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Post by bazfaz on Sept 2, 2009 20:53:34 GMT
...is bad, never mind the name.
Our neighbour invited us for a farewell drink and the champagne was poor. There is a lot of cava that comes up from just across the border in Spain that is much better. Even closer, Blanquette de Limoux is better than bad champagne.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2009 20:55:11 GMT
Many sparkling wines are better than bad champagne. I have a soft spot for Crémant du Jura.
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Post by fumobici on Sept 2, 2009 21:42:17 GMT
I've gotten bottles of Prosecco for less than 5€ that to me tastes better than Moët. Then again I like 1€/l Umbrian San Giovese sfuso and Two Buck Chuck Cabernet just fine too. I feel deeply sorry for people who think only expensive wine tastes good.
Wine generally is intrinsically cheaper and easier to make than a lager-type beer, not sure why it almost always costs more.
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Post by spindrift on Sept 2, 2009 22:10:14 GMT
I don't drink champagne but then I don't drink coca cola or any other soft drinks.
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Post by hwinpp on Sept 3, 2009 5:07:26 GMT
I've been lucky, I've never had bad champagne.
The only times I've thought it bad was when it was too warm.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 3, 2009 11:42:00 GMT
Oh, I've had bad champagne. Very sour and thin.
Indeed many other sparkling wines can be far better than mediocre champagne. I've also had a very good Alsatian Riesling sparkler.
fumobici (whom I always imagine tearing up the roadbed on his very fast bicycle, leaving smoke in his wake) is San Giovest sfuso that stuff we'd get on tap in pizzerias in Umbria? It annoyed a friend of mine who wanted STILL wine, and like spindrift didn't much like spumante ... or fizzy soft drinks.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2009 9:44:44 GMT
Warm champagne is even worse than warm Coca-Cola.
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Post by tillystar on Sept 4, 2009 11:46:57 GMT
If its not really special Prosecco is much nicer.
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Post by fumobici on Sept 7, 2009 18:34:01 GMT
fumobici (whom I always imagine tearing up the roadbed on his very fast bicycle, leaving smoke in his wake) is San Giovest sfuso that stuff we'd get on tap in pizzerias in Umbria? It annoyed a friend of mine who wanted STILL wine, and like spindrift didn't much like spumante ... or fizzy soft drinks. Fumobici is just Bolognese slang for the helpful/dodgy N African sorts who can supply the local students with a bicycle or something to put in their pipes- albeit both with an unknown provenance- at a very reasonable cost. Anyway... sfuso is still wine sold unbottled in bulk, bought either direct from the winery- usually from something resembling a metered fuel spigot at a gas station- or from the wine shop. You bring big jugs and bottle and cork it when you get home. Italian grocery stores will usually have big bags of wine corks for just this purpose. It is completely and utterly lacking in snob appeal or the manufactured mystique that the wine industry relies on to sell a simple product at elevated prices, but the wine can be excellent and really, really dirt cheap which is for me the oenephile holy grail. Almost anyone can find a fine bottle at 50 euro, the skill is in finding one for one or two. I've got a photo of the very unglamorous process of dispensing the wine from a huge stainless steel vat through the gas station nozzle into a 10l jug but I can't find it now. The same Umbrian winery bottles the same wine, puts a fancy label on it and it isn't cheap at all any longer by the time you see on the store shelf. |
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 7, 2009 20:14:25 GMT
Well, that is interesting!
Fumobici, any idea of the process to keep the unbottled sfuso from developing further before it's sold? If it weren't gotten rid of pretty quickly, wouldn't it mutate into something else?
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Post by lagatta on Sept 7, 2009 20:51:24 GMT
I'd never heard "fumobici" in that sense when in Italy - guess they are the descendants of the "Vu Cumpra", who were (and perhaps still are) pedlars of either North or West African origin who sold various crappy items on beaches, in public squares etc. Unfortunately that trade is very much controlled by the Mafia (nowadays probably subcontracted to Albanian gangs) so the guys didn't make much at all.
Yes, I knew vino sfuso was bulk wine, but I was thinking bubbly, so the somewhat fizzy wine on tap sold at Italian pizzerias (at least in Umbria). Obviously it is bulk wine. We used to be able to get it at l'enoteca regionale in Perugia, but they've gone all yuppy upscale (always did have fine wines, but didn't shy away from cheaper ones either). So you'll have to tell me where to buy it now.
