The best champagne for non-champagne drinkers

Advantages: Good value for money and fresh, appealing taste
Disadvantages: If you can afford to buy better, buy better

...If you are looking for an excellent quality champagne without breaking the bank, than Piper-Heidsieck Brut NV (Non Vintage) is for you. Piper-Heidsieck is one of the "grand marques" of champagne. Its an old established champagne house (founded 1785) based at the home of champagne - Rhiems in France. The NV costs around £16 a bottle UK retail, which is more than supermarket champagne, but you are getting a significant notch up in terms of quality for that extra couple of pounds a bottle. I was trying to choose a champagne for my wedding toasts last year. I bought a variety of champagnes and good quality sparkling wines, ranging in price from around £11 a bottle up to £26 a bottle. I then arranged a blind tasting with freinds. The bottles were all disguised and they were tasted with a view to what would go best at a summer wedding...

KatherineA 09.07.2004 · Read review
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Review of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne (Brut)

Blowing champagne bubbles at a wedding

Advantages: fun
Disadvantages: none

...I was fairly recently at a wedding where there were bottles of bubbles left on tables for guests to pick up. These bottles of bubbles were in a small green bottle (plastic) 9cm tall, containing about ½ oz liquid. The bottle shaped like a champagne bottle with a gold coloured lid. There is a pink label on it saying bubbles and showing a picture of the rainbow wand. Twist open the lid it is attached to a collar with a plastic fixer piece. The lid came off fairly easily. There is a little plastic wand inside the bubbles. Dipping the wand into the liquid the soap bubbble mix attached itself to the wand. Blowing the bubbles was easy they made lots and lots of small bubbles. When we had all assembled to watch the bride and groom throw the bouquet that?s when a lot of people blew the bubbles instead of confetti. These bubbles...

mumsymary 09.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Champagne Bottle Bubbles

Champagne Truffles

Advantages: Delicious!
Disadvantages: Can only eat in small quantities; the price

...of the highest quality presented in chic, stylish packaging." It all sounds rather highbrow for someone who likes the mass produced confectionary in supermarkets. Does minimalist indulgence mean there's not much indulgence to be had with their products? Still, perhaps despite the above information I still had a box of their champagne truffles to plough through. ~ The packaging ~ These Champagne truffles were intended as a Christmas gift box. Never having seen any other Kshocolat products for sale, I can't compare these to anything else in their range. These were packaged in a small square cardboard box, the bottom half being a dark brown, the top half being a cream colour. I've included a few photos if you're interested, although I apologise for one being somewhat out of focus. There was a label on the bottom of the box containing...

kevin121 25.01.2009 · Read review
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Review of Kshocolat Champagne Truffles

Champagne and Roses all the way!

Advantages: Smells lovely, lasts well, does the job
Disadvantages: None for me

...You know when you wander round garden centre gift shops and see the displays of scented candles, drawer liners, pot pourri etc. ? do you ever stop and have a sniff? OK ? next question ? do you then decide not to bother because the fragrance never lasts anyway? Well that?s what I always used to think, until I discovered Claremont and May. They do a wide range of fragrances as follows: Fragrance Layers Champagne and roses Honey and vanilla Orange grove Lilac and lavender Essential Fragrances Amberwood blue Cinnamon Coconut Cucumber and mint Frangipani Honeysuckle and jasmine Jacaranda wood and citrus Mango and papaya Orchid Oriental lime and ginger Paradise Passion fruit and melon Pink pepper and lotus pod Pomegranate Sweet bay and citrus Water lily Now I hope you know me better than to think that I have put...

SusanLesley 18.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Claremont & May Champagne & Roses Room Spray

Champagne? Yes, pleas!

Advantages: Inexpensive
Disadvantages: To citrusy in taste

...Recently I have come across new champagne; it was new to me of course. The champagne was Bernard Remy Carte Blanche, Brut NV (non vintage). I was invited to a tasting as our wine supplier launched new house champagne and wanted our opinions. When it comes to tasting new champagne I would never say no. History Bernard Remy is a very young champagne house, as for producer of this magical drink. Unlike other big names houses it was founded in 20th century, in 1968, so it's only 38 years old or young if you prefer (just 1 year older than me! and I'm still young!). For comparison Veuve-Clicquot was established in 1772 (234 years old); another big and well known house - Mumm in 1827 (179 years old); Laurent-Perrier in 1821 (194 years) to name just a few. The founders, Remy family, own 8 hectares of vineyards in Cote des Blancs...

malekowie 29.03.2006 (31.03.2006) · Read review
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Review of Bernard Remy Champagne

Top-up champagne?

