So what I would like to add is after seeing this I was thinking like I would really like to have a Monday how to drink and a Friday how to drink right but I also watched you do behind the scenes of it and I know it is god-awful amount of work so if you manage to pull that off I commend you highly but if it's not in your wheel house I totally get it the question I do have if you're still reading this is champagne headaches worse than cursed cocktails like is Chris cocktails like the instant pain of like a belt on your butt whereas a wine champagne headache like just lingers and so it's more annoying???
@how to drink, just an idea. You should do a series on Disney alcoholic drinks such as the Violet Sake in the Japanese pavilion of EPCOT and the Reggies Revenge in the Hanger bar of Disney Springs. There are endless amounts of beverages that may take multiple videos.
This channel's been showing up in my recommended for several days now; unsure why RUclips thought I needed to watch an alcohol nerd talk about drinks and make occasional D&D references, but it was absolutely correct, this is delightful. Happy to be here!
It definitely is a case of diminishing returns. If you're in the tax bracket where the difference between $30 and $300 is basically a rounding error, there's little reason to slum it, but for 99% of us, the added expense generally is not worth it.
There is also the first drink and subsequent drinks. Start with a nicer bottle and move to a cheaper one when you are not caring so much about how it tastes. Similar to a base spirit and mixer, save the expensive bottle for when it will not be drowned by the sickly sweet flavoured soda water.
Yeah, unless you are throwing a NYE party with a few other couples or friends and want to split the cost, for most people its just not worth it to blow that kind of money on something. Although, it can feel nice to pretend you are upper crust for an evening, in that particular case.
Frankly, not surprised: I have a BSc in the field and most wines should not cost anything beyond €20 or so. Consider it this way: 4 people barely drink 1 glass of wine out of a single bottle, and a couple can get comfortably tipsy (as in, not actually drunk) if we're discussing a non-weak wine. For that sort of deal, going over €20 is pretty inordinate.
@@RaspK I can understand if it's smaller batch but high demand, that might often push the price up a little, but I agree a lot of the price inflation is just brand recognition and they can charge that much "cause they can". I do just fine with a bottle of £7.80 Prosecco that I buy from a store not 300 yards from my house, dry and not too sweet, while the £11 bottle on the same shelf has a fancy looking bottle but tastes only half as good.
In reality those wines are NOT close, high level somms can tell them apart instantly and the difference is huge. The fact is that there is no bad champagne but that the expensive stuff is a waste of money on those who are not very interested in the topic of wine. Blind tasting is very hard and Greg did quite well but frankly it's not his expertise to judge price/quality of wines for people who are interested in wine. For beginners it can be interesting to see if it is worth it to Greg but any expert will tell you that most of the difference between 20 and 300$ is lost on people who don't have an obsession with fermented grape juice
@@itsmederek1 While *_some_* of the things you wrote are functionally correct, the entirety of your comment is complete drivel. I have a BSc in Oenology and Alcoholic Beverages Technology, and organoleptic testing (i.e. tasting) was one of my really favourite courses. Yes, training to check what you get is a big deal of really separating the fine difference between different wines, but that still does not address the reality of the matter, and that is that there is an inherent surreality about pricing per se baked in luxury products which does not reflect an actual quantitative difference in quality. Is there a difference? Let me put it this way: if somebody does not regularly afford the money to train their palate to appreciate the difference between a twenty-dollar bottle versus a three hundred-dollar bottle, and such training is required to appreciate it per your statement, then the best person to judge the reality of the matter is another person who has a good overall palate but not one trained to pick apart high-quality wines of this specific style. Why? Because he will tell you how close they functionally are to any similarly undertrained palate, thereby making the best price-quality judgement for that population group. Or, to put it more bluntly: if any bloke off of the street would like to taste a great champagne and is not sure whether he should pony up a pretty hefty sum for one, then being told that *_he_* won't likely notice the finer qualities of a bottle that he would only have a glass from can be a huge boon. Instead, they would get told they might actually benefit more from buying a dozen bottles of a comparable champagne, so that he can comfortably enjoy a couple of glasses with a good number of friends, or a couple of bottles for a small group, and that is a good thing.
I 100% agree. If you like it, it's good. That's all you really need to care about (see also: how well done you like the meat *you* eat, what you put ketchup on etc).
@@FaerieDust Omg, so true. I'm from Texas and everyone likes their steaks medium rare. I worked in a Lebanese restaurant during grad school and most of the middle eastern customers like their beef well done. It opened my eyes. Good well done steak is really enjoyable. I deviate from medium rare every so often for the well done, and it feels like the entire state riots. So annoying.
Some somelliers i know have a philosophy that i found useful when starting out tasting wines. "The best wine, is the one you enjoy drinking". price is rarely a factor.
@@retronartz1268 but did he actually like the more expensive ones or has he just done this long enough to know the telltale signs of an expensive product?
@@retronartz1268 did he though? Because he also said he doesnt know whether he likes champagne so theres that. Im just saying it would have been interesting to see a few other people join in and see if they agreed or not
As someone living in Oregon, the wine culture here is no joke, it's well crafted but affordable and if your ever in the neighborhood Greg, come check it out.
Fun fact: The Moet was the bottle I bought the night I asked my wife to marry me back in 2009 or so. I bought it because it was the most expensive bottle they had at the grocery store even though I was a poor college kid. We both hated it, but I still have the empty bottle.
Greg: If this were an episode of "America's Test Kitchen, both the Dom and the Crystal would get the Winner's tag, but the Argyle would get the "Best Buy". So, there's room for all three.
Really enjoying the revamped visuals on the close-ups and B-roll. Really makes the difference on a channel like this, where it feels like a well produced, bingeable show.
French speaking here, my family used to produce our own Champagne in the Champagne-Ardennes region, near Epernay (blanc de blancs more precisely) and my grandfather was always making the clients taste the Champagne with some little salted cookies ore some side dish. Because no one is drinking only Champagne at a table. On every occasion this drink is served, there are meals, (of course not overpowering the taste) helping the Champagne to deliver all its aromas. This is a little bit similar to the wine, which is often recommended to be served with dishes. Only some great connoisseurs are drinking their wine with nothing to eat aside. Another important point to benefit of the full aromatic "palette" of a Champagne : it is recommended to serve it very cold. Not with ice cubes in it, but you can do it two ways: -store it in the fridge a couple hours before the tasting -store it 15 min in the freezer to give it a good cold shot (this technique is called "frapper" which means "to hit") Of course, never forget your bottle in your freezer, it may explode Otherwise this was a very interesting video to show how much the price of some champagnes has nothing correlated to its quality, except some great names (but not all of them hehe)
You say that, but growing up in the 80s and 90s, to me champagne has always been only used for a toast to celebrate something and never accompanied by any food. Normally it was before or after the meal, but never during. Oh and it was always a horrible experience because the person that bought the champagne always picked the dryest one they could find and I really don't enjoy dry alcoholic drinks.
Thank you, very interesting to know! I understand nothing about the mysteries of champagne, but I know what I like, if that makes sense?.. The best champagne experience I’ve ever had was two years ago: a Cristal 2006 and oysters (all on ice) and I was like, oh is THIS how it’s supposed to taste together?!! Well, since nothing compares to that... I stick to a nice Crémant de Bourgogne or a cold Prosecco...😅🥂
"Only some great connoisseurs are drinking their wine with nothing to eat aside." Oh, honey, this is apparently an extreme cultural difference, because drinking cheap wine by itself to get drunk is ABSOLUTELY a thing that people do. A lot.
I find it interesting that Greg concludes that 'expensive champagne is no bullshit' after watching him agonize back and forth between a $300 bottle and a $25 bottle. The obvious follow up question becomes is the $300 bottle 12 times better than the $25 bottle? It would be even more interesting to revisit this with a 'true' blind taste in a round robin field, once Greg's head has recovered.
I believe he meant that they're no BS because you're more likely to have a quality champagne as the price goes up. Unlike with some of his other blind tests. Though I do agree, a blind test would have been preferable as we've seen how Pappy's fares in the whiskey tests.
