Champagne adds fizz to new cocktails and lifts food pairing to fresh highs

The winter holiday season is almost here, which for many people means one thing: Champagne. Some might feel like they never need an excuse for bubbles, but with sparkling wine served at every cheerful occasion throughout the year, you can be forgiven for feeling a bit blasé.

Don’t dismiss Champagne just yet. This year, restaurants and bars around Hong Kong are offering a new twist on the renowned French bubbly by incorporating it into cocktails, pairing it with food or focusing on the distinctive, terroir-driven offerings of independent viognier growers.

“The biggest misconception about Champagne is that it is a product for parties or special occasions,” says sommelier Nicolas Deneux, general manager of ON Dining Kitchen & Lounge, who also produces his own brand of Champagne.

“The general perception is that if it has bubbles, people don’t treat it seriously as wine,” says Patty Sze, manager of the Mandarin Oriental’s recently revamped M Bar. “We tell people that Champagne has a wide variety of tastes. It’s not just about bubbles.”

That’s obvious in offerings like Vilmart & Cie’s Grand Cellier Premier Cru, a blend of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes. “It’s fuller in body, and more yeasty and toasty because it’s been in the cellar for four years,” Sze says. “It’s very savoury.”

For the uninitiated, M Bar offers a tasting flight of three Champagnes - a Diebolt-Valois Blanc de Blancs Prestige Brut, La Closerie Les Beguines’ Blanc de Noirs Brut and Vouette et Sorbée’s Saignée de Sorbé Extra Brut Rosé - as an introduction to the spectrum of what Champagne can offer. “Wine is something very subjective, very personal, but we explain the background of each one to help people understand what they’re tasting,” Sze says.

That approach is shared by ON Dining Kitchen & Lounge, where Deneux maintains a list of 40 to 50 Champagnes de vigneron - wine produced by the growers themselves, as opposed to large Champagne houses that blend wine from multiple vineyards. “I tend to work more and more with smaller producers because the notion of terroir is more respected,” Deneux says.

“Most of the time [they are] younger producers that, after working for others, go back home and go back to more terroir-focused wines,” Deneux says. “Alexandre Chartogne from Chartogne-Taillet is a perfect example, alongside Emmanuel Lassaigne from Jacques Lassaigne. Others such as Laurent Champs from Vilmart, Rudolphe Peters from Pierre Peters, Larmandier-Bernier and Frederic Savart are also starting to be out there.”