Classy Bubbles Vol. 5

Over the years a few traditions have taken root, and one of my favourites is our December gathering to taste sparkling wines made in the traditional method. This year, life had other plans and December came and went without one. So here we are in May, finally pouring the bottles I'd been holding for the original date - Vol. 5 arriving in spring rather than the run-up to the new year.

The format is unchanged. We taste mostly blind, we drink only sparklings made by the méthode champenoise (with permission to throw in the occasional twist), and the lineup is curated to make people work for their guesses - bottles I love, bottles that surprise me, a few I'd been saving, and a couple thrown in to keep everyone honest about how much the price tag is actually doing.

Geography this time leans wide: Ukraine, Moldova, two corners of Lombardy that left Franciacorta on their own terms, and three Champagnes from different parts of the appellation - Côte des Blancs Grand Cru, a négociant prestige rosé sourcing seven crus, and the western Vallée de la Marne where Meunier dominates. Two NV bottlings, five vintaged.

If December's edition was about three pillars and tradition, this one is about catching up.

Frumushika-Nova Chardonnay Traditional Method Brut Nature 48 months 2020

Frumushika-Nova is a small Bessarabian-steppe estate near the Moldovan border in Odesa Oblast, organic and low-intervention, run by Volodymyr Palariev as part of a broader ethnographic-tourism project on ancestral family land. This Chardonnay is their longest-aged sparkling - méthode champenoise, brut nature, forty-eight months on lees through wartime, disgorged in July 2025.

Better than the fresh Pinot Noir release - the extra post-disgorgement time clearly helped this one. Baked cheese, baked pears, pineapple, a bit creamy. Interesting bitter edge in the finish, somewhere between grapefruit pith and crushed apple seeds - couldn't decide if I liked it or not, so just noting it. Fresh, a touch perfumed, slightly short, not super complex - the outcast of the lineup but still a neat bottle.

Cà del Vént Pensiero Brut Pas Operé VSQ 2018

Cà del Vént is the Brescian house that walked away from the Franciacorta DOCG in 2017 after the appellation's tasting commission rejected the wines as too rich and too complex. Pensiero is their 100% Chardonnay, vinified in old oak with spontaneous malolactic, aged forty-six months on lees. "Pas Operé" means dosage at disgorgement is wine drawn from the same batch - no liqueur, no added sugar.

Yellow apple, citrus, a lot of cider, sea. Racy acidity, sharp and delicate at the same time. Chalk and limestone on the finish, with a touch of bubble gum sneaking in. Despite the cutting edge it doesn't read as painful - sharp without being abrasive. Lacks a bit of volume for what I'd want from a 46-month Pas Operé Blanc de Blancs, but still a good bottle.

Radacini Méthode Traditionnelle Reserve Brut 2018

Radacini is one of Moldova's largest producers, with a thousand hectares across the country's three PGIs and a modern facility in Cricova. Reserve Brut is the limited-edition top of the catalogue, priced well above the regular Métier premium line - more than thirty-six months on lees, sourced from the Peresecina-village vineyards in Codru where the producer's traditional-method programme was first built.

Brioche, honey, almonds, baked pears, citrus, a touch of white flowers, and a jerez sherry-leaning thread that runs through both nose and palate. Vinous and intense, creamy, with baked apples, butter, quince, and a faint pithy bitterness like crushed apple seeds. Good acidity that the dosage covers a bit too much, smooth and silky on the texture. A tiny hint of gooseberry tropicality - not vulgar, but more than I'd want from this register. Tarte aux amandes. A favourite of the night despite the slight tropical lean.

Pierre Péters Brut Blanc de Blancs Cuvée de Réserve (2021)

Pierre Péters is a Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Chardonnay specialist now in its sixth generation under Rodolphe Péters - twenty hectares exclusively in the Côte des Blancs Grand Crus. Cuvée de Réserve is the flagship NV: around half from a single base vintage and half from a perpetual reserve started in 1988. This release is the 2021 base, eighteen months on lees, disgorged October 2023.

Apple candy, honey, chalk, lemon peel, brioche, cream, a touch of white flowers and cider. The palate is a captivating mix of minerality and freshness with surprising intensity and volume - bruised apple, a charming jerez edge, chalk and caramel weaving through. Complex, multilayered, utterly enjoyable. The Mesnil signature comes through clean.

Nicola Gatta Rosé de Noirs Brut Nature L09/23-E23

Nicola Gatta is a biodynamic, zero-dosage producer on the eastern edge of Franciacorta who - like Cà del Vént - deliberately bottles outside the appellation. He counts lees-ageing in lune (lunar cycles) rather than months. The Rosé de Noirs is 100% Pinot Nero from a thirty-year-old Cellatica parcel, brief skin contact for colour, sixty lune on lees, no fining or filtration, zero added sulphites. Around 3,500 bottles.

Holds shape bottle to bottle. That brutal beauty signature - savage minerality, salty peach, cinnamon and ginger, seawater and brine, cellar dampness. Balance fully present, weaponised intensity without losing the line. Iodine, subtle mushrooms, red apple skin on the finish. Serious, complex, uncompromising rosé that doesn't care whether you're ready for it.

Bruno Paillard N.P.U. Rosé 2008

Bruno Paillard is a 1981-founded Champagne house with a disciplined, chalk-aesthetic style and the distinction of being the first producer to systematically print disgorgement dates on every bottle. N.P.U. (Nec Plus Ultra) is the prestige cuvée, only released in the strongest vintages. The 2008 Rosé is the line's first commercial-scale pink release - Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from seven Grand Crus, around twelve years on lees, disgorged February 2022.

Wow. Gorgeous, complex, multilayered - and surprisingly young given the 2008 vintage. Grapefruit oil and bruised apples opening into red berries, blood orange, orchard flowers, with a touch of pepper and verbena and that jerez edge underneath. Broad and vinous on the palate but precise and sharp at the same time, properly long. A wine in its early-drinking window with much more time ahead of it than behind. Beautiful bottle.

Françoise Bedel Comme Autrefois 2006

Françoise Bedel works the western edge of the Vallée de la Marne in Crouttes-sur-Marne, Demeter-certified biodynamic, one of the few Champagne growers who treat Meunier as a serious variety in its own right rather than a Champagne filler. Comme Autrefois is the vintage cuvée, made the way Champagne was made before industrialisation: oak-fermented throughout, malolactic completed, bottled unfiltered, sixteen years on lees for this 2006 release.

Quite old in register - super mushroom-driven, old damp cellar, neat fruit pulled toward the jammy/dried end, a bit of boiled onion and onion soup, chalk. Round, chalky, mineral, saline, with a very good backbone underneath. Not plushy but generous, intense, complex - utterly delicious. The mushroom, dried fruit, and onion-soup register is what sixteen years on lees does to a Champagne: the deeper end of autolysis, beyond the bread-and-pastry palette everyone names. Could easily have been the wine of the evening; my favourite votes went to Radacini for the Moldova-result angle and Gatta for the QPR-and-complexity beast - not for any reason against this one.

Raw scores