Classy Bubbles Vol. 5
A traditional wine tasting event dedicated to sparkling wines produced by traditional method.
By Boris · Hosted by Boris Buliga
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.
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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.
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Join to read it and the restRadacini 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.
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Join to read it and the restPierre 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.
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Join to read it and the restNicola 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.
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Join to read it and the restBruno 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.
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Join to read it and the restFrançoise 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.
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