I'm not surprised that the Argyle, of all the american versions, was able to to compete with the french ones. Oregon and France actually have VERY similar climates and soil quality. (I've heard is brought up with Truffles and Wine before, so it's neat that it stands up to the pricey heavyweights)
@Fetty Comparing two continents in general isn't a very useful thing to do in this case. Florida and Ukraine are not relevant to wine production in France and California.
A true blind bracket would be interesting i think, Where only we the viewers get to see what is advancing and greg has no indicators whatsoever, no bottles on the table , no clear glasses.
I'm kind of annoyed by how it's set up, when he did it with Bourbon video and didn't like Pappy he seemed embarrassed, feels like they stacked the deck to make it not happen this time
Okay, so whilst the most expensive ones did end up winning the day, I think it's worth something that you had to think about it. Giving the huge price difference between some of them, it should've been instant, and it wasn't
Well, to be fair, that's the case with almost anything. A $10k car and a $100k car are both going to drive well, get you where you need to go, and for the most part be fairly interchangeable. The more expensive option is just for the car affecienados that really notice the finer details and handling (as well as those who just want to flex their money).
For many people it would come to money efficiency. 22ish bucks vs 300ish bucks then you'd expect the 300ish to be 60x better. But if it is actually only like 2x better then just buy two of the 22 bucks one.
Fun fact: In the EU champagne is a registered trademark, to be used only for sparkling wine from the Champagne region in France. In Russia, only Russian sparkling wine may be sold as Champenskaya. Everything else, including those from France, can only be sold as "sparkling wine". This has led to quite a grudge fight between France and Russia, even before the whole current situation.
I mean…this only as of July 2021, and definitely just Putin being a sod. Champagne is made in only Champagne, so says Christopher Walken. Anything else is just asinine branding.
I have a feeling that's going to change relatively soon. Perhaps we'll see a compromise where Champenskaya remains the designation for their own product with another designation for the French product that matches "Champagne" phonetically.
@@myopiczeal While I agree with your notion on principle, the taste of wine and other agricultural products can vary wildly based on the soil composition and the weather of the growing region, in addition of the plant variety used. Then there's additional regional rules and regulations that have to be followed to earn a specific name brand, leading to seal of quality. For instance, in Germany the only ingredients you may use to brew beer are water, malt, hops and yeast. Anything that contains any other/additional ingredients cannot legally be called beer. That means if you buy a (German-brewed) beer in Germany, you know exactly what is and isn't in it.
@@myopiczeal Fun fact, the EU protection for Stilton cheese doesn't include the village of Stilton, therefore legally prohibiting anyone in Stilton from making Stilton
just based on round 1 and 2 so far, it really does seem like the answer is (like with most alcohol) down to personal preference. greg isn’t noticing a major quality difference, he’s giving different tasting notes and deciding which he likes more
I like the bracket style,, definitely a fun way to change up the show and I wouldn't be sad to see another episode like this; albeit with a spirit/cocktail you hate a little less haha
There are a lot of Cremants that can give a champagne a run for their money in similar price brackets. so if your budget is limited I'd go for a cremant
This is especially true for Champagne, where it's status as a party/celebration beverage throws the correlation between price and quality way out of balance. Paying $70 for VC Yellow Label is just awful.
Not necessarily a reason but the only people that should and will buy expensive stuff it's because they know what they are looking for and what to buy.
I absolutely love the new style. As a creator myself (on a different channel) I can really appreciate switching things up a bit. A few things that stuck out to me were: -it's really fun to hear Meredith comment and be along for the ride. She's fun and funny, you guys are clearly good friends. -The sound effects and new angles on the bottles, pouring, etc. takes the production quality up a notch. It feels more and more like a netflix special, rather than tv. - Music and dramatic impact of picking between the drinks was very fun, gave the show... a good mouthfeel. Personally I didn't like the bracket system as much. I get what the intent was, but I like more of the raw notes myself. It's more informative to be able to grab any two drinks and talk differences, especially in this case where the differences are so minute. Ultimately many of us watch these to see how much we should be paying/ what punches above its weight.
Fun matchup! Hope you didn't hurt too badly afterward. In wine terminology, "dosage" is the small amount of sugar added to a sparkling wine after the primary fermentation to add the carbonation in the second fermentation (when the cork is placed). It is necessary. The term for adding sugars to a wine for the purposes of creating a higher alcohol content that it could not reach otherwise, or to potentially cover up flawed, wines is called "chaptalization". This practice is highly frowned up (or at least should be)!
The small amount of sugar/yeast/yeast nutrients added to a sparkling wine prior to the secondary ferment in the traditional method is the Liqueur de Tirage. Dosage is one of the last steps, being added after disgorgement, in order to replace wine lost in the process and add sugar for a desired sweetness level (brut is from 3 to 12g/l, and accounts for the vast majority of champagnes, but there is a notable flavour/texture difference from 6 to 12g/l ). The cork isn’t placed until after the secondary fermentation is completed and the bottle is disgorged. It is kept under crown seal for the duration of the ferment / lees ageing period. Unless you mean method ancestrale, but that is not used for champagne, and ends up having significantly less effervescence. Chaptalisation used to be absolutely necessary in some areas / vintages of France in order to even make wine, though is far less needed now due to the growing season being longer and warmer overall. (This varies, some are still way too cold, see the frosts of 2021) Not trying to be a shitter, there’s just already way too much misinformation about wine
the fact that Greg has a hard time deciding, the fact that the don fails to smack you in the face with its superiority basically means I will never buy pricey bubbly. Ever.
Champagne has a signature kind of taste that you don't find anywhere else basically. So it's not that it's necessarily better, just unique. I personally love it and prefer it to any other kind of sparkling wine, but i usually buy the 'cheap' ones from smaller producers because they're all good anyway.
i mean, he made it out like he had a hard time, but watching it it was clear which one he was going to say was better as he was describing them. and the most expensive one won literally every time...pretty conclusive to me.
In Dom's case, you paying a lot for history. Dom was the person who improved Champagne to what it is today. Before him, not only was the quality lower but the thing could kill you (yeah really, the earlier thinner bottles tended to randomly explode and there are cases of people getting killed by it exploding in their face). Still, the expensive stuff is better, but not as much better as the price would suggest. Dom is not 10 times better then Argyle so from an economic standpoint it isn't worth it. I have a feeling that if you buy one of those tiny Dom or Cristal bottles and a large bottle of Argyle and start with your first glass of the expensive stuff and then go for the cheap you wont notice the difference at all, The first glass however you probably will if you know your stuff. It is kinda like drinking whiskey, when I have guests over the first glass I give them is the really good stuff but after that go for the mid range stuff that is just fine, you tend to loose a bit of the finer taste after you drunk a glass. Drinking an entire bottle of Port Ellen is just wasting your money.
@@tedbonnot8910 Not *literally* every time (argyle upset), but yes almost always. I was actually kinda surprised he had such a hard time tbh, I’ve been to champagne tastings and I could definitely tell the differences between champagnes and which ones I actually liked. But maybe that’s because I actually like champagne!
@@princessaria that's probably it, I can't stand sparkling wine at all so it all tastes the same (to me) no matter how much my friends try to say otherwise.
I've had several Dom vintages, and boy do they vary greatly in taste. I've had a glass of the 2001 vintage and it was pretty average - actually, arguably worse than some cheap Champagne I've had. But the 1997 Dom was genuinely the best champagne I've ever had in my life - it was incredible how different they tasted from each other.
This was great, though I would submit that it wasn't truly blind since you may have been subconsciously biased by knowing which two were in each bracket, but this was still pretty solid.
Wait you can DRINK champagne?! Judging from every time I've seen a bottle on the internet I assumed all you can do with it is spay it everywhere and maybe hurt yourself with the cork 🍾.
I love Argyle !!! Not only do I live in Oregon I fell in love with their wines years ago when I was living in Florida. You should Try their Black Brut.They leave the skins on the Pinot Noir grapes before turning it into sparkling wine. Best part is…. It’s very red aka “Black” in COLOR.
Iirc the reason it's called Cava is because it's done outside of France, but I believe it's the same preparation method And since it's not Champagne (with the marketing that the French have done for it), they can't charge Champagne's prices either
@@wydx120 Cava is only made in Spain. It has similar EU Protected Geographical Status as champagne. But anyway even mid tier cava beats any champagne I've ever tasted. I even like it slightly sweetened.
