Red Bubbles - Why?

Written by Ian Robertson on 22nd January 2007

When I first started running tasting groups and wine education sessions, I routinely planned on including Sparkling reds into the setup. In my head, I thought that the slight sugary sweetness, allied with bubbles, allied with red wine bite (the blokes would perhaps not object too much about bubbles – it was red after all) would be a sensation. Rapturous all round every time I produce it, right?

Wrong. Oh so wrong. And I am not really sure why.

I admit that I am not quoting statistics that have been produced by quantifiable study, but more relying on my often hazy memory of asking people “Who liked that one?” over the years, but I would say that almost 80% of my groups have not liked sparkling red. This continues to confound me – why would this be??

I have shared the type of wine used around too – from Seppelt to Leasingham to Andrew Garrett to Yellow’s Red – the same sort of response.

If you ask people what it is they don’t like, they become frustratingly obscure. The closest I have had to a reason that makes sense is someone stating that he did not like it because it reminded him of “old style cough syrup with bubbles.”

It is certainly true that many of Australia’s red bubbles contain too much “syrup” taste – that cordial like sweetness of the dosage that is often added to sparkling wine of all types. It is also true that many Australian red bubbles are made with a base wine considered not good enough to be a still wine – so they add a bucket of dosage, bubbles and sell. These wines funnily enough often sell for a few bucks more than many still wines from the company – hard to think given my research that it is a good idea in the long term!

However, all is not lost. There are producers who make examples of extremely high quality and high prices from some of their best parcels of fruit (Rockford and Leasingham come to mind) and there are even some examples of more mass produced product where the sugar is kept more in line with reason. (see the link below to check out some samples from the reviews section.)

So, to answer another question that one of the members of one of these groups once asked me – “Why take a good wine and do THAT to it?” (make it bubbly, that is.)

For me, there are certain occasions that scream for red bubbles.

• It is a great BBQ wine, going with salad and meat and chilled for those hot summer nights.

• It is a great match for roasts, especially turkey, duck, and chicken.

• Men and women can both drink it!

• Christmas lunch is built for it!

Make sure you chill it, but not toooo much…you need to taste it still, after all.

So, prove me wrong – get out there and drink some red bubbles and enjoy it you folk. It is time for me get it all wrong every so often…

Check out these red bubbles reviewed by Wine Without Wank.