What makes a good champagne?

All right, welcome back before you ring in the new year. You're gonna need some advice advice on champagne So we have Rebecca Waldron here. She is the head chef executive chef at Bush's It's going to help us understand a little bit more about champagne so we can enjoy the night just a little bit better My pleasure. So when it comes to champagne, I mean, what is the big difference? And and how do you know when you got the champagne or is it just price? Well, I mean, you know the you always want to drink what you like, right? So I mean just with any type of wine sometimes what you like might not necessarily be the most expensive. However the price of champagne and sparkling wine You know, usually the higher end the higher the pricier is a little more refined The process that's used to make the higher-end champagne is different from sparkling wine or Prosecco So there is some differences in the taste the grape blend is going to make a difference So all of those factors will play so you mentioned champagne sparkling wine Prosecco for those who don't know. What's the difference? Okay, so anything that is called champagne, which is at this end of the table down here that is produced in a very specific region of France according to a very specific method and it is Carbonated in the bottle. Okay, so it is it is conditioned in the bottle Then when you get over here, we get to sparkling wine and that's anything that is produced outside of that specific Region of France so you can have items here that are produced according to the same method But you can't call them champagne because they're produced out of that region of whether they are Carbonated in the bottle or not. It wasn't made in that particular area of France. It's not champagne cannot be called champagne What about Prosecco now Prosecco is a sparkling wine, but that is an Italian version of sparkling wine So the grape that is used in the Prosecco is specific to Italian sparkling wines So that is the big difference, but they all have the same kind of effervescence They're all just made a little bit differently with a little bit blend of different grapes So when you're talking about let's say mixing your champagne say for a mimosa I mean, do you definitely want to go with something like the rail mixer of champagne or do you use your good stuff? Well, I would suggest using something that is not the highest price So, I mean you've got your Dom Perignon up here Which is a vintage and it's very specific and you really want to enjoy that for what it is But you can have over here a Gruet which is made according to the champagne method and the price point is less than $20 So you can use that for a sparkling wine drink or you could use Prosecco or you could use any kind of other Sparkling wine, but I would suggest using something that's mid-range or lower price range for something. That's mixing What about the toast? I mean as you're ringing the New Year of the big moment, who are you toasting with? I mean if you're toasting with a group of 50 people then you might want to go Something a little more in the mid-range But if you are toasting with the most special person in the world You might want to invest in a bottle of the higher-end and the real champagne I mean, I really suggest that at least once try some real actual champagne. So I'm supposed to do a quick taste test Okay, great. I can tell the difference fun part. So first we're gonna open this bottle This is an actual champagne and this is VUV Clicquot and you don't want to necessarily hear the loud pop You want to hear a little bit of a pop but you're not gonna hear a huge pop And so this is an actual champagne. Your bubbles are gonna be very small. I'm gonna taste this off-camera. All right