Man studying alcohol for work has been great really making me shine in the tests and when my teacher asks about different alcohols and like half the stuff that made her smirk before telling me I had an excellent answer, I am really thankful that these videos are so entertaining with small details that make you seem like you know what you are talking about
The “made her smirk” comment makes me sad. I’m a wine and spirits educator, and a teacher should never smirk. You’re trying to learn, and the teacher shouldn’t be making you feel bad. That, and when I see booze people smirking I automatically think they’re jackasses.
This was hightly informative. i like how with the dom vs cristal really comes down to preferred taste but both are very good. and now i know of a "cheap" champagne that has turned out to be really good as well. and i agree not all alchohols have a linear scale of price to quality. you can like a 15$ bottle of wine more than a $30 bottle of wine that based on a linear scale should be 2x as good. it comes down to taste
I'd be interested to see whether more significant differences appear with more appropriate glassware. Champagne saucers are so open that all of the aromatic/flavour compounds would be so difficult to detect.
When I was slinging this stuff many years ago at a high class liquor store we'd tell the people we liked that there really isn't a difference over $30. I still stand by that.
For Champaign or for anything? I mean that's true about some products like I don't need to pay more for vodka than Tito's costs (like $25), but for Scotch the diminishing returns line is more like $60
@@nevadanate4957 Champagne specifically. $40-60 for Scotch depending on style, $35 for bourbon. Titus, Absolut, or Russian Standard (personal favorite) for Vodka-nothing else is worth the money. Skyy if you're mixing. Wine's all over the place but unless it's an occasion stick to $15 or less. Mezcal/Tequila-we never could decide. Hacienda de Chihuahua Rep was a favorite though.
@@userJohnSmith yeah tequila is hard to say because there is stuff in the 50 dollar range that is really good. It's more of a floor, I don't know of a drinkable tequila below 19 bucks. But you could probably cut it off similar to scotch if you aren't looking for age statements (añejos are overrated anyway). Mezcal is ??? It just isn't available enough yet to make sense of
yeah that is entirely false lmao. In champagne - as in from the champagne region, 30 bucks only barely starts to get you into the decent juice of a basic blended brut - even 15 years ago. with prosecco or cava, maybe. But try getting a bottle that sat on lees for 8 years for 30 bucks, or any blancs de blancs or blancs de noirs for 30 bucks, or a brut sauvage.
@@malcomreynolds4103 Of you're in it for the status sure, out of you really want to push the limits of quality but...if you just want something to drink, there is very little difference and it is absolutely a waste of money for 90% of pallets. As evidenced here, it's not like it guy here doesn't have a refined pallet either. How many times did he have to go back before he picked the better bottle? Don't be a label snob.
As an Oregonian, I'm not surprised that our wine went toe to toe with the super expensive stuff and measured up. I'm in the suburbs and I'm less the 5 minutes from at least 3 vineyards.
I just want to clarify I did not enjoy you being in screaming pain, however this was entertaining and if you felt like murdering everything you hid it pretty well and managed to be entertaining so thank you for that.
I do work in a well-known wineshop and we do sell quite a lot of expensive to super expensive champagne. In my opinion, Dompi and Cristal and all those crazy expensive bottle are bullshit. Yes they do taste amazing, and yes they do taste better then a 30 Euro bottle. But it is not worth at all to pay that much money for one single bottle. For 220 Euros (our price of Dom.) you can have 2 very good champages, 3 cremants, and at the end you still have 3-4 incredible good bottles of normal wine. Most of us do not even have the exercise to fully taste and understand those well-made wines. Unless you have too much money and 200 bucks do not mean anything to you. Dont waste your money on prestige, it won´t make you happy.
To the people buying it, the price is irrelevant. I mean the average joe might be able to get a cup of coffee for 50 cents but there is another place that has a better coffee for 2 dollars that he prefers. Is it 4 times better than the 50 cent cup? No but he can easily afford better so that's what he gets. As a percentage of his income, it doesn't matter.
Small tip: drink it out of a white wine glass. It will help with the flavors and also the bubbles wont dissipate as quickly. A long thin flute is great for bubbles, not so great for flavor. Use it for „cheaper“ sparkling wine
the sports commentary and editing bits made me laugh and i'm definitely going to be picking up some argyle the next time i have something to celebrate :)
If there is a second Champagne Thunderdome it would be interesting to see a vintage vs. Tete de cuvee bottlings or house vs. Grower/producer champagne. On average I think the grower producer 🍾 has the best QPR!
Or even a glass test with 1 single champagne. One of my old bosses did that to me, he blindly poured one bottle of wine into 3 different shaped glasses and asked me what I thought they were. None of them tasted the same, similar characteristics but each glass helped a particular aroma or flavour to express itself. That's why watching Greg taste great bottle of wine out of these coupe's makes me want to cry.
Champagne is weird. In every other wine region grower-produced wines (estate bottled) command a premium. But grower Champagnes are usually less expensive than the big houses. And better quality as well.
I am also ambivalent about champagne, and more than one glass gives me raging headaches, yet I can totally see the appeal of tasting a bunch for comparison purposes. Thanks for taking one for the team yet again Greg!
Brother this is by far my favorite alcoholic drink channel on RUclips!!! It's not just the drinks you make, but also your voice is soothing, the knowledge you provide us, the details you give as far as tasting notes, and you're not afraid to say certain things I've noticed and I love that!!! This is an INCREDIBLE channel my guy, thank you so much and I'm a huge fan!!!! I think we are around the same age too bro because we have a lot of similarities 🤣😂🤣 I'm 81 born.
So, unlike Greg, I LOVE Champagne. I look for reasons to break out the bubbly. My go-to Champagne is Veuve-Clicquot, and due to the preferences of most people that I drink Champagne with, I usually buy their Demi-Sec offering. I have had Dom Perignon before, and I do prefer it, but when I look at the frequency that I like to break out the bubbles, the cost of a bottle, and the amount that I prefer it to Veuve-Cliquot Brut, I'm happy to continue buying the latter. I also don't feel as bad making a French 75 with it. Great editing for this episode; I loved everything about it. This is exactly why I subscribe to this channel.
I scrolled pretty far down the comments to find another Vueve fan; and I want you to know you aren’t alone. I’ve had most of the French offerings on this list, and I think VC is the gold standard. I knew it would top Moët. However I’ve never had sparkling wine from Oregon or Cristal so I guess I have something to work towards!
It's very much a case of what you prefer, the dryer and crisper drinks you like the more likely you'll go for the more expensive ones and the sweeter drinks one likes the more likely one is to go for the cheaper ones, at least in my anecdotal experience
I get the Champaigne headache and murder rage too. So while I probably won't benefit directly from your sacrifice, I do appreciate you making it. Thanks.
I've come to not only appreciate champagne but love it, it's much more complex then wine (to me) and much more refreshing. You don't need a $300 bottle of champagne either, there are plenty of good $30 to $50 bottles of French champagne.
If argyle and cristal are nearly identical and cristal easily beat Dom perignon then does argyle get second place and therefore be a cheap one that made it the distance? Lol
Right, so lets compare against the original. Saint Hilaire Blanquette de Limoux. should be under 15. technically a "sparkling wine" because of its region, but its france's oldest sparkling.
Thunderdome, Raggedyman, lol. I am loving all these Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome references. I know a lot of people say it's their least fav of the series, but I would argue that it's the most quotable.
I'm with you Greg. Champagne headaches. Been watching a lot of old tv, can you make a Drink inspired from "In the Heat of the Night". Might not even need to be a show accurate drink, but something spicy just based on title or the hot Mississippi summers.
The one thing that caught my attention was the statement that the differences in champagnes were so minute that even a vodka has more clear of a difference in quality. This stood out to me because that would mean that while yes, an expensive champagne will still be of a higher quality, any improvement would be infinitesimally small as opposed to a lower-end option.
