What a heady week! Celebrations and commiserations continue, which for wine lovers is a great excuse to begin the holiday season early. And that means bubbles.
This week, of course, was all about American sparkling wine, and I turned to one of my perennial favorites: Scharffenberger Brut from Mendocino County in northern California. This wine, which sells at about $20 full retail and is frequently on sale for less, hits the sweet spot between quality and value.
Is it America's best bubbly? No. Put it in a lineup and I'd prefer any cuvée from Iron Horse, Domaine Carneros or Schramsberg. But those can be considerably more expensive and hard to find.
Is it the cheapest American bubbly worth drinking? No. But Scharffenberger plays well with the big boys, and in hard economic times when we might look twice at price, it is a worthy choice.
(Note to the winery: TypePad doesn't allow bitmaps. Please put your labels on your site as jpegs!)
