By Robert Paul –
Jaillance Cremant de Bordeaux Cuvee de l’Abbaye is a festive bubbly that’s also light and pretty. But, best of all, it’s a budget buy. The term “Cremant” is used because this French sparking wine is not from the Champagne region and therefore that regional label may not be used to describe it. And it’s not made with the usual champagne grapes either. Instead it is vinified from Semillon grapes. But, it is produced in the traditional champagne method and aged for two years. It sells in the $15-20 range, making it an affordable choice for something so celebratory.
Six of us at Flavors & More conducted a tasting, opening the bottle with our appetizers and sipping through dinner and dessert. The Cremant de Bordeaux bottle label suggested we would taste grapefruit, and although the wine is slightly sweet, our collective palates caught the essence of peach, flowers, dough and apple. Nice flavors.
This is a sparkling wine that would work especially well with Spring meals and would be a good choice for an Easter brunch. Drop a raspberry in the bottom of each glass or make mimosas by adding a fresh-squeezed orange juice to the wine and a dash of triple sec. Cremant de Bordeaux is inexpensive enough so that you don’t feel it’s a sacrilege to dilute or alter the flavor profile. “Cremant” means sparkling wine and applies to various effervescent wines, such as champagne, produced by a process involving fermentation in the bottle.
To make a classic sparkling wine cocktail: Soak a sugar cube in bitters, drop it into a flute, fill the flute with Cremant de Bordeaux and garnish with a twist of lemon. Say cheers and enjoy.
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