Champagneandotherwaystosparkle

If you want to bring in 5777 in style, there is a very special champagne with which to do it — Champagne Barons de Rothschild. “This champagne is produced by three Rothschild families, two of them owners of the top French wine Chateaux in Bordeaux,” says Morris Herzog of Royal Wine Europe and Kedem Europe.

Herzog goes on to explain that only five French wine chateaux in Bordeaux have ever been awarded the highest quality classification, the Premier Cru and two of them are owned by Rothschild families.

These are Chateau LafiteRothschild and Chateau Mouton Rothschild — owned by Eric de Rothschild and Baron Philippe de Rothschild respectively. Their brother, Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, owns Chateau Clarke, another top French winery and is the third member of the champagne making team, using grapes grown in Champagne but not by them.

“There were five Rothschild families. Three are mainly in the wine business and decided to make a champagne together. The first release of their non- vintage champagne was made in 2009. Since last year, they also now produce a kosher champagne.” Despite being fairly new to market in terms of champagne houses, this is a top-flight champagne, thanks to the families behind it. “These are the great names in wine. To explain it in non-wine terms, if Ferrari and Lamborghini got together to make a car, it would be an amazing car. It’s the same for this champagne,” says John Weiss, sales director of Kedem Europe. The bottle shows a symbol showing five arrows joined at the base, like a bouquet, which Herzog says symbolises the five Rothschild families. It’s (flashpasteurised) so it can be poured by anyone, not just observant Jews, useful if you are buying it for a function. It retails for £65 to £70 per bottle, so it is perhaps not for everyone’s budget but for a little less, Kedem offers Drappier champagne, also produced in the Champagne region, at £42 to £45 per bottle. The Drappier is still a quality champagne but it is cheaper, as Drappier Carte D’Or Brut it is fermented for only 15 months compared to the four years of the Barons de Rothschild. Also, the Barons de Rothschild is made from different grape varieties from a higher classification of vineyard in the Champagne region. If you are looking for a more price-conscious option, there are other kosher sparkling wines. “Prosecco is the most fashionable and a real crowd pleaser,” says Weiss. It is also made using a cheaper process and so is more affordable.” Both champagne and prosecco start out as ordinary wine to which sugar and yeast is added. For champagne they are put into bottled wine which is then left to ferment for a second time in the bottles. Prosecco wine is fermented in large tanks and then bottled — a cheaper process. Champagne bubbles are finer and rounder than prosecco bubbles. “The trend in prosecco (kosher or non-kosher) tends to be for the end result to be less dry than champagne — semi-dry, more fruity. People associate the fruitiness as being ‘sweet’ but it’s not a sweet wine,” says Bartenura prosecco Weiss. Kedem produces an Italian prosecco, under the Bartenura label, which retails at £14.99.

If you are after the champagne taste without the budget, there is a third option. “The closest sparkling wine to champagne is cava,” says Weiss. Like champagne, it is fermented in the bottle but only for 12 months and the grapes come from Spain and not from the French Champagne region. Kedem’s cava is made by Freixenet and is fermented for 12 months. It retails at £12.99.

A final French option is sparkling white wine — Blanc de Blanc — for £14.99, which is similar to champagne but will not contain grapes from Champagne. There is no need to stick to fizz if it is really not your thing. You will find plenty of sweet tipples to get the year started on the right note. Available for the first time in the UK from Morad Winery is an etrog liqueur — just right for Succot.

“We take the zest from etrogs and leave it in alcohol in tanks for six months to infuse,” says Gershon Bodner, the owner of Morad. Freixenet Excelencia Brut “There is no pith left on it as that would affect the flavour.”

Once the etrog has infused into the alcohol, the liqueur is adjusted to get the taste right. The resulting drink is an attractive greenish yellow. Bodner says it tastes a little like limoncello and is best drunk chilled but not diluted with ice.

“Etrog liqueur is such a unique product and has a certain religious connotation, so cocktails may not feel appropriate but if you were to make cocktails with it, you would use it like limoncello.”

If you are looking for an aperitif or dessert wine for Rosh Hashanah, Morad’s pomegranate wine might do the trick. “It’s 100 per cent pomegranate — freshly squeezed and fermented in steel vats for 12 months. It has to age quite a bit, as pomegranate is quite tart and not to everyone’s taste. What we have managed to do is to retain the flavour of the fruit — which is not easy.”

Bodner recommends drinking the chilled pomegranate wine as it is, or using it for cocktails. “If you like sangria, this is perfect for it,” he says.

Now you can toast the New Year, with a mixture of traditional flavours and new ones. Morad pomegranate wine