WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We’re talking about champagne alternatives for the holidays!

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast Cooking With Bruce and Mark. And I'm Mark Skarborough. And together with Bruce, we have written, as you probably well know at this point, three dozen cookbooks. We're working on our thirty seventh. We have written other books, too. I wrote a memoir. Bruce has written Well, knitting books. Bruce teaches Knitting Online. You should check out his website, Bruce weinstein.net to find out where his classes are and what he's up to with knitting next.

But this is our podcast about the main passion in our life, which is food and cooking. We've got, as is always the case, a one minute cooking tip. We have entire. segment coming up about sparkly wines for the holidays that are not champagne from France. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip. Have you ever overdressed a salad? Of course you have. I have. I have. Here's what you do. Dump it back in your salad spinner. Oh no. Give it a whirl and the dressing flies off. Oh, this is like your gravy thermos idea. What? But then, you've taken most of the dressing off, and the leaves may be a little bruised, so put some fresh, new, undressed crisp leaves with them and it's perfect. Okay, wait a minute.

Stop. This works if you've dressed your salad as we always do with oil and vinegar. It does not work with Thousand Island dressing. You cannot put leaves in a salad. Spinner with Thousand Island Dressing, or Creamy Ranch, or French. You can, as long as it has no, you know, crunchy bits in it. There are no solids in your salad dressing. Thickened dressing's not gonna spin off, come on. In that case, you just need to warrant leaves. But yeah, okay, I'll buy it.

If you overdress an oil and vinegar, or a clear ish vinaigrette, On a salad, you can probably spin it off in a spinner, but you got a mess to clean up. You do have a mess, but if you're short on lettuce and don't have enough left for a whole new salad, then there you go. Okay. I get it. All right, fine. I'll grant you this one minute cleaning tip because it didn't involve a thermos.

Anyway, before we get to the next segment of the podcast, let me say that there is a Facebook group called Cooking with Bruce and Mark, and you can also follow us on all kinds of channels. We're on Instagram under our own names. We're at TikTok, uh, in a channel called Cooking with Bruce and Mark. And of course, as you know, there's our website, Cooking with Bruce and Mark, or just bruceandmark. com. You can find us all over the place, and we'd love to connect with you elsewhere.

Okay. I'll Up next, a whole discussion about bubbles for the holidays.

By now, I think you know Mark and I love champagne more than any other wine. I do. And you also know that we like a champagne alternative called Petnat. But we're not talking about Petnat today, finally. It's an episode where we're not discussing Petnat. Oh, no, we always talk about Petnat. Pétalons naturels. We always talk about Petnat. And one of the reasons we always go to Petnat is because a case of champagne often costs Or more, and we don't want to spend that kind of money.

With tariffs coming, who knows how much it's going to cost. Right, so you want to stock up for Christmas and New Year's, so we've done a little, you know, research, and we've got champagne alternatives that you might want to think about for the holidays. Okay, basically to lay this out, we're going to Cava, Prosecco, and Cremant. Uh, these are different, uh, sparkly wines from different places, from Spain, from Italy, and from France.

Not from the Champagne region, but from other places in France, particularly from, uh, Burgundy. But we want to talk about that, but let's start with Cava. Okay, so Bruce is the person who actually introduced me to Spanish Cava in my life. I didn't even know it was a thing, um, so what do you want to say about Cava? Well, we've talked about Cava before, and so, you know, we have said it before. It mostly comes from northern Spain, and it's a relatively inexpensive bubbly wine.

Most people think that, oh, Cava's going to cost you about 10 a bottle. But there are a couple of levels of Cava above that standard base level that you're going to find in your liquor store. There is Reserva Cava and a Grand Reserva Cava. The Reserva actually requires 15 months of aging. Which is the same requirement, get this, for non vintage champagne.

I think one of the problems here, and often the argument about cava, is that the Champagne region of France, where so much of World War I was fought, in that region, the grapes are subjected to a more humid and slightly, well, not even slightly, colder climate that is damper and colder, and I think the, uh, kind of standard answer here is the grapes then produce, like the Pinot Noir grapes and others that are used for champagne there, are juicier, and they have less of a raisiny quality to them

because they're not in such a dry climate, and I think that's also true. Often the knock against kava is that it gets too dry, but of course for us, we like dry wine. So for us, it works better. I think also it works better because for me, the grapes are, how do I say this? It's delicately less soft. Mark has this thing about wines in general. The grapes have to suffer. And so you like, Mark, you like wines from regions that are dry and arid and desert like because the wine tastes more intense.

I prefer southern Italian wines to Tuscan wines. I prefer southern French wines to Burgundies and Bordeaux's. I like Spanish wines. I like wines where, again, things have to Yeah. Worked very hard. I like Paso Robles in California much more than I like Napa wine. And because of that, when we get down to talking about, Cromance is actually one that I think Mark likes better than Champagne, but we're still on cavas. We had the Reserva Cava, right?

