Big-name Champagne houses can produce bottles with prices running well into triple figures. This is particularly true for older vintages, which have longer winemaking processes and huge marketing budgets. The key thing is to work out what style you like, then match your budget accordingly.
Vintage or non-vintage (NV)?
As already mentioned, vintage Champagnes are more expensive, but they also tend to taste different to non-vintage varieties. Vintage Champagnes usually spend longer “on the lees” (lees is the yeast used in the fermentation process) and have those prized deep, bready, brioche notes as a result. Non-vintage Champagnes are more likely to have fresher, citrus and floral notes.
If you won t shop at Aldi you must be a snob – and you re missing out
They may not have cracked ketchup or dog food, but the budget German supermarket has lured me away from Waitrose and Sainsbury s
Aldi has been voted the best supermarket in the UK in a Which? survey
Credit: MOLLY DARLINGTON
When my husband Adrian first came home with a weekly shop from Aldi, I was horrified. We were on an economy drive and, after reading about the low prices at the German discount supermarket, he’d decided to give Sainsbury’s a miss and visit the Aldi store near his office in Sevenoaks.