Champagne is a white wine with benefits.

Lately I have been buying a lot of Champagne. Even in these rocky times, it is for us, an enjoyable white. And I am subscribing to Madame Bollinger who drank Champagne when sad, when happy with guests etc.

I find enough variation in it to stay interesting. And since I don’t drink much white wine anyway, I don’t need a cheap house white (we have an excellent Rose) so I am happy to drink NVs at weekends, and open the Tete de Cuvees for guests.

I do still own a few whites, buy a few Macon’s every year, which I enjoy with grilled fish. Otherwise it is pretty well all Champagne.

German riesling is my first love when it comes to white wine, but I’ve been exploring Champagne more as well and I think this trend will continue. It has the same versatility in pairing with a lot of the foods we eat, and I just love bubbles. There is a handful of riesling producers that I’ll continue to buy each year, though pricing continues to climb (especially for GGs, spatlese, auslese). Rather than buying a riesling I haven’t tried before I’m leaning more towards a new Champagne.

I haven’t had aged Champagne before (e.g. more than 20 years from vintage), which I’ll have to remedy and see if I like.

With you Mark. 90% of the white wine we drink is champagne. I used to buy chablis pretty regularly but have found that champagne serves that same purpose and is even more flexible. It is a growing percentage of our overall wine consumption

4 years back and prior, champagne is about 80% of my consumption.
Now, it’s about 30%. If I don’t know what to drink, it’s always champagne.

Mark-

I am in agreement. We are drinking more and more champagne on a regular basis. And I have yet to find a food combo that doesn’t work with champagne.

Greg

The thread title is a nice way of looking at it, but I would maybe strike the word “white” to include Rosé Champagne too. A good Champagne has the flavors and complexity of a fine wine with the added bonus of bubbles and that yeasty/bready thing. It also seems to make me “happier” than a lot of other wines which I’ll also call a “benefit”. This evolution of Champagne becoming a dominant portion of one’s wine drinking seems to not be an uncommon development for many here. For us, it is still a relatively small portion of our wine drinking at maybe 20%, but that is growing noticeably from a base of only having an occasional bottle just a couple of years ago. We might be heading down the same road as many of you. . .

Champagne is easily what I drink the most of and I can always find a reason to drink it. I don’t keep as much in my collection though because I can’t keep my hands off of them long enough!

100% agree with many of the thoughts shared here. While I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I do like to make annual goals and one for 2020 is to drink a minimum of one bottle of champagne per month. Ideally, more than that, so starting to explore Envoyer + adding half bottles for greater opportunity.

I too would not overlook Rosé, we find there is nothing better to complement good bbq than a great Rosé champagne!

While I love Champagne (of all tints) I do not think it replaces white wine. We drink more dishes that are not especially red-friendly over las few years, and so while Champagne is definitely in the mix, so are white Burgundy inc. Chablis, Riesling, Loire whites, etc. Why limit oneself? If I couldn’t drink Pepiere, Huet, Cotat/Boulay/Thomas-Labaille, Donnhoff, Keller, PYCM, Niellon, Piuze, Dauvissat, Drouhin Laguiche, Stony Hill, and dozens of others I’d be sad…

What Dale said.

I like champagne, though for me it doesn’t replace white wine; it’s a more situation wine. I also find that I prefer much more Chardonnay heavy cuvees (or entirely BdB), in which case Burgundy just offers a purer expression when at its best*. Also, I don’t really love oxidation in whites and am more sensitive to it (one of my friends jokes half my comments about white burgundies she opens around me are “it’s a bit advanced”), so am less interested in some of the more highly rated growers. Just a stylistic preference.

And this of course excludes Riesling and sweeter whites, where I don’t look to Champagne at all - it’s a completely different flavor profile.

*That said, Krug is still Krug in the great years

I tend to drink German riesling or less expensive white Burgundy as more everyday drinks. I don’t tend to like most less expensive Champagnes and mostly drink Champagnes when I want something more expensive.