15 months of aging, same requirement for non vintage Champagnes. Then there's a level called Gran Reserva. That is not only is the wine required to be from a single vintage, and these bottles are vintage dated, it must age for at least 30 months. If you compare this to vintage champagne, their requirement is 36 months, so it's really close. It's close. You'll actually find many Grand Reserva Cava producers that age their wine much longer than this minimum 30 months.

And we should always say that all of these Reserva and Grand Reserva Cavas are vintage. are running half the price on an average basis. Let's say half the price of what a French champagne would run you. And then there is this problem of what is now lying beyond the various levels of Spanish control of wine production with Reserva and all that. And that is a group of producers recently, uh, spearheaded by Raventos, who we actually love. It was our favorite cava, which is.

No longer kava as you're about to explain, right. They have spearheaded, uh, an initiative with 11 other wineries and have actually broken away from the Spanish kava, DOC, that is the official Spanish designation of Kava in the last couple years, and they're starting to produce wines with. Only native grapes without any of those French traders like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that have made their way down to the Iberian Peninsula.

And they're trying to do it with, again, well, they are doing it with native grapes and they're escaping the strictures of the D. O. C. in Spain. However, they are producing wines that are finer than a lot of the Grand Reservas. Reventos was a Reserva and a Grand Reserva. wine maker. So they are still following really strict rules to make really good wine, but they have made it intrinsically Spanish.

And I cannot say enough how much we love Reventos wine, which used to be a cava and there's really no lava. So that is a fabulous wine. in just a conversational way cover, but they can't actually come under the official governmental bureaucratic. And you'll find those bottles, and they make whites, they make rosés, uh, they make really, really dry brutes and some little semi brutes. You'll find them for a steal at about 20 bucks a bottle. And they taste like they are worth the money.

A lot more than that, right? And I think that that is Bruce's and my go to is the Raventos covers. Well, they're not covers, but yeah, Raventos, sparkling wines and the other wineries that have broken with them. I think that's our go to at this point if we're not gonna pop All the money for true French Champagne. So let's move on to Prosecco from Italy. And my thing is that Prosecco often gets in North America and outside of Italy, a lot of Europe a bad rap. It does.

Well, it's often very inexpensive. And what you'll find as a house pour of Prosecco in a lot of restaurants and bars in the U. S. Right. Is really inexpensive. Right. Because just the fact that it's sparkling, Restaurants and bartenders think, Oh, people will like it. And it's not always the best Prosecco that is produced. No, it isn't. I tell you, if you're ever in Portland, Maine, we have a favorite oyster joint called The Shop. That it's not the one that everyone talks about.

This is a separate restaurant. I mean, it's not separate. It's a different restaurant altogether up on Monjoy Hill, The Shop. And just so you know, if you ever go to The Shop. All they've got is oysters, raw oysters, and some clams, but that's really it. But here's the kicker. They have Prosecco on tap, on tap, so you can get a picture of Prosecco. So, you know, it's not the finest Prosecco ever produced. And I kind of like that picture of Prosecco, it cranks me up.

Most Prosecco is produced in the region North of Venice. And again, On inexpensive, you can normally get a bottle for under 10 bucks, but you can look for Prosecco superior, especially from the DOCG, the Italian designation. And I'm going to butcher this Italian. That's coming from Conigliano Valdobbiadene, and I'm sure I've pronounced that wrong. If you speak Italian, please drop me a note and tell me how I screwed that up. But this is a hilly region that is directly between Venice.

And here are two really good bottles of Proceco Superior to look for. One is Ribuli, R I B U L I, and the other is Bottega, B O T T E G A. Both are going to set you back a little more than that Reventos did, maybe 25. Have to price a good champagne still. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, listen, a part of this has to do with the economies of these countries and also the international reputation of the product. So Spain is in a slightly more depressed state even than Italy.

I know Italy's economy is kind of teetering right now, but even more so than Italy. And so, you know, the Spanish wine is going to naturally be cheaper because of economic factors, but that said, you shouldn't look down on Cava and certainly not on Prosecco themselves. And they are all cheaper than French Champagne. And remember the thing about French Champagne, which I love, listen, I love French Champagne. There's no doubt about it, but you're paying for the brand.

You're paying for the regional brand Champagne. And there are a thousand different bottlers of Champagne in Champagne. And to be honest, they're not all fantastic just because they're in the Champagne region. We have had bottles of champagne that I've been like, eh, that's not so great, not worth the 50. I'm not sure I'd buy it. You think every champagne is good? No, I don't think every, but, okay, every Italian out there can hate me now and every Spaniard can hate me now, but I can't help it.

The French are the masters of wine. Don't hate me. They are the masters of wine. I think I hate you for that. Every California producer now hates me. I think the Italian wine. But, okay, let me finish my sentence. Come on. But that doesn't mean that I think that I'm always drinking French wine, nor am I always paying the upcharge for French wine. When French wine is right, it is right. There is no doubt about it.

