Toast it all with bubbly

Champagne, from dry to sweet, is a good friend to food.

By Chris Sherman, Times Staff Writer
Published December 26, 2007

Champagne, it's not just for midnight.

Bubbles are wicked fun at any hour and the liquid in between is delicious at meals, playing well with everything from sushi and risotto to fried chicken and grilled foods. Sparkling wine can stand up to lamb chops or a filet mignon, if not barbecued ribs.

That's good news for folks who don't want to wait until the clock strikes 12 to pop a cork. It's just as celebratory to toast 2008 with some sparkle at a leisurely 7 p.m. dinner, maybe more so.

For your dinner, the menu can be as diverse as the world's sparklers, and go well beyond the touted match of Champagne and caviar.

Sparklers, whether from France, Germany, the United States, Italy, Australia or South Africa, are not all the brusque brut famous as a tart aperitif. Most are made from chardonnay or pinot noir grapes in a wide range of crispness from puckeringly dry to honeyed lushness, delicate or robust, fruity or nutty-yeasty and fresh from the oven.

Tampa's Darlene McGeehan, a bubbly fan who likes Champagne on "any day that ends in y," says sparklers go with virtually every course.

"'With the incredible range, you can have a very dry aperitif and go all the way through to dessert with a demi sec," says McGeehan, a veteran wine saleswoman and now owner of Wine Warehouse on N Dale Mabry Highway with husband Joe.

"And with Champagnes made of pinot noir, they can go with a steak," she adds.

Yet the old image of caviar is useful and not just as a luxury match. Fish eggs have a distinct tang of salt and a squishy consistency, both tough attributes that classic Champagne and its drier cousins easily take on.

All kind of seafood is great with Champagne. Sushi is now a popular match, but salmon, lobster and grilled shrimp like sparkling wine, too.

Fried grouper sandwich? It might work. In the bars of Venice and patios of the Veneto, afternoon snackers love prosecco with fritto misto, a pile of fried calamari and battered seafood.

Beyond that, Champagne goes remarkably well with the salty, oily and smoky. So much so that Champagne will be the wine of choice at the spiciest events at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in February. Perrier-Jouet will host Emeril's Sugar Shack Party and Moet & Chandon will sponsor Bubble Q, where a dozen chefs will smoke, grill and barbecue their dishes.

Often one winery's array of sparkling wines, like blanc de blancs chardonnay, blanc de noirs (pinot noir), and blended cuvees from dry (brut) to sweeter wines (doux, demi sec, cremant and the confusingly named extra dry), is wide enough for an entire banquet.

SideBern's chefs proved that when Hugh Davies, whose family owns Schramsberg Vineyards, maker of California's premier sparklers, came to Tampa this month.

To show the food versatility beyond familiar caviar, salmon and scrambled eggs, sous chef Chad Johnson matched five of six courses to Schramsberg sparklers. It started with a crisp blanc de blanc for king crab with lemon curd, avocado and almonds. Scallops in a cherry-gingerbread crumble got the blanc de noirs while fried sweetbreads matched a heavier rose.

The biggest hit, Johnson says, was lobsterlike monkfish with prosciutto with a hazelnut risotto that matched the winery's top-dollar J. Schram, which is creamy and toasty after six years of aging on the yeast. A ginger pear dessert punched up with black pepper caramel embraced a thick cremant.

Only for the final meat plate, wild boar with endive and blackberry, did the chefs turned to a cabernet sauvignon, also by Schramsberg. They could have poured rose if they had toned down the sauce and spice on the meat.

"The beauty of a sparkling wine is that it's a palate cleanser, so you can go with richer, creamier dishes," says Johnson.

At Etoile, the grand restaurant at Domaine Chandon winery in Napa Valley, sparklers are recommended with almost every dish. The menu underscores that bubbly has a big crowd of friends: Asian dishes, fish, mushrooms, nuts, creamy risottos, bacon, oysters, duck, quail and an orchard of fruits.

Start with bruts and drier wines for more delicate flavors, citrus fruits and seafood. Move up to blanc de noirs, vintage and rose for stouter fare with stronger flavors and creamier texture. Go with sweeter wines for sweets.

The dicey foods are tomatoes, blue cheese and chocolate, but those aren't completely off limits.

And those sparkling times when there's no meal in sight? "You're going to laugh at this," Champagne fan McGeehan says, "I love popcorn."

She's right. Pretzels, nuts and potato chips are almost as good.

Chris Sherman can be reached at csherman@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8585.

BUYING CHAMPAGNE

What to look for

Let's be sensible ($15 or less)

Put sparkle in your day and get change back from a $20, even a tenspot, if you shop around for American, Spanish, Australian sparkers and Italian proseccos and moscatos. Our American favorites are Argyle, Pacific Echo and Domaine Ste. Michelle brut; the best bargains from Spain are Cristallino, Marques Gelida and Seguras Viuda; from Italy look for Rotari, Michele Chiarlo and Mionetto; from Australia, Seaview.

It's a holiday! (up to $30)

Want more than the everyday? Buy better American and Italian brands and hunt sales on the French. Our favorite Yanks are Schramsberg, Roederer Estate, J, Iron Horse and Gloria Ferrer. French value: Montaudon and Piper-Heidsieck extra dry.

Congratulations! (up to $45)

The mainline non-vintage bruts from the grand marques cost a few bucks more. It's worth it for Gosset, Taittinger, Drappier, Perrier-Jouet, Dom Ruinart, Bollinger and Veuve Cliquot. At the top, you'll find a few riches, J. Schram from California and French roses and demi-secs. Like Moet's Nectar Imperial.

Go for it! (up to $90)

This is splurge territory and good value for the finest wines without big-shot buzz. Treat yourself to non-vintage Krug, and specialties like Bollinger's special cuvee Clicquot rose, and Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle with bigger body and more distinct character, but still short of the showstopper top of the line.

I don't care what it costs ($90 and up)

In a glass by themselves, these are wines at show-off prices. Add Armand de Brignac to the Cristal and Dom Perignon category. For big money, if we had it, the best deals are closer to $100 than $300, with great flavor for Feuillatte Palme d'Or and the prime cuvees of Clicquot, Bollinger and Krug.

Chris Sherman

[Last modified December 21, 2007, 16:02:07]