxury goods is they have to be priced at a certain level. It’s like a Gucci handbag.’

you’d expect a Gucci bag to be better stitched than a High Street one. yet when you consider that some budget bottles are made by bigname champagne houses, it can feel harder to see the difference.

For instance, the Comte de Senneval at Lidl, Charles de Villers at Morrisons, and Etienne Dumont at Sainsbury’s are all made by Maison Burtin, part of the company that makes top-notch Lanson.

The prestige champagne houses tend to mature their wine for far longer than the budget versions. But the time it takes to produce is not the only reason why champagne can be expensive.

as well as duty and VaT, ‘ you need to add in the cost of glass, transportation and retailer’s markup’, says McGinn. So at the very cheap end, the liquid inside is not worth very much.

yet the proof, as they say, is in the drinking. So how do the budget bottles fare against their dearer rivals? HARRY WALLOP put some non-vintage and ‘Brut’ (or dry) fizzes to the test.