I recently had the fortune to receive a complimentary tasting sample of three bottles of Cava, the world’s second-most famous sparkling wine. Catalonia, that feisty, autonomous region around Barcelona, produces the vast majority of it, and two companies, Codorníu and Freixenet, dominate this production.

Ordinarily, I’m biased towards the little guy, but in this instance, it seems wiser to go with the big boys. According to The Oxford Companion to Wine, “The best Cavas tend to be produced by the larger firms who control their own vinification rather than those producers who buy in ready-made base wine from one of the large but often outdated co-operatives that continue to flourish all over Cataluña.” (“Cataluña” is the Spanish spelling, “Catalonia” is the English spelling, and you may also encounter “Catalunya,” the Catalan spelling.)

Freixenet (pronounced “Fresh-eh-net”) Cava may not seem especially unusual or obscure, but these three Cavas were all pink. Rosé Cava really came into its own only in the late 1990s, perhaps hindered until then by Cava traditionalists who “…for some bizarre reason always considered black grapes in a white Cava to be sacrilegious,” according to The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia goes on to describe how Manuel Duran, then chairman of Freixenet, experimented with black Spanish varieties, producing a notable Monastrell-Xarel·lo sparkler in 1997.

I looked forward to seeing what Freixenet had been up to since then, and organized a little party to find out.

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When I arrived at Gourmet Chicago, I made a beeline for the Pritzker Pavilion’s Choral Room where Roederer Estate was hosting a sparking wine seminar. Here, no line of people clogged the door — I could just walk right in and take a seat behind four empty glasses filled with anticipation.

I’ve had tasty California sparklers before, but I never thought they really compared with true Champagne. Our presenter, Xavier Barlier, agreed, noting that “because the climate of California is not so severe, the [sparkling] wines don’t achieve the finesse of Champagne.”

Well, the wines we sampled seemed pretty darn tasty to me. I was surprised to see them poured into white wine glasses instead of the more traditional flutes. Barlier liked the elegant look of flutes, but he called them “straight jackets,” arguing that the sparkling wine doesn’t have room to expand and express all of its aromas and flavors. “Better to use Chardonnay glasses,” he advised.

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While planning the order of our upcoming wedding reception, we ran into trouble figuring out who we wanted to toast and when. It can get a little complicated, matching differing family structures and sets of friends. We needed a guide.

I have a set of vintage etiquette books, including the incomparable Emily Post’s Etiquette, but we thought Letitia Baldridge’s Complete Guide to the New Manners for the 90’s would be more helpful in this case. She offered very clear, direct advice, as she always does. So should you find yourself wondering who should toast and in what order, here is the official list:

The best man toasts the bride.

The groom toasts the bride.

The bride toasts her groom.

The father of the bride toasts the couple.

The bride toasts her groom’s parents.

The groom toasts his bride’s parents.

The matron or maid of honor toasts the couple.

The father of the groom toasts the couple.

The mother of the bride toasts the couple.

The mother of the groom toasts the couple.

Other relatives and close friends of the bride or groom continue toasting.

At which point the reception guests start sawing at their forearms with the butter knives.

Fortunately with our guests, we feel certain that the toasts will be at least as interesting as the sparkling wine we’re toasting with: Crémant de Loire. This bubbly from France’s Loire Valley makes an elegant, less-expensive alternative to Champagne. The bubbles tend to be fine, and they frequently express a bit of that yeasty goodness on the nose that I enjoy in real Champagnes.

So give a Crémant de Loire a try the next time you need a sparkler; they usually cost between $15 and $20 per bottle.

Cheers!

There may be an almost countless number of wine regions gracing the globe, but Bordeaux remains arguably the most important benchmark of quality. It wasn’t always so, of course. The Loire Valley once held that title, its river serving as an easy trade route into the Atlantic, from which cargoes of wine swung north to thirsty Holland and England.

That all ended in the 12th Century, when Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II favored Gascony with generous excise tax privileges, ensuring that “…Gascony became the most important supplier of the English court and London society,” according to André Dominé’s Wine.

The Loire Valley’s still wines have languished in the shadow of Bordeaux ever since, and to the north, the sparklers of Champagne continue to eclipse Loire bubblies. But again, “Saumur producers claim to have been in the fizz business long before the Champenois.” (Alice King, Fabulous Fizz.)

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