Bixa, there used to be such a turnover that it wasn't a problem. Nowadays there are all kinds of vacuum devices that prevent air getting in and turning the wine into vinegar. There are even vin en vrac (bulk wine) places here in Montréal, though obviously with the taxes and shipping the wine is far more expensive than in Italy.
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Post by bazfaz on Sept 7, 2009 20:56:16 GMT
I buy our every evening wine from the producer at the St Pons market. I take along my 5 litre plastic cubit and he fills it from a tank in the back of his van. It goes well with the simple food we eat every night and costs 70 centimes a litre.
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Post by fumobici on Sept 7, 2009 21:10:49 GMT
The vu compre are still about, but not so much in Tuscany/Umbria as further N or S, the term 'fumobici' is very regional to Bologna and in fact won't be heard anywhere more than a few blocks from the University.
I've never heard of fizzy sfuso, I'm not picturing how that would work- at least as a take home. I can also heartily recommend- although with one reservation- an enoteca in Perugia called Bottega Del Vino, just around the corner from the duomo on Via del Sol. The cellar there is stunning as is the knowledge of it by the proprietor and the food is very nice as well, very regional and fresh. The only downside is they don't seem overly fond of tourists, at least those without a reasonable grasp of Italian, so if one isn't conversant the service can be a bit icy and slow. That said if you're Italian is serviceable, everything is different and quite warm and friendly. There's another very small enoteca just up the Tevere from there in Sansepolcro though I can recommend without reservation which is the Tirar Tardi. They will be welcoming even if their English might not be the best. I had their antipasto plate with wine and it was outstanding. That's where I was introduced to lardo which sounds rather gross but is sublime. If they recommend a wine with what you are eating, you'd be a fool not to listen.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 7, 2009 22:20:28 GMT
fizzy sfuso is not a take-home - it is sold to (cheap) restaurants, pubs and pizzerias.
Via del Sole: Bottega del Vino
Via Del Sole, 1
06122 Perugia (PG), Italy
075 5716181?
I passed by it when I was in Perugia, but it was only open "a cena" and I was busy then.
We should put this in another topic, and there is no hurry, but I want to know cheap holiday rentals in Perugia - just a studio for one or two people - my "fidanzato" as Italians say even if the couple have no intention whatsoever of matrimony - does have a car though would be more likely to travel by train, and I don't drive, so it has to be in town or easily accessible via public transport. If you find anything, better to start a topic on the Europe board (there are such topics for Paris).
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 7, 2009 22:51:34 GMT
Sticking my nose in here ........
LaGatta ~~ why don't you start the thread? You never know who might respond or who might want to expand the thread with comments or questions.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 7, 2009 23:15:37 GMT
I could, though I don't really have any rental (self-catering) ideas. I did stay at the scrupulously-clean, stone and ceramic-tile floored so-called Mario Spagnoli "youth hostel", where at about 50 I was the youngest person there for a while! There was a whole busload of pensioners, and my colleagues who were a few years older than me (like your age - not that this makes any difference by the time one reaches our cohort)...
Even when somewhat-younger people arrived they were more 30-something young marrieds/stable-type couples, or the children/teens of 30, 40 or 50 something adults. Hardly party central!
What do you suggest - cheap rentals and other accomodation in Italy? I don't want to be too precise if we don't have a lot of contributors.
Of course I mean cheap but clean, but most places in Italy except real flophouses that cater either to semi-homeless or to the unfortunate refugees in Kerouac's thread are clean.
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Post by BigIain on Sept 8, 2009 8:06:36 GMT
Hmmm, just found this thread. Champagne is pretty predictable really, if you buy mass-produced crap like Moet then you should expect heartburn. Champagne is the only wine variety where I remain faithful only to the producers who are tried and tested. At the moment that is Jacqesson and Pommery. I agree that there are many Cavas which beat all but the best champagne but do not have the snob value that some people place on champagne.
Perfect example:
Friday night, bottle of Cordon Negro cava, light and refreshingly fruity.
Sunday night, bottle of Bollinger Grand annee 1999, heavy and complex, delicious BUT really worth 8 times the value of the cava???
