How To Introduce A Friend To Sparkling Wine

You may be the biggest fan of Sparkling Wine, but it can be a little disappointing if you don’t have someone to share that love and passion with, so in this article, I’ll give you some simple and easy tips on how to introduce Sparkling Wine to your friends, or your girlfriend or boyfriend.

Chances are, your friend won’t have a lot of experience with Sparkling Wine, if they did, I don’t think you’d be reading this article.

Alcohol of any kind takes some time to get used to and to really start appreciating it is going to take some dedication. It’s not like biting into a juicy strawberry or a bar of chocolate that you fall in love with straight away, Alcohol requires some patience, even myself, I remember not overly enjoying my first couple of glasses of Sparkling Wine, but now I’m absolutely in love with the fizz.

Introducing Sparkling Wine

As much as you might want to go all out and introduce them to all your favourites, that unfortunately would be a mistake as they are unlikely to be able to fully appreciate it.

If someone is very new to the world of Sparkling Wine, then they need to be introduced slowly, so I would recommend, either popping open one fairly standard bottle of Sparkling Wine or popping open a bottle of Champagne and a bottle of Prosecco to compare alongside each other, this can make it a more fun experience for them as Champagne and Prosecco isn’t overly difficult to tell apart with different characteristics.

Experience Every Moment

Start out by having them open the bottle, explain how to do it if they don’t know and maybe tell them a fact or two about the speed of a cork or how CO2 is lost when opening a bottle.

A good quote to mention would be from Dom Pérignon, when he said “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”, as this is a good way to lead your friends into looking into the glass and exploring the dancing bubbles.

We don’t often focus on the look of our alcohol unless, of course, it’s in an exciting Cocktail, Sparkling Wine is really the only alcoholic drink that can captivate you for an extended period of time, it’s not like you’re going to be spending a minute looking into your glass of beer unless something is actually swimming in it.

When trying to describe what’s in the glass, you may get the aromas of peach, floral and citrus, whereas they might only be able to describe it in a way of a Fizzy Alcohol.

I recommend either printing out or having up a picture of different aromas and flavours that you might find in a glass of bubbly, including fruit, floral, citrus, pastry, cheese, savoury, minerals and more.

When tasting the Sparkling Wine, approach it in a similar way, have the image to look upon, as it can help jog your memory, even taking it one item at a time, such as, do I taste peach, do I smell rose petals, this technique can definitely help you at the beginning.

It takes a considerable amount of time and experience to be able to discern certain characteristics from a glass of bubbly, as mentioned, being able to tell a Champagne and Prosecco apart is normally on the easy side and is a good starting challenge for anyone new to the world of fizz.

From this point, just continue introducing new styles and varieties, maybe start with exploring the different types of Champagne or Prosecco, rather than heading over to different countries, try and share with them, what they would enjoy, you don’t have to make the experience technical, you can make it fun by playing some Sparkling Wine Games or completing some Sparkling Wine Tasks