Select the best sparkling wine for a wedding
Picking the wine for a wedding can be difficult and confusing. Read on and find great tips on wine for weddings!
Choosing the wine for a wedding can be nerve-racking and confusing. And more so if it is your wedding.
It’s your big day, and you want everything to go great. You will have many friends and family by your side, and you want every guest to have a great time. And great wine! Yet weddings are expensive matters and with the numbers of guests your demand for wine will also increase. And if you aren’t organising an intimate wedding you may be thinking about your budget. But again, no one wants to be cheap, and less so on the day of their wedding.
Here is a list of my favourite budget wines to serve at a wedding for 2022.
- Chatzivaritis Winery "Migma PetNat" 2020
- Chatzivaritis Winery "Migma PetNat Rosé" 2020
- Di Filippo "Malafemmena" 2020
Is Champagne the best choice?
When thinking about celebrations, weddings and toasting one defaults to Champagne. But Champagne is pricey, even entry level bottles.
There are several sparkling alternatives to Champagne, from Crémant to Prosecco and English sparkling wines. Depending on your pocket, these can be great, cheaper wine to serve at your wedding. No wedding guest would drink them and be disappointed. But today I will present you with something a bit special and different. Today I’ll tell you about bottles that can be a notch different, and an unexpected choice. But they have the potential to be a win-win for guests’ taste-buds and weds’ pockets alike!
Go PétNat
Some of the most delicious sparkling wine bottles I’ve drunk in the last year were pétnats. PétNat is short for the French expression Pétillant Naturel, aka “naturally bubbly”. So are other sparkling wines artificially sparkling? Sort of. To ensure that a Champagne, a Prosecco, a Crémant or a Cava have bubbles, they must undergo a second fermentation. In other words, after the wine ferments, some sugar and yeast is added to the bottle to trigger a second fermentation. This, in turn, triggers the production of bubbles (read more about second fermentation in this article). As opposed to these wines, pétnats are bottled once. And they are bottled before the first fermentation in tank is over. So it is that pétnat wines get sparkling. In fact, the partially fermented wine has residues of sugar that the yeasts will consume creating CO2 as by-product. So by forcing the first fermentation to finish when the wine is bottled, the winemakers ensure the wine becomes sparkling. And yet sparkling may not be the best definition for a bottle of pétnat. Pétnats are rather… pétillant. If you are a wine nerd you may know what I’m referring to but assuming you are not here you go. Pétillant defines a more subtle bubble, very fine. The sensation of bubbles, when drinking a pétnat, is more subtle and gentle than with a conventional sparkling wine bottle. And personally is a sensation I like, it’s elegant and nuanced. Also, this makes the wine easier to drink with respect to conventional sparkling wine.
And the taste? Pétnat wine can be made with a variety of different grapes and depending on the bottle the taste profile can be very unalike.
What to choose?
Serving Champagne you are pretty sure you will please your guests. Maybe not because they like the wine but simple because you serve a “Champagne”, which is a fancy wine. But with a funky type of sparkling hipster wine? How do you win your guests heart? How do you choose the right pètnat wine to drink at your wedding? You pick an exceptional bottle! You don’t know how? Keep reading, I’m about to share my top-three list of pètnats. These wines are great bottles to serve at a wedding and will win you some very positive feedback. They are delicious and will keep the budget under control too.
Best pètnats for a wedding. My top 3 list!
Chatzivaritis Winery "Migma PetNat" 2020
Malagousia / Muscat of Alexandria
Migma Petnat 2020 from Chatzivaritis Estate has a beautiful light pink golden colour and it’s just so slightly cloudy.
The bead is fine and persistent.
On the nose it comes across aromatic and elegant. The bouquet opens with apricot yogurt and white peach, there is jasmine and almond, muscat grape and elderflower.
On the mouth the bubbles are fine and plenty. It’s round and fulfilling with a lovely freshness.
On the palate the aromatic notes found on the nose are there too particularly the muscat grape, apricot and fresh almond.
The finish is long and very pleasant.
A White Sparkling - Naturally Sparkling wine from Thessaloniki🇬🇷Greece
Points:
Chatzivaritis Winery "Migma PetNat Rosé" 2020
Xinomavro / Negoska
Migma PetNat Rosé 2020 from Chatzivaritis Estate has a lovely copper colour with a pink blush.
The beam is very fine and very persistent.
On the nose Migma PetNat Rosé is fragrant yet subtle with notes of toasted bread and then raspberry yogurt and wild strawberries. It then shows a citrus side with candied mandarin peel and pink grapefruit and then a rounder marzipan note.
The mouthfeel is very round. On the palate it’s surprisingly savoury but it is then balanced by a soft marzipan note and a subtle, elegant rose petal note.
The finish is lovely and long.
A Pink Sparkling - Naturally Sparkling wine from Thessaloniki🇬🇷Greece
Points:
Di Filippo "Malafemmena" 2020
100% Grechetto
Malafemmena 2020 from Di Filippo Wines has an inviting golden colour.
On the nose it’s funky and rather complex. It opens with quince and a yeasty note. It shows golden apple and a floral, round note of honey suckle. There is a mineral side to it with notes of flint too.
On the mouth is round, full and very pleasant with fine persistent bubbles.
A White Sparkling - Naturally Sparkling wine from Umbria🇮🇹Italy
Points:
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Natural wine
Natural wine is a term used to describe a widespread trend among winemakers to produce “natural” wine that is free of pesticides, chemicals, and other additives. It has a long history in Germany, where it gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as part of the Lebensreform movement.
Natural wine
Natural wine is a term used to describe a widespread trend among winemakers to produce “natural” wine that is free of pesticides, chemicals, and other additives. It has a long history in Germany, where it gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as part of the Lebensreform movement.
Link to here... | Derived from 'Natural wine' on Wikipedia