Advantages: Nice, inoffensive taste, price.
Disadvantages: None

...I have two passions, as some of you may already know one is photography and the other is? champagne (sorry if you thought is was white wine!). Recently I've come across champagne I have never tasted before (I was a bottle of it somewhere). And was very curious what it was like. But couldn't get the champagne anywhere and my curiosity was reaching the point when the only option was to go to France and buy a bottle and have the wish came true. As a friend of mine dos travel quite often I phoned him and asked if he was going to France, well he was! And he agreed to have a look for my champagne, great! In two day he phoned me from France and asked: did you want a Magnum or a couple of regular bottles. Well, Magnum was tempting, but I wouldn't manage to sample the full bottle on my own, so decided to go for two regular bottles...

malekowie 25.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Etienne Dumont/Champagne

Mercier Champagne

Advantages: Exquisite taste, bubbly, moreish
Disadvantages: not too expensive, bottle too small

...I bought this bottle of champagne a couple of months ago from Tesco for a treat. It was priced at £18.99 which isn't too bad for a well known make of champagne. This review is of the Mercier Brut. It comes in a 75cl bottle and its alcohol content is 12% which is enough to get you a bit merry!! Appearance ---------------- The bottle is the normal sparkling wine bottle shape with the cork held on by a metal tie. I like the red and white label which has "Mercier" printed boldly in gold - very classy! The wine itself, when poured, is golden/deepish yellow in colour. It is fizzy, but not to the extreme. Smell -------- I will move onto taste rather than smell as smelling a fizzy wine does not always work as you might find out if you want to try! My mother once had a coughing fit after trying to but thats another story...

neil1424 06.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Mercier Champagne

No fizz in this champagne!

Advantages: location - next to the termini station
Disadvantages: everything else

...Oh Dear. What was meant to be a nice suprise weekend of luxury for my partner turned out a disaster. I booked the Champagne Palace based on its location and the fact it was advertised as a 4 star hotel. It is literally across the road from the Termini station which is its only plus point. On arrival we went into reception and were given a room on the 4th floor. the hotel has one lift which you can see down the lift shaft - not great! Our room was 9 foot long by 8 foot wide. There was barely enough room to move down the side of the double bed. The plug sockets were hanging out of the wall, the light fitting out of the ceiling in the bathroom, the minibar has an open can of coke and bottle of water which was warm, the air conditioning unit was hanging out the wall and when we tried to open the window the handle fell off! We approached...

cass30 14.08.2008 · Read review
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Review of Champagne Palace, Rome

Etienne Dumont/Champagne

Advantages: WOW So drinkable
Disadvantages: Cheap

...Etienne Dumont/Champagne Yes shocked and most pleased champagne from France that can be rated! Some say lack luster with no body but shock and horrors drinkable affordable and complexly blows away the much loved over rated Moet Chardon in the similar price range. French corporations sell by name, this sparkling delivers by enjoyment. It can actually be compared to a South African Brut, not in the Graeme Beck league but equally splendant amongst its fellow budget wines. Super fizzy and what you would expect when poring the fabled Champagne region whistle wetter. A bottle to admire NO! But good looking enough for those discernable guests. Would they know the difference on taste only anyway! Definitely recommended and enjoyed to its full limited extent of 750cl...

CGirdlestone 25.12.2008 · Read review
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Review of Etienne Dumont/Champagne

Champagne Charlie

Advantages: Committed performances and a couple of hours of enjoyable brain candy.
Disadvantages: Toothless satire and a lack of detail.

...related as edutaintment (educational entertainment) in quick succession by a whole series of fast-talking characters. So it's as though we're skating over the surface of the decade's events instead of investigating any of them fully. The film is populated almost exclusively by larger-than-life personalities jostling for our attention. There are no strait-laced politicians - everyone has some kind of peccadillo or Achilles heel to be exploited by the hero in his anti-Communist crusade. Although his aim may be to free the Afghan people of tyranny, the indigenous population is under-represented so we aren't rooting for them as we should. It feels like the whole endeavour is too easy to get off the ground for Champagne Charlie and the lack of detail in much of the political manoeuvring threatens to undermine the satire. When it looks like we...

afy9mab 14.01.2009 · Read review
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