Germany is by far the market with the lowest entry level prices in Europe. So what can the customer expect to be in a bottle of 2 € sparkling wine? In Germany all sparklers are banned with an extra 1,02 € tax, that was once taken to build the fleet of the last German kaiser. The Vat is another 19 %.  And of course you need to buy the wine, fine it, let it make a second fermantation, bottle it and give it a nice  package. And the supermarkets also need to have their share. What comes out in the end is, that the calculation has to be very presice, and that the wines have to be as cheap as possible to make this calculation work.

The average German drinks around 3,7 litres, or 5 bottles of sparkling wine each year. By far the majority of sparkling wines consumed comes from a small group of large producers, who bottle their products under different brand names, and distribute them mainly via supermarket and discount chains. The price range for sparkling wines in supermarkets and discounters is much greater than it is for still wines. It begins at just below 2 Euros for sparkling wine (Sekt) and goes up to around 13 Euros, while champagne warrants even higher prices, the most expensive bottle we purchased was well above 30 Euros.

All that sparkles

But how good are these wines, which are often produced in millions of bottles, really. Is there a correlation between price and quality, and do the champagnes live up to consumersÂ’ expectations? These are questions that every consumer and lover of bubbly must have posed at some time. Wein-Plus conducted a major blind tasting in order to gain a comprehensive overview, at least of those sparkling wines available from the major retail chains in southern Germany.

The results are sobering. Even if you do not apply a particularly high standard of expectations, one must conclude that a significant proportion of the branded sparkling wines available in Germany, most of the house brands offered by discount chains as well as quite a few expensive champagnes can only be rated as “unsatisfactory”, and sometimes downright “failed”. At the same time, the tasting results bore almost no relationship to the price of the wines. For instance, the sparkling wines, apart from the champagnes, that were most expensive in the tasting, the "Krimskoye" sparkling wines from the Artemovsker cellars in the Crimea, were also the most unclean of the whole range. All of the wines tasted were faulty, and cannot be recommended under any circumstances. 

Krimskoje: among the winners only in terms of price

But German Sekt brands were also not exactly impressive. At a price of 1,99 Euros per bottle it came as no surprise that the budget brand "Schloss Königstein" did not win any prizes, although the price was still too high for what was offered in the bottle. The familiar brands, from Henkell via Deinhard and Kupferberg to Mumm were also unsatisfactory, and the wines in some cases also so unclean that one cannot recommend them even to the least demanding of sparkling wine consumers.

The picture looks marginally better when we look at cava. Here, too, there are some really poor wines, but the Freixenet products are at least partly acceptable, while those made by Codorniu are even rated good to very good. The latter are among the few branded sparkling wines that are actually worth the asking price. On the other hand, we were not impressed by the retailer house brands.

Well-known German brands

The champagnes presented a mixed bag. Yes, in general the quality was noticeably better than that of the other sparkling wines, but in many individual cases one cannot be satisfied with the results of many famous names, not to mention those of the house brands. The winner here is Veuve Cliquot, which is in better shape than we have seen it for a long time, followed by the 2004 Vranken Grande Reserve, which at 15,99 Euros is also one of the least expensive champagnes on test. Other wines rated very good include the Vranken Rosé "Bricout" and the Heidsieck "Blue Top" (in stark contrast to the extremely poor "Red Top"), while all other brands were disappointing. In the discounter ranges, the equal winners were the Vve. Monsigny from Aldi as well as the Comtesse Marie-Louise from Penny, although one must query why one should be paying 12,59€ for a bottle of only just acceptable champagne, when you can get excellent Sekt (bottle-fermented sparkling wine) from German wine estates at the same price – or, for just a few Euros more you can buy a Vranken champagne that actually tastes of good champagne.

Something we noticed is that the quality generally deteriorated the sweeter the wines were. It seems producers work on the erroneous belief that residual sugar will hide even significant faults and unclean characteristics. In any case, hardly any of the sparkling wines showed real fruit, substance or depth, and as the residual sugar increased, the wines were generally even thinner, and the taste even more artificial than was the case already.