Hey, I was seeing your old video about caipirinha, then I remembered some brazilian cachaça cocktails that you might like. So, here is my request/recommend.: 1-Macunaíma (the name comes from a character of a homonym novel by Mario de Andrade, Levi-Strauss' brazilian friend) 50ml of cachaça (white or aged), 20ml of lemon juice, 15ml of 2 to 1 sugar syrup and 7,5-10ml of fernet. Shake everything and single strain everything to a glass with no ice. 2-Rabo de galo (literally means "cock-tail") 50ml of cachaça (I prefer aged), 15ml of cynar, 15ml of sweet red vermouth. Mix with ice and strain to a rocks glass filled with ice. 3-Batida rosa ("pink...shaky"? "Batida" literally means "shaken", but it's often used for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks made in a blender) 45ml of cachaça, 22.5ml of pinapple juice, 22.5ml of lime juice, 15ml of grenadine, 45ml of club soda. Shake the first 4 ingr with ice, strain to a glass and add club soda. Yes, no blender.
My experience with sparkling wines: 1. There is Champagne, and then there is everything else. There are many lovely sparkling wines but Champagne is on its own lofty plateau. 2. Expensive Champagnes frequently emphasize flavor profiles that I do not find very favorable. There are excellent Champagnes in the $30 - $40 range that I prefer over Champagnes in the $150 or higher range. 3. There are many Champagnes out there that fly under the radar. I love Pol Roger and Charles Heidsieck, but find a good wine shop and look for labels off the beaten path. Some of my best tasting experiences have come from bottles that you cannot find in a Total Wine.
Despite being personal taste, I am not entirely surprised by the results. I often find that the same product that ends up more expensive can more times than not be counted on to be better. Thanks Greg & Meredith!
The Belle Epoque Perre-Jouet is my favorite. On a side note, I wonder how switching glassware from the coupe glasses to flutes would change his impressions.
negatively. flutes are absolutely terrible for actually tasting the wine. coupes work better for young and very carbonated bubbles, but if they are really old you may not be able to smell them so well. my favorite is a white rhone glass, but id take a damn mason jar over a flute
Veuve Clicquot is me and my fiancee's splurge, New Year's champagne for sure. Going to have to go find some Argyle for our next special occasion, since they both got to the semis
What you don't mention is that the two expensive champagnes are vintages. whereas the others are not. The differences between vintage and non vinatge is huge.
We drink a lot of champagne. We’ve had lots of very nice bottles gifted to us, Dom, Veuve, etc. that said- when we buy champagne- we buy Costco’s Kirkland brand, or ‘sparkling wine’ Michelle from WA. Both are around $15/bottle. Sometimes we Splurge for Gloria Ferrar of Sonoma @$30. It feels mostly like the differences in champagne/sparkling wine are personal preference, and diminishing returns are tremendous.
Of course expensive champagne is better than the cheap stuff. Is a 200$ bottle 4 times better than a 50$ bottle? Hell no. The Champagne region is one where you pay a lot for the name already, so there's a point of diminishing returns that is higher than for other regions.
Expensive is not always better than cheap. Heck, Greg has already done a video featuring a wide range of whiskey, from a $20 bottle to a $3000 bottle. And the $3000 bottle lost, hard. A $40 bottle was number two best, I think. Higher priced stuff isn't always better. A lot of the time, all you're paying for is a name. There's all kinds of products where a cheap option is just outright better than some of its more expensive alternatives.
@@rac6510 well, that's easy to answer: they are not, but I don't know anyone with a clue about wine that would say otherwise. People will pay the price anyway.
@@TOSkwar22 Sure, it's not automatically better, but that doesn't even matter since this is a matter of personal taste anyway. You like cheap sweet bubbly? Good for you, you can save a lot of money :D But you can be sure there's a reason why a wine is expensive.
Champagner is heartburn in bottles. Everytime we visit our partenercity in the champagnie, we bring german beer and they are so gratefull for it^^. Even the french think champ is overrated
One nice benefit of the higher end champagnes is they’re usually a very good buy, a bottle of 2008 Dom bought a couple of years ago will be worth about twice as much now
It's not really a blind testing if you know what's in there. At least hide the bottles, in the first testing the color of the liquid and the clear bottle lets you know which one is which.
Two Bottles enter, One Bottle Leaves, Champagne Thunderdome!
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AKA: Greg Mangles French For 20 Minutes 😂😂😂
So what I would like to add is after seeing this I was thinking like I would really like to have a Monday how to drink and a Friday how to drink right but I also watched you do behind the scenes of it and I know it is god-awful amount of work so if you manage to pull that off I commend you highly but if it's not in your wheel house I totally get it the question I do have if you're still reading this is champagne headaches worse than cursed cocktails like is Chris cocktails like the instant pain of like a belt on your butt whereas a wine champagne headache like just lingers and so it's more annoying???
SPOILER:
In the end it became the "Thunder DOM"....
Edit: Oh, it was the other one...
@how to drink, just an idea. You should do a series on Disney alcoholic drinks such as the Violet Sake in the Japanese pavilion of EPCOT and the Reggies Revenge in the Hanger bar of Disney Springs. There are endless amounts of beverages that may take multiple videos.
Please have a series reviewing viewer-submitted cocktails.
This channel's been showing up in my recommended for several days now; unsure why RUclips thought I needed to watch an alcohol nerd talk about drinks and make occasional D&D references, but it was absolutely correct, this is delightful. Happy to be here!
Welcome to finding ways to get Greg Drunk
Exactly what happened to me half a year ago. Welcome aboard!
He does fun/interesting twitch streams too
Welcome to the show
His videos have always been great, all the way back to his first videos. Go check them out
It definitely is a case of diminishing returns. If you're in the tax bracket where the difference between $30 and $300 is basically a rounding error, there's little reason to slum it, but for 99% of us, the added expense generally is not worth it.
Yeah, just looking at the prices listed, I can guarantee a few of those upper range ones I certainly wouldn't be trying
There is also the first drink and subsequent drinks. Start with a nicer bottle and move to a cheaper one when you are not caring so much about how it tastes. Similar to a base spirit and mixer, save the expensive bottle for when it will not be drowned by the sickly sweet flavoured soda water.
Yeah, unless you are throwing a NYE party with a few other couples or friends and want to split the cost, for most people its just not worth it to blow that kind of money on something. Although, it can feel nice to pretend you are upper crust for an evening, in that particular case.
And if you want to drop the price by another factor of 10, buy some vinho verde and run it through a soda stream
My experience is $60 is the sweet spot.
You say boring result, I say a $20 sparkling being damn close to Dom and Cristal is an interesting result!
Frankly, not surprised: I have a BSc in the field and most wines should not cost anything beyond €20 or so. Consider it this way: 4 people barely drink 1 glass of wine out of a single bottle, and a couple can get comfortably tipsy (as in, not actually drunk) if we're discussing a non-weak wine. For that sort of deal, going over €20 is pretty inordinate.
@@RaspK I can understand if it's smaller batch but high demand, that might often push the price up a little, but I agree a lot of the price inflation is just brand recognition and they can charge that much "cause they can".
I do just fine with a bottle of £7.80 Prosecco that I buy from a store not 300 yards from my house, dry and not too sweet, while the £11 bottle on the same shelf has a fancy looking bottle but tastes only half as good.
But how those compare to say Winston Churchill favorite brand Pol Roger ?.
In reality those wines are NOT close, high level somms can tell them apart instantly and the difference is huge. The fact is that there is no bad champagne but that the expensive stuff is a waste of money on those who are not very interested in the topic of wine. Blind tasting is very hard and Greg did quite well but frankly it's not his expertise to judge price/quality of wines for people who are interested in wine. For beginners it can be interesting to see if it is worth it to Greg but any expert will tell you that most of the difference between 20 and 300$ is lost on people who don't have an obsession with fermented grape juice
@@itsmederek1
While *_some_* of the things you wrote are functionally correct, the entirety of your comment is complete drivel.
I have a BSc in Oenology and Alcoholic Beverages Technology, and organoleptic testing (i.e. tasting) was one of my really favourite courses.
Yes, training to check what you get is a big deal of really separating the fine difference between different wines, but that still does not address the reality of the matter, and that is that there is an inherent surreality about pricing per se baked in luxury products which does not reflect an actual quantitative difference in quality.