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2009 8:14:15 GMT
When one visits the champagne cellars and sees the places where each bottle gets a manual 1/8 or 1/4 turn every week or so for six months, plus all the other stuff they do, obviously champagne is going to cost more than places where the wine can just sit in a bottle and wait to be drunk.
However, since I am not a big fan of champagne, I think it is just fine if other people want to pay those prices, but I certainly do not, especially for something that is consumed in one sitting, often within 10 minutes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 8, 2009 17:43:22 GMT
The last two posts definitely explain why I've had far more bad champagne than good.
I read somewhere that in the 1920s champagne was consumed far more than it is now, in the UK, US, and France, at least. Is that true?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2009 17:51:52 GMT
How old do you think I am?
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 8, 2009 18:07:02 GMT
Around twelve.
Note that I prefaced the sentence with "I [highlight=yellow]read somewhere.."[/highlight]
Since you and others are far more knowledgeable about wine than I, the assumption was that you might have come across such a historical item in your own reading.
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Post by traveler63 on Sept 10, 2009 22:04:16 GMT
Sneaking in here, I know, no posts, but actually I am almost done!!!! Since champagne is one of my very favorite things, I am going to jump in here.
Champagne, like still wine is certainly in the eye of the beholder. There is very good inexpensive champagne and there is expensive champagne that is not to everyone's taste. You will notice that I haven't said "bad" champagne either in the category of cheap, inexpensive or expensive.
Champagne can be sweet, there are rose champagnes or "sparkling" if they are not French in nature. They can be dry, or semi dry. I love Prosecco, do not like Dom Perignion, it tastes like eating yeast.
I love Tattingers La France, Duvel Leroy Blanc de Chardonney Duval Leroy Femme wow!, Veuve Clicquot gold label when I am feeling flush in $$. There is a Spanish cava, has a silver metal thing on it, for the life of me I can't remember the name, which I love.
Someone said that they don't like Moet. I don't like the Moet that is made for the American Market, however the French version is different and I love that. I have tried Nicolas Feuillate which I thought was wonderful.
We will go to Reims, go on one tour and then we are going to find a nice wine bar or store and taste some of the ones that we haven't tried. This will probably be one thing I will write on.
Now, back to packing cave!!
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Post by lagatta on Sept 10, 2009 22:12:17 GMT
Prosecco isn't champagne though. Neither is cava.
Unless you are living in France and buying by the case from a caviste, it would be very rare to find inexpensive champagne, good or bad. And even then I'd tend to think other sparkling wines would be a better deal at a low price, since they don't have the a.o.c. from Champagne region.
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Post by traveler63 on Sept 10, 2009 22:57:19 GMT
No, they aren't they are considered to be a sparkling wine. Champagne can only be called that if they are produced in France. There are many sparkling wines produced outside of France that are very good, and there are some great ones from California. When we were in Paris in 2001, we brought home an inexpensive French champagne under $30.00 (at that time FF were still being used). Also here in Arizona, there are many fine champagnes, both domestic and foreign well under $30.00 which also includes French brands.
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Post by BigIain on Sept 10, 2009 22:59:13 GMT
If you are going to go on only one tour, do Pommery or Veuve Cliquot (almost next to eachother) but both are a little out of town. Mumm also do an excellent and informative tour. Whichever you decide on.... book as far in advance as you are able to as the tours numbers are severely limited and always busy. Even off tourist season.
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Post by lagatta on Sept 11, 2009 0:16:06 GMT
traveller, I'm glad you don't seem to subscribe to the gross misnomer of "California Champagne" (unless there is a town or region in California also named Champagne, though place names there are usually Spanish or English - no doubt some Indigenous ones too, at least I hope so). Producers in Napa and elsewhere should be proud of their own regions and terroir. Indeed I have had excellent California sparkling wines.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2009 4:57:00 GMT
Those are the three bottles rotting away in one of my archive cupboards at the office...  |
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Post by traveler63 on Sept 11, 2009 18:19:30 GMT
So, you aren't a fan of this particular one.!!!! ;D
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2009 18:27:57 GMT
No, they have banned the consumption of alcoholic beverages at the office, and we haven't found a way to get around it yet.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 11, 2009 19:19:53 GMT
Would it be completely evil and dishonest to replace at least one of the bottles with a lesser product and spirit the good stuff home with you? It's only going to go bad setting there.
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