Champagne on ice - but not as you know it

It’s taken me a week or so to blog about Moet’s new Ice Imperial which was recently launched in London, I suspect because I still can’t quite make up my mind what I think about it. It’s a champagne designed to be served on the rocks - yes, that’s right - poured over ice cubes. To achieve that it’s a good deal sweeter than the standard Moet non vintage - a demi-sec, but with more structure than that style of champagne generally has, thanks to a higher than usual percentage of pinot noir. It’s served in a large Riedel-style Chianti glass with precisely five ice cubes and is designed to be drunk by the pool.

My first reaction is predictably snotty. A cynical marketing exercise designed to appeal to footballers’ wives, rich Russians and the entire cast of TOWIE*. It’s only available for the moment in one bar in London and - mysteriously - about 10 in the Bournemouth area which apparently has the most expensive real estate in Britain outside London. (I’m doubtful about that but can see there might not be many other distractions in that part of the world. Apart from pools and yachts.)

On the other hand Moet’s winemaker Benoit Gouez is a serious kind of a guy and a talented winemaker and the champagne is, when served as cold as it should be, frankly delicious. Especially with odd bits of fruit, citrus peel or other flavourings dropped into it which Moët is encouraging. (Gouez admits to liking it with ginger). It’s clearly designed to appeal to young drinkers who find conventional champagne too dry - and why not?

Because it's ridiculously expensive at £50-60 a bottle you might argue, and you'd be right. But when was champagne ever cheap? Strikes me that Moet is simply taking a leaf out of the book of the spirits producers and making a premium product available to a very few people to ramp up demand. Up to you if you want to spend your money that way.

I can’t help wondering though if you couldn't achieve the same effect with a very cold bottle of Moscato d’Asti at about an eighth of the price. Or a bottle of demi-sec Cava and a dash of sugar syrup. Worth a try . . .


*The Only Way is Essex - cult UK reality TV series

Cut price pink fizz

It may be a cliché but pink fizz is a good buy around Valentine's Day whether you're making a romantic gesture or not.

True, the discounts are not all they might seem. This bottle of vintage Cava isn't worth £12.49 IMO but it's worth at least three quid more than the £5.99 Tesco is currently charging for it. And is far better value than a lot of much more expensive rosé champagne.

The truth is that supermarkets are falling over each other to lure you through their doors on big-spending occasions like Valentine's Day which this year coincides with the Chinese New Year, a double opportunity to part you with more than your usual weekly shopping budget.

Ironically this is a bottle that will serve you well for both celebrations. Fruity rosé is a good partner for Chinese food as well as being a classic Valentine wine. Cordoniu is a decent producer and this vintage rosado, a blend of Monastrell (Mourvèdre) and Pinot Noir, is well balanced and dry without the confected boiled sweet flavours than you might expect from the depth of the colour.

If your local Tesco still has some I'd lay in a few bottles for summer drinking

Cynical champagne ‘deals’

Having been to a champagne tasting this week I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought as to how good these headline-grabbing half-price champagne offers are.

Initally I got quite excited about them myself - Moet for £14, Bollinger for £18 (both at Morrisons, if they’ve not run out) sound like the deal of the decade. Certainly the visitors to the popular money site moneysavingexpert.com think so. Traffic has peaked at 1 million visitors a day this week with champagne being the most regularly viewed subject

But you need to pause a moment and ask how much these bottles are worth in the first place. The best known names like Bollinger and Louis Roederer now have a recommended retail price of around £37-£40 a bottle. Forty pounds a bottle. That’s ludicrously over-priced even allowing for the exchange rate.

The standard price for Averys Special Cuvee Brut which is blended in the Bollinger house style is £21.99 (and they’re bound to do some kind of an offer on it before Christmas). Sainsbury’s very decent Blanc de Noirs, which was recently only narrowly pipped at the post by Veuve Clicquot in a recent Which? tasting is currently selling for £14. (Moet incidentally only came 13th out of the 14 champagnes tested.) OK Avery’s and Sainsbury’s don’t have the cachet of a Bolly but are you prepared to spend an extra 15 quid a bottle for a label?

The champagne producers are not alone in these cynical pricing practices. Most leading brands of sparkling wine are also priced on the basis that they are going to be discounted. The standard price for Cordoniu Cava now is £11.99 enabling supermarkets to ‘slash the price’ to £5.99 (at which it’s a pretty good buy it’s fair to say) But consumers aren’t stupid as the recent demise of Wine Rack which routinely overcharged for wine in order to be able to discount it shows.

What the champagne houses offer - and have been immensely skilled at exploiting - is glamour and a sense of special occasion but don’t let the deals lure you into the idea that they're doing you any favours. If you merely want some simple party fizz I’d head to Majestic and buy the Underraga Brut from Chile at £4.99 or order some Lindauer Brut for £39.90 a case of six from Tesco (Oddbins has a few bottles of the even better rosé if you can track it down)

Have you succumbed any of the champagne offers yet? Will you? Or are you perfectly happy to serve a cheaper sparkling wine to your family and friends?