Is there a difference? Let me put it this way: if somebody does not regularly afford the money to train their palate to appreciate the difference between a twenty-dollar bottle versus a three hundred-dollar bottle, and such training is required to appreciate it per your statement, then the best person to judge the reality of the matter is another person who has a good overall palate but not one trained to pick apart high-quality wines of this specific style.
Why? Because he will tell you how close they functionally are to any similarly undertrained palate, thereby making the best price-quality judgement for that population group.
Or, to put it more bluntly: if any bloke off of the street would like to taste a great champagne and is not sure whether he should pony up a pretty hefty sum for one, then being told that *_he_* won't likely notice the finer qualities of a bottle that he would only have a glass from can be a huge boon. Instead, they would get told they might actually benefit more from buying a dozen bottles of a comparable champagne, so that he can comfortably enjoy a couple of glasses with a good number of friends, or a couple of bottles for a small group, and that is a good thing.
I am a firm believer that just because something is high quality, doesn’t mean you have to like it.
I 100% agree. If you like it, it's good. That's all you really need to care about (see also: how well done you like the meat *you* eat, what you put ketchup on etc).
Hence the intro tag line in the first few episodes of his show
@@FaerieDust Omg, so true. I'm from Texas and everyone likes their steaks medium rare. I worked in a Lebanese restaurant during grad school and most of the middle eastern customers like their beef well done. It opened my eyes. Good well done steak is really enjoyable. I deviate from medium rare every so often for the well done, and it feels like the entire state riots.
So annoying.
Sometimes, things that are more expensive... Are worse
my favourite rum is unironically negrita - a cooking rum
Some somelliers i know have a philosophy that i found useful when starting out tasting wines. "The best wine, is the one you enjoy drinking". price is rarely a factor.
Even though he chose the most expensive ones in this episode lol…
@@retronartz1268 but did he actually like the more expensive ones or has he just done this long enough to know the telltale signs of an expensive product?
Just like the philosophy in the Whiskey Tribe. The best whiskey is the whiskey you like, the way you like to drink it.
@@jono6379 I mean he literally said that he enjoyed them more because they were dryer soo
@@retronartz1268 did he though? Because he also said he doesnt know whether he likes champagne so theres that. Im just saying it would have been interesting to see a few other people join in and see if they agreed or not
When he said, "I don't know if I even like Champagne", that got me to burst out laughing.
So, what we've concluded is that if you are willing to pay 10x the price, you will get a *slightly* better champagne.
As someone living in Oregon, the wine culture here is no joke, it's well crafted but affordable and if your ever in the neighborhood Greg, come check it out.
Washington State also has shockingly good wine at quite an affordable price.
@@Zayphar California too! West coast wines represent!
Being from Oregon, i can say confidently that west coast wines are great!
Oregon puts out some really good juice, shoutout from Seattle
Yes! The Willamette Valley is one of my absolute favorite regions and the wine is sublime. Sonoma County in CA is also amazing.
Fun fact: The Moet was the bottle I bought the night I asked my wife to marry me back in 2009 or so. I bought it because it was the most expensive bottle they had at the grocery store even though I was a poor college kid. We both hated it, but I still have the empty bottle.
Super sweet story. I've been kind of weepy lately anyway, but your story definitely got my eyes watering a bit. Hope you two are happy out there!
I learned that, when in doubt, buy late harvest. I have yet to find anyone that dislikes a good (and usually REALLY affordable) late harvest wine lol
That's so sweet and nice:)
Greg: If this were an episode of "America's Test Kitchen, both the Dom and the Crystal would get the Winner's tag, but the Argyle would get the "Best Buy". So, there's room for all three.
Really enjoying the revamped visuals on the close-ups and B-roll. Really makes the difference on a channel like this, where it feels like a well produced, bingeable show.
French speaking here, my family used to produce our own Champagne in the Champagne-Ardennes region, near Epernay (blanc de blancs more precisely) and my grandfather was always making the clients taste the Champagne with some little salted cookies ore some side dish.
Because no one is drinking only Champagne at a table. On every occasion this drink is served, there are meals, (of course not overpowering the taste) helping the Champagne to deliver all its aromas. This is a little bit similar to the wine, which is often recommended to be served with dishes. Only some great connoisseurs are drinking their wine with nothing to eat aside.
Another important point to benefit of the full aromatic "palette" of a Champagne : it is recommended to serve it very cold. Not with ice cubes in it, but you can do it two ways:
-store it in the fridge a couple hours before the tasting
-store it 15 min in the freezer to give it a good cold shot (this technique is called "frapper" which means "to hit")
Of course, never forget your bottle in your freezer, it may explode
Otherwise this was a very interesting video to show how much the price of some champagnes has nothing correlated to its quality, except some great names (but not all of them hehe)
Thanks for sharing!
You say that, but growing up in the 80s and 90s, to me champagne has always been only used for a toast to celebrate something and never accompanied by any food. Normally it was before or after the meal, but never during. Oh and it was always a horrible experience because the person that bought the champagne always picked the dryest one they could find and I really don't enjoy dry alcoholic drinks.
Thank you, very interesting to know! I understand nothing about the mysteries of champagne, but I know what I like, if that makes sense?.. The best champagne experience I’ve ever had was two years ago: a Cristal 2006 and oysters (all on ice) and I was like, oh is THIS how it’s supposed to taste together?!!
Well, since nothing compares to that... I stick to a nice Crémant de Bourgogne or a cold Prosecco...😅🥂
Very interesting comment. My family is from Reims, and to us champagne is ONLY a dessert drink - and most of the time we drink ratafia instead.
"Only some great connoisseurs are drinking their wine with nothing to eat aside." Oh, honey, this is apparently an extreme cultural difference, because drinking cheap wine by itself to get drunk is ABSOLUTELY a thing that people do. A lot.
I find it interesting that Greg concludes that 'expensive champagne is no bullshit' after watching him agonize back and forth between a $300 bottle and a $25 bottle. The obvious follow up question becomes is the $300 bottle 12 times better than the $25 bottle? It would be even more interesting to revisit this with a 'true' blind taste in a round robin field, once Greg's head has recovered.
When you put it that way, who wouldn't want a case of $25 instead of one $300 when it's a struggle to pick one?
Bluntly put: quality follows a logarithmic scale for the price tag, more or less. A $300-bottle is marginally better than a $25-bottle.
The ~$45 bottle of Louis Roderer sounds pretty similar to cristal. I highly recommend it. Best bang for your buck imo
@@ryanshope34 lot easier to pick when the higher end ones have enough age on them
I believe he meant that they're no BS because you're more likely to have a quality champagne as the price goes up. Unlike with some of his other blind tests. Though I do agree, a blind test would have been preferable as we've seen how Pappy's fares in the whiskey tests.
I'm not surprised that the Argyle, of all the american versions, was able to to compete with the french ones. Oregon and France actually have VERY similar climates and soil quality. (I've heard is brought up with Truffles and Wine before, so it's neat that it stands up to the pricey heavyweights)
@Fetty The Willamette Valley (where most of the Oregon wineries are located) historically has dry summers, but wet falls, winter and spring.
Oh yeah, France with its one climate.
@Fetty Comparing two continents in general isn't a very useful thing to do in this case. Florida and Ukraine are not relevant to wine production in France and California.
@@Kahtini I live there and can confirm most days and seasons are very wet
@@MyHeadHz I grew up there. It was unusual to have wet summers.
"Everybody wants to eat the rich and then you taste them and you're like, delicious," exact same thing happens with old red wines
And the french aristocracy
Reminds me of when Nadja from What We Do in the Shadows said "Rich humans are like veal, conceptually repulsive, but so buttery on my tongue"
Everytime Greg pronounced "champenoise", a baguette died.
they all died when he wrote "vueve" for the Veuve Clicquot
A true blind bracket would be interesting i think, Where only we the viewers get to see what is advancing and greg has no indicators whatsoever, no bottles on the table , no clear glasses.
Also I think they should have different years because certain years supposedly have been better than others.
