Freixenet Cava Brut

And so, back to reality. I have to admit that I'm not a great lover of Champagne -- I forget who it was that first called it "a good white wine spoiled but I tend to agree -- so I'd be the last man to spend a lot of money on the French product, even for the traditional bottle of New Year's Eve bubbly. Thus I picked out a Catalonian Cava which, like the French Champagnes, is made from local grapes and acquires its bubbles from a second fermentation in the bottle, not from some unspeakable process of artificial aeration. The Freixenet, although a mass production item, is nice and dry and relatively aromatic, which is all I ask of it. It is, that goes almost without saying, massively overpriced in PA at $9.99. (NJ $7.99).