Conference turris::cooks

    I think that any dry champagne that is not overly fruity would do fine.
    That would seem to rule out most American sparkling wine.
    
    I have drunk '84 Lembey Brut (a Spanish Cava at $5-6/bottle) and '82
    Piper-Heidseick Brut (real Champagne at $35/bottle) with it and enjoyed
    them both.  The former clearly wins on value/dollar, the latter is a
    very fine wine - how big is your bank account?
    
    --Jim 

    There are great champagnes on the market that are NOT expensive.  Try
    Corodniu black label, Castelblanc Carta Nevada, Lembey Brut, as .2
    stated, is also great, Moet et Chandom is a classic (from $28 up). 
    Note that none of these are "sparkling wines" but real champagnes.
    

    Great Western Dry, Extra Dry, or Brut are all excellent American
    Champagnes that are not expensive.  They cost about $7-9 a bottle.  I
    have had Moet and find GW to be just as good.
    
    I know that Europe's Champagne Producers say that there is no such
    thing as an "American" Champagne, but I do prefer the taste and price.
    
    Chris

RE: .3

>    Try
>    Corodniu black label, Castelblanc Carta Nevada, Lembey Brut, as .2
>    stated, is also great, Moet et Chandom is a classic (from $28 up). 
>    Note that none of these are "sparkling wines" but real champagnes.

Sorry, but you're wrong.  "Sparkling wine" refers to any wine with bubbles.
This is in contrast to "still wine," which has no bubbles.  There are three
main ways that a wine can get the bubbles:

(1) You take still wine and force the CO2 into the wine under pressure, the same
way that carbonation is added to most soft drinks.  No good sparking wine is
made this way, but a lot of cheap stuff is.

(2) You introduce a small amount of yeast and sugar into a closed vat of still
wine.  This starts a second fermentation that introduces the carbonation.  You
then filter the wine from the vat to remove the yeast and bottle it under
pressure so that the carbonation isn't lost.  This is called the "Charmat bulk
process."

(3) After bottling still wine, you introduce a small amount of yeast and sugar,
which causes a second fermentation that carbonates the wine.  You then, over
a period of two years, gradually tilt the bottles, giving them a shake every
day, so that eventually the bottles are standing vertically upside down and
all the yeast sediment has collected on the cork.  You then freeze the bottle
necks so that an ice plug with the yeast sediment forms in the neck.  Lastly,
you uncork the bottle, whereupon the carbonation pushes the yeast sediment ice
plug out, then quickly fill the bottle with a bit more of the same wine to
replace the yeast plug and recork.  This is called "methode champagnoise"
because it is the way it's done in Champagne in France.  All the best sparkling
wine is made this way.

The term "Champagne" properly applies to Methode Champagnoise sparkling wine 
from the legally delimited Champagne district in France, and only to such wines.
It is a place name, like Bordeaux.  Sparkling wines from elsewhere in the world
should not be called Champagne.  They are Methode Champagnoise sparkling wines
from wherever.

So, ALL of the wines you listed are sparkling wines, and they are probably all
made either by Methode Champagnoise or Charmat Process.  One of the wines you
listed (Moet et Chandon) is a Champagne.

--PSW

    If you want another recipe for a caviar "appetizer" look in the
    Spinnazolla "Seafood as We Like It" cookbook for the recipe for Cariar
    Pillows. They are superb - caviar surrounded by a scallop souffle
    wrapped in  raddichio (sp?) and streamed in white wine.