I'm kind of annoyed by how it's set up, when he did it with Bourbon video and didn't like Pappy he seemed embarrassed, feels like they stacked the deck to make it not happen this time
Okay, so whilst the most expensive ones did end up winning the day, I think it's worth something that you had to think about it. Giving the huge price difference between some of them, it should've been instant, and it wasn't
Agree
If anything, I'm buying Argyle 😅
Well, to be fair, that's the case with almost anything. A $10k car and a $100k car are both going to drive well, get you where you need to go, and for the most part be fairly interchangeable. The more expensive option is just for the car affecienados that really notice the finer details and handling (as well as those who just want to flex their money).
For many people it would come to money efficiency. 22ish bucks vs 300ish bucks then you'd expect the 300ish to be 60x better. But if it is actually only like 2x better then just buy two of the 22 bucks one.
@@grantwilliams93 Yeah thats where I'm at too, a champagne that's almost as good as a bottle hundreds of dollars more than it has got my vote
Fun fact: In the EU champagne is a registered trademark, to be used only for sparkling wine from the Champagne region in France.
In Russia, only Russian sparkling wine may be sold as Champenskaya. Everything else, including those from France, can only be sold as "sparkling wine". This has led to quite a grudge fight between France and Russia, even before the whole current situation.
I mean…this only as of July 2021, and definitely just Putin being a sod. Champagne is made in only Champagne, so says Christopher Walken. Anything else is just asinine branding.
I have a feeling that's going to change relatively soon. Perhaps we'll see a compromise where Champenskaya remains the designation for their own product with another designation for the French product that matches "Champagne" phonetically.
Another fun fact: Russians are calling Champagne as Shampoo
@@myopiczeal While I agree with your notion on principle, the taste of wine and other agricultural products can vary wildly based on the soil composition and the weather of the growing region, in addition of the plant variety used.
Then there's additional regional rules and regulations that have to be followed to earn a specific name brand, leading to seal of quality. For instance, in Germany the only ingredients you may use to brew beer are water, malt, hops and yeast. Anything that contains any other/additional ingredients cannot legally be called beer. That means if you buy a (German-brewed) beer in Germany, you know exactly what is and isn't in it.
@@myopiczeal Fun fact, the EU protection for Stilton cheese doesn't include the village of Stilton, therefore legally prohibiting anyone in Stilton from making Stilton
just based on round 1 and 2 so far, it really does seem like the answer is (like with most alcohol) down to personal preference. greg isn’t noticing a major quality difference, he’s giving different tasting notes and deciding which he likes more
I like the bracket style,, definitely a fun way to change up the show and I wouldn't be sad to see another episode like this; albeit with a spirit/cocktail you hate a little less haha
IPA episode?
@@Steveofthejungle8 HIPSTER IPA BRACKET OF DEATH 9000!
@@Steveofthejungle8 while I'm not a fan personally, as an Oregonian I feel like I should be into this idea lol
Price doesn't necessitate quality, but there's generally good reason why people willingly shell out the extra cost for the premium stuff.
True, but there is a law of diminishing returns.
There are a lot of Cremants that can give a champagne a run for their money in similar price brackets. so if your budget is limited I'd go for a cremant
This is especially true for Champagne, where it's status as a party/celebration beverage throws the correlation between price and quality way out of balance. Paying $70 for VC Yellow Label is just awful.
...and then there's people so rich they think bananas are $5.
Not necessarily a reason but the only people that should and will buy expensive stuff it's because they know what they are looking for and what to buy.
I absolutely love the new style. As a creator myself (on a different channel) I can really appreciate switching things up a bit. A few things that stuck out to me were:
-it's really fun to hear Meredith comment and be along for the ride. She's fun and funny, you guys are clearly good friends.
-The sound effects and new angles on the bottles, pouring, etc. takes the production quality up a notch. It feels more and more like a netflix special, rather than tv.
- Music and dramatic impact of picking between the drinks was very fun, gave the show... a good mouthfeel.
Personally I didn't like the bracket system as much. I get what the intent was, but I like more of the raw notes myself. It's more informative to be able to grab any two drinks and talk differences, especially in this case where the differences are so minute. Ultimately many of us watch these to see how much we should be paying/ what punches above its weight.
Fun matchup! Hope you didn't hurt too badly afterward.
In wine terminology, "dosage" is the small amount of sugar added to a sparkling wine after the primary fermentation to add the carbonation in the second fermentation (when the cork is placed). It is necessary. The term for adding sugars to a wine for the purposes of creating a higher alcohol content that it could not reach otherwise, or to potentially cover up flawed, wines is called "chaptalization". This practice is highly frowned up (or at least should be)!
The small amount of sugar/yeast/yeast nutrients added to a sparkling wine prior to the secondary ferment in the traditional method is the Liqueur de Tirage. Dosage is one of the last steps, being added after disgorgement, in order to replace wine lost in the process and add sugar for a desired sweetness level (brut is from 3 to 12g/l, and accounts for the vast majority of champagnes, but there is a notable flavour/texture difference from 6 to 12g/l ). The cork isn’t placed until after the secondary fermentation is completed and the bottle is disgorged. It is kept under crown seal for the duration of the ferment / lees ageing period. Unless you mean method ancestrale, but that is not used for champagne, and ends up having significantly less effervescence.
Chaptalisation used to be absolutely necessary in some areas / vintages of France in order to even make wine, though is far less needed now due to the growing season being longer and warmer overall. (This varies, some are still way too cold, see the frosts of 2021)
Not trying to be a shitter, there’s just already way too much misinformation about wine
@@likeaboss997 hey climate change isn't all bad I guess?
Chapitalism
the fact that Greg has a hard time deciding, the fact that the don fails to smack you in the face with its superiority basically means I will never buy pricey bubbly.
Ever.
Champagne has a signature kind of taste that you don't find anywhere else basically. So it's not that it's necessarily better, just unique. I personally love it and prefer it to any other kind of sparkling wine, but i usually buy the 'cheap' ones from smaller producers because they're all good anyway.
i mean, he made it out like he had a hard time, but watching it it was clear which one he was going to say was better as he was describing them. and the most expensive one won literally every time...pretty conclusive to me.
In Dom's case, you paying a lot for history. Dom was the person who improved Champagne to what it is today. Before him, not only was the quality lower but the thing could kill you (yeah really, the earlier thinner bottles tended to randomly explode and there are cases of people getting killed by it exploding in their face).
Still, the expensive stuff is better, but not as much better as the price would suggest. Dom is not 10 times better then Argyle so from an economic standpoint it isn't worth it. I have a feeling that if you buy one of those tiny Dom or Cristal bottles and a large bottle of Argyle and start with your first glass of the expensive stuff and then go for the cheap you wont notice the difference at all, The first glass however you probably will if you know your stuff.
It is kinda like drinking whiskey, when I have guests over the first glass I give them is the really good stuff but after that go for the mid range stuff that is just fine, you tend to loose a bit of the finer taste after you drunk a glass. Drinking an entire bottle of Port Ellen is just wasting your money.
@@tedbonnot8910 Not *literally* every time (argyle upset), but yes almost always. I was actually kinda surprised he had such a hard time tbh, I’ve been to champagne tastings and I could definitely tell the differences between champagnes and which ones I actually liked. But maybe that’s because I actually like champagne!
@@princessaria that's probably it, I can't stand sparkling wine at all so it all tastes the same (to me) no matter how much my friends try to say otherwise.
I've had several Dom vintages, and boy do they vary greatly in taste. I've had a glass of the 2001 vintage and it was pretty average - actually, arguably worse than some cheap Champagne I've had. But the 1997 Dom was genuinely the best champagne I've ever had in my life - it was incredible how different they tasted from each other.
This was great, though I would submit that it wasn't truly blind since you may have been subconsciously biased by knowing which two were in each bracket, but this was still pretty solid.
True, but the only time he guessed which one was a specific champagne he was wrong.
Wait you can DRINK champagne?!
Judging from every time I've seen a bottle on the internet I assumed all you can do with it is spay it everywhere and maybe hurt yourself with the cork 🍾.
I assumed the purpose of champagne was to sit on a shelf and get more expensive over time.
@@AaronRotenberg ahh, champagne. The NFT of booze.
That or whack a ship with a bottle
I love Argyle !!! Not only do I live in Oregon I fell in love with their wines years ago when I was living in Florida. You should Try their Black Brut.They leave the skins on the Pinot Noir grapes before turning it into sparkling wine. Best part is…. It’s very red aka “Black” in COLOR.
