It’s a time-worn adage that Americans drink most of their sparkling wine for the year in that brief stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Time-worn in part because, in the past few years, bubbly things have broken out of their holiday pen, and are being enjoyed year-round. While I applaud this, I don’t entirely understand what happened. Wonky marketing types like chalk it up to prosecco, because of course. While I’m less convinced, there’s no denying that a broader embrace of sparkling wine—including pétillant naturel, drinks in cans, a wider diversity of Champagne—has finally taken hold.
And yet here we are again, at that time of year, which means deciding what sparkling wine you’re toting to friends’ houses and opening yourself. This year, Team PUNCH decided to forgo the usual Champagne campaign and consider other options, all under $30, that you can not only rely on for the next few weeks, but also during the whole year. These are delicious no matter when you drink them, and they come across as fancy without actually being fancy. Which is the whole point, right?
From our recent tasting of more than 25 sparkling wines, here are the 12 standouts.
Tried and True
These are the utility hitters, the ones that could stand in for Champagne, but could also serve well on Mimosa or French 75 duty. We skipped some of the of the usual choices, like prosecco or crémant (although we couldn’t resist one crémant in particular), in favor of things that offer great talking points at a party.
Bisson Marca Trevigiana Glera Frizzante
Rosenthal Wine Merchant | $17 [BUY]How exactly does one of the best proseccos out there come from a top producer of Ligurian wine, 250 miles away from the Veneto? The quick answer is that Bisson’s Pierluigi Lugano works with friends at Torre Zecchei in Valdobbiadene, the most prestigious district of the Veneto area where prosecco is made. Together they produce a brisk, dry prosecco using glera—the grape used in most prosecco—that’s fragrant with soapstone and lemon. It just can’t be marked as prosecco because of various esoteric wine laws. We’re not sure what Ligurian know-how adds to the process, but this remains a consistent winner.
Avinyó Brut Reserva Cava
De Maison Selections | $20 [BUY]This organically farmed cava comes from higher altitudes in the Penedès, and it never fails to deliver: Mild in its flavors, with a snappy seashell mineral side, it’s infinitely versatile.
Gabin & Felix Richoux Crémant de Bourgogne
Polaner Selections | $23 [BUY]The Richoux brothers and their parents make the best wines in the small appellation of Irancy—just down the road from Chablis, with nearly the same soils but with mostly pinot noir planted. Their organically farmed, higher-altitude parcels are used to make this crunchy, frothy crémant, with notes of green apple and pine.
François & Julien Pinon Vouvray Brut Non-Dosé
Louis/Dressner Selections | $20 [BUY]François Pinon, now joined by his son Julien, has been making this completely dry (no sugar added) imminently drinkable wine for a couple decades, and it remains one of the most fun, precise sparkling wines out there. Sourced from organically farmed chenin blanc from Vouvray, it’s hyacinth-scented with a chalky edge to its fruit. This is big chenin energy at its finest.
Outré In the Best Way
You’re not always looking to normcore it with your fizzy wines. And that’s OK—sometimes it’s worth looking a bit farther afield, either because you want some variety, or you want to introduce friends to something new. These all showcase a different side of sparkle, proof there’s always something new to discover.
Domaine Les Grandes Vignes Bulle Nature Pétillant Naturel
Avant-Garde Wines & Spirits | $20 [BUY]The Vaillant family runs this biodynamic property in Thouarcé, near the Layon river in the Loire’s Anjou area. Theirs is a gentler, less dogmatic take on natural wine: They produce wines in traditional appellations like Bonnezeaux as well as their own nontraditional efforts, like this unsulfured pét-nat made from chardonnay. It’s floral and light, with a chive-like freshness and the fragrance of the ruddy, tangy heirloom peach the French call pêche de vigne.
Aphros Phaunus Pétillant Naturel Branco 2017
Skurnik Wines | $25 [BUY]Vasco Croft is a true believer in Portugal’s Vinho Verde area. He farms not just biodynamically but, in the case of the still sister wine to this one, working entirely without electricity. The Phaunus pét-nat is made from loureiro, a key grape in Vinho Verde, which is given a brief maceration on its skins—not enough to make the juice orange, but enough to add texture. The result is austere and intensely minerally, with a musky buttercup side.
Domaine Plageoles Gaillac Mauzac Nature 2018
Jenny & François Selections | $26 [BUY]One thing that makes sparkling wine delicious is high acidity. But not everyone vibes on that, which is why a lot of bottlings end up with added sugar that softens their edges, if not quite making them sweet. The Plageoles family, pioneers of traditional winemaking in the southwestern French region of Gaillac, have mastered a different path. This is the naturally low-acid mauzac grape, indigenous to the area, vinified using an ancestrale technique in Gaillac known as méthode gaillacoise. (This method actually predates that of Champagne and possibly even Limoux, the other home of ancestrale.) In other words, this is fizz with deep history, mellow but dry, full of a quiet ripe-pear fruitiness and a woolly, agave-like aspect.
Julien Braud La Bulle de L'Ouest Méthode Ancestrale
Verity Wine Partners | $20 [BUY]Depending where you are in the country, this is a season for serious seafood. And Braud, one of the great talents in the western Loire, makes what is basically sparkling Muscadet, the quintessential wine for shellfish. The ripe white peach fruit and rye-seed spice provide a bracing side that’s great with crab or oysters, but also perfect on its own.
Brunch Wine (Still Suitable for People Who Hate Brunch)
These wines are just plain joyous: fruity, sometimes a bit sweet, uncomplicated in the best way. They’re as good, if not better, the morning after the party.
Meinklang Austria Frizzante Rosé 2018
Zev Rovine Selections | $18 [BUY]The Michlits family runs this biodynamic, integrated farm on the Neusiedlersee, Austria’s great inland lake, right by the Hungarian border. As with the Richoux crémant, we don’t know how they pull this off at this price: all from pinot noir, it’s made like prosecco but with more natural-ish processes, and marked by a light sweetness that recalls the taste-memory of strawberry-kiwi Starburst, frothy in its bubbles but not aggro—just perfectly right.
Alain Voge Les Bulles d'Alain Saint-Péray Sparkling 2014
Citadel Trading | $29 [BUY]Voge is one of the best producers in the Rhône town of Cornas, but the winery also has plenty of land in neighboring Saint-Péray, where the specialty has long been fizz made from the marsanne grape. Like mauzac, it tends to be sunnier in its flavors than bubbles made from more northerly grapes. Made in a Champagne style with at least three years of aging, this is focused and full of energy, with sweet pear and blanched almond flavors but also wintergreen and chervil for zest.
Birichino Pétulant Naturel Monterey Sparkling Malvasia Bianca 2018
$25 [BUY]This Central Coast winery has been making their almost-pét-nat for years, and it’s reliably irresistible. The malvasia always offers up a flamboyant floral element (think geraniums and lily bulbs) that combines with just a bit of sweetness and a burst of citrus flavors, for what drinks like moscato with a graduate degree.
Jean-Paul Brun FRV100 Vin Mousseux
Louis/Dressner Selections | $20 [BUY]Another perennial fave, unabashedly sweet and, along with the very similar Renardat-Fâche Cerdon de Bugey, simply one of the happiest wines on earth. Brun is based in southern Beaujolais, but this is a very different sort of gamay from what you’d typically find in red wine: made using the ancestral method, and finishing around 9 percent alcohol, its flavors evoke shaved black-cherry ice, poppy seeds and spun sugar, and they operate more in bass tones, matching its dark-rose color.