No matter in what language – „dry“ is noticeably sweet

The terms used to describe residual sugar in sparkling wines are extremely confusing for consumers. Sekt and champagne really only taste dry if they are labelled "brut" or "extra brut", or if there is a specific mention that the wine has not received any dosage whatsoever. "extra dry", no matter in what language, already indicates a semi-sweet taste, while "dry" is already noticeably sweet, and „off-dry“ or „sweet“ are even sweeter. There seems to be a general perception among producers that consumers want the label to say “dry”, but that they definitely do not want to consume dry sparkling wines. Awkward for consumers who would actually like to have a dry wine, and have to rely on what is printed on the label.

It is thus not easy if you are looking for a sparkling wine for any occasion in a retail or discount chain. If you have high expectations you are, in any case, in the wrong place, but even those seeking ordinary but clean quality must look hard to fill their needs. Only very few of the sparkling wines on offer are actually worth the price. But what is the point of low prices, if the quality on offer cannot satisfy even the most basic expectations?

What you should note when buying and storing sparkling wine:

Wine, and particularly sparkling wine, is extremely sensitive to light. Just a few days in a shop window or under fluorescent lighting can be permanently detrimental to the taste.

°	Never buy a wine that has been exposed to direct sunlight
°	Avoid bottles that have collected dust on the shelf
°	Wherever possible select a bottle that is packed in its own individual carton
°	If there are bottles on the shelf that are still in the carton, and have not been unpacked, select a bottle from the carton, not one from the shelf
°	Always store your sparkling wine in a cool, dark place. Never leave it close to a window, near a heater or radiator, or in the kitchen
°	Only buy as much as you are going to consume in the near future. In most cases, sparkling wine is ready for drinking when it is released for sale, and in most cases will only deteriorate over time

Here is a list of the wines that we can really recommend in terms of their quality, without any consideration of the price:

Rated excellent (85-89 Points):

Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin Champagne brut, 32,99€

Rated very good (80-84 Points):

Codorniu Cava seco, 5,49€
Kesseler Hochgewächs Brut, 10,49€
Vranken 2004 Champagne Grande Réserve brut, 15,99€
Heidsieck Monopole Champagne brut "Blue Top", 18,99€
Vranken Champagne brut "Bricourt" ros+e, 19,99€

Rated good (78-79 Points):

"Waldenhoff" Riesling Sekt extra trocken, 3,49€ (Lidl)
"Erlenbrunn" Riesling Sekt extra trocken, 3,49 (Aldi)
Codorniu Cava semi seco, 5,49€
Lanson Champagne brut "Black Lable", 21,99€

Still suitable if you have lower expectations:

Rated reasonable/fairly good (75-77 Points):

Santero Spumante dolce, 2,15€ (Penny)
Schloss Gutenberg Deutscher Sekt extra dry, 2,49€ (Plus)
MM extra Deutscher Sekt trocken, 2,99€
Friedrichshöhe 2004 Riesling Deutscher Sekt extra dry, 3,49 (Penny)
Rotkäppchen Deutscher Sekt lieblich, 3,79€
Rotkäppchen Deutscher Sekt halbtrocken, 3,79€
Feist Riesling Sekt extra trocken 2005, 3,79€
Freixenet Cava Rotiña Cava, 5,39€
Vve. Monsigny Champagne brut Sélection, 12,59€ (Aldi)
Comtesse Marie-Louise Champagne brut, 12,59€ (Penny)
Moët & Chandon Champagne brut Imperial, 29,99€
Moët & Chandon Champagne brut Imperial rosé, 33,99€

The tasting took place in the tasting room of Wein-Plus in Erlangen/Germany on 13. and 14. December. The wines were tasted blind, and were placed in order of sweetness. The tasters did not know the origin of the wines, nor where they were purchased, nor the prices paid. Also included were sparkling wines from various European countries, that had been sent to us direct by the producers. The results of these wines can be found in the Wein-Plus wine guide.

The tasters:

Marcus Hofschuster
Head taster Wein-Plus

Karl Bajano
Oenologist, taster Wein-Plus

Moritz Lüke
Dipl.-Ing. (FH) viticulture and oenology, taster Wein-Plus

Note: all the wines published here were purchased by employees of Wein-Plus from supermarket and discounter chain branches in Erlangen, Germany. Wherever possible, we purchased bottles out of the carton, nevertheless it is possible that in individual cases wines have been detrimentally affected by incorrect storage in the shop, e.g. by extended exposure to fluorescent lights.