The sparkling pinot looks interesting. In Australia we have sparkling shiraz, it's interesting to see other countries making a sparkling red
Champagne Thunderdome, never heard something so sofisticated yet so brutal in my life
In my opinion yes I much prefer Spanish Cava's not only do I find there flavor better, the price is unbeatable.
Agreed, Segura Viudas is my go to for all occasions
Iirc the reason it's called Cava is because it's done outside of France, but I believe it's the same preparation method
And since it's not Champagne (with the marketing that the French have done for it), they can't charge Champagne's prices either
@@wydx120 Cava is only made in Spain. It has similar EU Protected Geographical Status as champagne.
But anyway even mid tier cava beats any champagne I've ever tasted. I even like it slightly sweetened.
Man studying alcohol for work has been great really making me shine in the tests and when my teacher asks about different alcohols and like half the stuff that made her smirk before telling me I had an excellent answer, I am really thankful that these videos are so entertaining with small details that make you seem like you know what you are talking about
what's your profile pic from?
The “made her smirk” comment makes me sad. I’m a wine and spirits educator, and a teacher should never smirk. You’re trying to learn, and the teacher shouldn’t be making you feel bad. That, and when I see booze people smirking I automatically think they’re jackasses.
This was hightly informative. i like how with the dom vs cristal really comes down to preferred taste but both are very good. and now i know of a "cheap" champagne that has turned out to be really good as well. and i agree not all alchohols have a linear scale of price to quality. you can like a 15$ bottle of wine more than a $30 bottle of wine that based on a linear scale should be 2x as good. it comes down to taste
everytime he said crystal i keep on thinking of the second boondocks episode, where shes like "crystal like the champagne"
I'd be interested to see whether more significant differences appear with more appropriate glassware. Champagne saucers are so open that all of the aromatic/flavour compounds would be so difficult to detect.
My best friend calls champagne "headache in a bottle". Thanks for taking one for the team - your loyal fans.
cheap champagne effect
When I was slinging this stuff many years ago at a high class liquor store we'd tell the people we liked that there really isn't a difference over $30. I still stand by that.
For Champaign or for anything? I mean that's true about some products like I don't need to pay more for vodka than Tito's costs (like $25), but for Scotch the diminishing returns line is more like $60
@@nevadanate4957 Champagne specifically. $40-60 for Scotch depending on style, $35 for bourbon. Titus, Absolut, or Russian Standard (personal favorite) for Vodka-nothing else is worth the money. Skyy if you're mixing. Wine's all over the place but unless it's an occasion stick to $15 or less. Mezcal/Tequila-we never could decide. Hacienda de Chihuahua Rep was a favorite though.
@@userJohnSmith yeah tequila is hard to say because there is stuff in the 50 dollar range that is really good. It's more of a floor, I don't know of a drinkable tequila below 19 bucks. But you could probably cut it off similar to scotch if you aren't looking for age statements (añejos are overrated anyway). Mezcal is ??? It just isn't available enough yet to make sense of
yeah that is entirely false lmao. In champagne - as in from the champagne region, 30 bucks only barely starts to get you into the decent juice of a basic blended brut - even 15 years ago. with prosecco or cava, maybe. But try getting a bottle that sat on lees for 8 years for 30 bucks, or any blancs de blancs or blancs de noirs for 30 bucks, or a brut sauvage.
@@malcomreynolds4103 Of you're in it for the status sure, out of you really want to push the limits of quality but...if you just want something to drink, there is very little difference and it is absolutely a waste of money for 90% of pallets. As evidenced here, it's not like it guy here doesn't have a refined pallet either. How many times did he have to go back before he picked the better bottle? Don't be a label snob.
As an Oregonian, I'm not surprised that our wine went toe to toe with the super expensive stuff and measured up. I'm in the suburbs and I'm less the 5 minutes from at least 3 vineyards.
Got recommended your channel a few days ago and have been absolutely enthralled. Love your content!
I just want to clarify I did not enjoy you being in screaming pain, however this was entertaining and if you felt like murdering everything you hid it pretty well and managed to be entertaining so thank you for that.
At this point I don't even care abt the alcohol, jst love to hear you talk man
These transition edits are so Edgar Wright and I love them.
I do work in a well-known wineshop and we do sell quite a lot of expensive to super expensive champagne. In my opinion, Dompi and Cristal and all those crazy expensive bottle are bullshit. Yes they do taste amazing, and yes they do taste better then a 30 Euro bottle. But it is not worth at all to pay that much money for one single bottle. For 220 Euros (our price of Dom.) you can have 2 very good champages, 3 cremants, and at the end you still have 3-4 incredible good bottles of normal wine. Most of us do not even have the exercise to fully taste and understand those well-made wines. Unless you have too much money and 200 bucks do not mean anything to you.
Dont waste your money on prestige, it won´t make you happy.
To the people buying it, the price is irrelevant. I mean the average joe might be able to get a cup of coffee for 50 cents but there is another place that has a better coffee for 2 dollars that he prefers. Is it 4 times better than the 50 cent cup? No but he can easily afford better so that's what he gets. As a percentage of his income, it doesn't matter.
Small tip: drink it out of a white wine glass. It will help with the flavors and also the bubbles wont dissipate as quickly. A long thin flute is great for bubbles, not so great for flavor. Use it for „cheaper“ sparkling wine
the sports commentary and editing bits made me laugh and i'm definitely going to be picking up some argyle the next time i have something to celebrate :)
Meredith's take on Argyle was spot on, that's exactly what I was thinking after him watchin Greg struggle between it and the expensive one.
If there is a second Champagne Thunderdome it would be interesting to see a vintage vs. Tete de cuvee bottlings or house vs. Grower/producer champagne. On average I think the grower producer 🍾 has the best QPR!
Or even a glass test with 1 single champagne. One of my old bosses did that to me, he blindly poured one bottle of wine into 3 different shaped glasses and asked me what I thought they were. None of them tasted the same, similar characteristics but each glass helped a particular aroma or flavour to express itself. That's why watching Greg taste great bottle of wine out of these coupe's makes me want to cry.
Champagne is weird. In every other wine region grower-produced wines (estate bottled) command a premium. But grower Champagnes are usually less expensive than the big houses. And better quality as well.
Without a doubt the most entertaining HTD I've watched! Keep em coming Greg and Meredith!
Although this was entertaining, I would definitely appreciate a more blind blind test 🙃
I am also ambivalent about champagne, and more than one glass gives me raging headaches, yet I can totally see the appeal of tasting a bunch for comparison purposes. Thanks for taking one for the team yet again Greg!
Watching Greg try to pronounce some French words and names has a real "Omellette du fromage" feel to it.
Brother this is by far my favorite alcoholic drink channel on RUclips!!! It's not just the drinks you make, but also your voice is soothing, the knowledge you provide us, the details you give as far as tasting notes, and you're not afraid to say certain things I've noticed and I love that!!! This is an INCREDIBLE channel my guy, thank you so much and I'm a huge fan!!!! I think we are around the same age too bro because we have a lot of similarities 🤣😂🤣 I'm 81 born.
I feel like we've learned two things:
1) all champaign is basically the same
2) hangovers are real. There will be no sham pain.
That bwoop sound of the one drop falling in close up at 1:26 was one of the most satisfying things I’ve heard and seen.
Wish this was done full blind. Seeing the bottles kind of influences his views
So, unlike Greg, I LOVE Champagne. I look for reasons to break out the bubbly. My go-to Champagne is Veuve-Clicquot, and due to the preferences of most people that I drink Champagne with, I usually buy their Demi-Sec offering. I have had Dom Perignon before, and I do prefer it, but when I look at the frequency that I like to break out the bubbles, the cost of a bottle, and the amount that I prefer it to Veuve-Cliquot Brut, I'm happy to continue buying the latter. I also don't feel as bad making a French 75 with it.
Great editing for this episode; I loved everything about it. This is exactly why I subscribe to this channel.
I scrolled pretty far down the comments to find another Vueve fan; and I want you to know you aren’t alone. I’ve had most of the French offerings on this list, and I think VC is the gold standard. I knew it would top Moët. However I’ve never had sparkling wine from Oregon or Cristal so I guess I have something to work towards!
Fs in chat for all the Argyle crew. You made it farther than we expected and we're proud of you for that \*salutes\*
I love the addition of a mic for Meredith. It adds something nice to the (already great) show.
It's very much a case of what you prefer, the dryer and crisper drinks you like the more likely you'll go for the more expensive ones and the sweeter drinks one likes the more likely one is to go for the cheaper ones, at least in my anecdotal experience
Well put
I get the Champaigne headache and murder rage too. So while I probably won't benefit directly from your sacrifice, I do appreciate you making it. Thanks.
Love the editing on this episode. Lot of fun, frantic cuts and audio effects.
I've come to not only appreciate champagne but love it, it's much more complex then wine (to me) and much more refreshing. You don't need a $300 bottle of champagne either, there are plenty of good $30 to $50 bottles of French champagne.
If argyle and cristal are nearly identical and cristal easily beat Dom perignon then does argyle get second place and therefore be a cheap one that made it the distance? Lol
Jesus, 30 minutes and 4k views. I remember the early days of this channel; glad to see how much it's grown.
Right, so lets compare against the original. Saint Hilaire Blanquette de Limoux. should be under 15. technically a "sparkling wine" because of its region, but its france's oldest sparkling.
Well, it's a crémant de Limoux, so it shouldn't be marked as just sparkling wine
Thunderdome, Raggedyman, lol. I am loving all these Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome references. I know a lot of people say it's their least fav of the series, but I would argue that it's the most quotable.
I'm with you Greg. Champagne headaches.
Been watching a lot of old tv, can you make a Drink inspired from "In the Heat of the Night". Might not even need to be a show accurate drink, but something spicy just based on title or the hot Mississippi summers.
headache comes from drinking trash. better wine wont do that
Thank you for finally showing me what Biggie was saying when he said, "Back of the club, sippin Moet is where you'll find me"
Ever thought about doing a cocktail tier list? I know it's a dumb little trend but I figured you'd find a way to make it interesting.
Billecart-Salmon is my personal favorite champagne producer. It'll run you about $55-$125, depending on which bottle you get.
Champagne Thunderdome has the same energy as Velvet Buzzsaw.
Love the B-Roll, edits and sound effects. Amazing.
Ive only drank cheap champagne...and without fail, it always gives me a weird headache
This wasn’t even advertised as a bracket style video. You never fail to go above and beyond in production
I think this is the first time the expensive stuff didn’t get obliterated by some 20 dollar bottle.
The one thing that caught my attention was the statement that the differences in champagnes were so minute that even a vodka has more clear of a difference in quality. This stood out to me because that would mean that while yes, an expensive champagne will still be of a higher quality, any improvement would be infinitesimally small as opposed to a lower-end option.
It sounds like Greg would just prefer prosecco to champagne
This episode really needed a next morning scene. I am morbidly fascinated to see what tomorrow looks like.
no way, I was just thinking that the mixologist billionaire hating talky-drinky man hadn't posted in a while, what a coincidence
Hey, I was seeing your old video about caipirinha, then I remembered some brazilian cachaça cocktails that you might like. So, here is my request/recommend.:
1-Macunaíma (the name comes from a character of a homonym novel by Mario de Andrade, Levi-Strauss' brazilian friend)
50ml of cachaça (white or aged), 20ml of lemon juice, 15ml of 2 to 1 sugar syrup and 7,5-10ml of fernet. Shake everything and single strain everything to a glass with no ice.
2-Rabo de galo (literally means "cock-tail")
50ml of cachaça (I prefer aged), 15ml of cynar, 15ml of sweet red vermouth. Mix with ice and strain to a rocks glass filled with ice.
3-Batida rosa ("pink...shaky"? "Batida" literally means "shaken", but it's often used for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks made in a blender)
45ml of cachaça, 22.5ml of pinapple juice, 22.5ml of lime juice, 15ml of grenadine, 45ml of club soda. Shake the first 4 ingr with ice, strain to a glass and add club soda. Yes, no blender.
My experience with sparkling wines:
1. There is Champagne, and then there is everything else. There are many lovely sparkling wines but Champagne is on its own lofty plateau.
2. Expensive Champagnes frequently emphasize flavor profiles that I do not find very favorable. There are excellent Champagnes in the $30 - $40 range that I prefer over Champagnes in the $150 or higher range.
3. There are many Champagnes out there that fly under the radar. I love Pol Roger and Charles Heidsieck, but find a good wine shop and look for labels off the beaten path. Some of my best tasting experiences have come from bottles that you cannot find in a Total Wine.
Despite being personal taste, I am not entirely surprised by the results. I often find that the same product that ends up more expensive can more times than not be counted on to be better. Thanks Greg & Meredith!
The Belle Epoque Perre-Jouet is my favorite. On a side note, I wonder how switching glassware from the coupe glasses to flutes would change his impressions.
You mean changing from the worst possible glass to the second worst?
negatively. flutes are absolutely terrible for actually tasting the wine. coupes work better for young and very carbonated bubbles, but if they are really old you may not be able to smell them so well. my favorite is a white rhone glass, but id take a damn mason jar over a flute
@@MrKvasi flutes are better if you are more in a sipping than drinking mood though, to keep it carbonated better...
i just want to say i love whoever edited this it's truly such nice cinematography and flow
Champagne Thunderdome belongs on a T-shirt
Veuve Clicquot is me and my fiancee's splurge, New Year's champagne for sure. Going to have to go find some Argyle for our next special occasion, since they both got to the semis
Love your stuff man, stay awesome! :)
I love how much fun you had making this and a fresh break away from normal videos🤗
What you don't mention is that the two expensive champagnes are vintages. whereas the others are not. The differences between vintage and non vinatge is huge.
We drink a lot of champagne. We’ve had lots of very nice bottles gifted to us, Dom, Veuve, etc. that said- when we buy champagne- we buy Costco’s Kirkland brand, or ‘sparkling wine’ Michelle from WA. Both are around $15/bottle. Sometimes we Splurge for Gloria Ferrar of Sonoma @$30. It feels mostly like the differences in champagne/sparkling wine are personal preference, and diminishing returns are tremendous.
And I don’t feel bad about making mixed drinks with these champagnes as I might with a more expensive bottle
Of course expensive champagne is better than the cheap stuff. Is a 200$ bottle 4 times better than a 50$ bottle? Hell no.
The Champagne region is one where you pay a lot for the name already, so there's a point of diminishing returns that is higher than for other regions.
It's not about if they are better or not. It's about if they are 5x, 10x, 20x better.
Expensive is not always better than cheap. Heck, Greg has already done a video featuring a wide range of whiskey, from a $20 bottle to a $3000 bottle. And the $3000 bottle lost, hard. A $40 bottle was number two best, I think. Higher priced stuff isn't always better. A lot of the time, all you're paying for is a name. There's all kinds of products where a cheap option is just outright better than some of its more expensive alternatives.
@@rac6510 well, that's easy to answer: they are not, but I don't know anyone with a clue about wine that would say otherwise. People will pay the price anyway.
@@TOSkwar22 Sure, it's not automatically better, but that doesn't even matter since this is a matter of personal taste anyway. You like cheap sweet bubbly? Good for you, you can save a lot of money :D But you can be sure there's a reason why a wine is expensive.
Champagner is heartburn in bottles. Everytime we visit our partenercity in the champagnie, we bring german beer and they are so gratefull for it^^. Even the french think champ is overrated
Really bad choice with the glasware Greg! At least take something like a white wine glas for champagne.
Yes!
17:35 The greatest rendition of the Deep Space 9 theme I've ever heard, thank you Greg
I still stand by it's a crime you pitted Moet and Vueve together
Really appreciate the off-camera dialogues, definitely a fun twist on the show - hope you guys experiment more with it!
I was born and raised near the Chianti area. I strongly believe that the wine industry is for the most part bullshit.
One nice benefit of the higher end champagnes is they’re usually a very good buy, a bottle of 2008 Dom bought a couple of years ago will be worth about twice as much now
If properly stored, yes.
It's not really a blind testing if you know what's in there. At least hide the bottles, in the first testing the color of the liquid and the clear bottle lets you know which one is which.