And there is no doubt about that when champagne is right, it tops everything that we're saying. But the key words you said there, the key words you said there was when it's right. Yes. It's not. Always. And now I'm going to say that I think it's more right than it's wrong. Okay. It's more right than these are often right. That all said, my wine cellar, our wine cellar right now is full of kava. So yes, I do. I think that kava is great. Of course I do.

Do I think French champagne, like a beautiful bottle of Paul Roger is spectacular? Of course, but you know, it's, it's hard to pop. 55, 60 for a bottle. So, uh, I, I, you can see we've popped for Cava. Okay, that's way too much information. But let's talk about Cremant, which is a French wine that is not from Champagne. But it is the same wine. It is made the same way, often made from the same grapes. It is.

And it is, you know, put in those wooden racks and it's riddled where you, they shake them and all the It is. yeast falls to the top and they I, I think that there's this thing about Cremant. And it is that, uh, for many of us my age, when we were tramped around with let's go Europe in the 1980s, late 70s and 80s, and we're backpacking across Europe, Cremant was the crappy, bubbly wine that we drank because we didn't have any money. It's way changed since then. Oh my goodness. Way, way changed.

But for many of us, it still carries that kind of, Oh, Jesus. cheap bottle of wine we bought and drank in a public park in France. Well, it basically is Champagne made outside of any region except Champagne, and there are 20 regions in France where they make this. The most famous four, we'll start with the first, the Cremant de Bourgogne. Right. Burgundy. Most of the Cremon you'll find is from Burgundy. It has the same quality as Burgundy wines.

They tend to be a little bit lighter, they tend to be a little softer and smoother. It's a very wet, moist, humid region. So the wine doesn't suffer, the grapes don't suffer. Not like they do down south. Which now, let's talk about down south for a second. There's Cremon. de Limoux, which is made basically in the French Riviera in the Languedoc Roussillon region. That's much more to your liking, isn't it?

Well, yeah, because the grapes are going to suffer down there in Languedoc because it's so dry. It's basically, if you don't know that, uh, southern bits of France, like near Roussillon and down that way are kind of the northernmost outpost of the Saharan ecosystem. So the grapes are definitely going to suffer down there in that dry and at times bitter bitter climate, well, bitter wind climate. Uh, there's also a Cremant that's made in Alsace, which is up by the German border.

And it much more, uh, looks to German wines. It has that kind of Germanic wine taste. If you know what that means a little bit, uh, uh, what do I say? A little bit sweeter, a little bit more of sharp. points in it. I'm not putting down German wine, but German wine is not as notoriously rounded as French and Spanish wine. And so there are crements made in Alsace that kind of look toward Germany. I know there's a lot of history in what I just said. They look toward history.

So there, uh, they, you should check this out. They're all made with Pinot Blanc, not Pinot Noir. And our favorite one, this is, and I think this is probably our favorite crement, is from Alsace and look for it. Albrecht Tradition and Albrecht Tradition. It's 100 percent Pinot Blanc, as Mark said. It's an incredible champagne stand in, also for about 25 bucks a bottle. And we said there were four. The fourth one is actually right across the valley from Burgundy.

It's Cremon de Jura. And you're going to get very similar Cremons there that you get in the Cremon de Bologna. Similar, but Slightly, oh man, this is an overgeneralization, slightly less sophisticated. Um, It's not Bourgogne. It's not Burgundy, and the climate, the microclimates are different, and it's not quite as layered and sophisticated as Burgundy grapes get, and Burgundy wines get, and even Clermonts from Burgundy get. But, listen.

If, if I were spending money, and I did spend money for the holidays, and I did buy wine, we bought Cava, as you heard, and we went right to Raventos and to those other wineries selected around Raventos that have kind of broken off from the Spanish bureaucratic system. You can find them all. That's where we went. Yeah, go to Raventos. com, look them up, Google Raventos Winery, and you will find their whole list of wineries that have broken from the DOC and are producing amazing wine.

Wonderful wines. Before we get to the last segment of this podcast, let me say that it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast and, more importantly, could you rate it? Dare I ask for five stars? If you could rate it, that would be great. And if you can write a review, even just nice podcast or thanks for the podcast on whatever platform allows you to write ratings. That helps us because otherwise we have chosen to remain unsupported and our support is from you.

So that's the way you can help us out with this podcast. It keeps the podcast fresh in the algorithms. Thanks for helping us out. Okay. As is traditional, the final segment. of this podcast

every week. What's making us happy in food this week? Wild pheasant braised with apples. Oh my gosh. And juniper berries. That was something. Last night we were invited to a friend's house for dinner. Yeah, Bruce did not make this. I did not make this. A friend of ours made it. Allison made it. And if you're listening Allison, that was delicious. You are a very good cook. And of course there was so much food to eat before dinner. All this smoked salmon.

Cold smoked, hot smoked, there were cheeses, there was shrimp cocktail, and then she braised these wild pheasants that her son had shot in Montana, and she braised them in wine and cream and butter with juniper berries and apples and served them with baked potatoes that I brought, of all things, a plum chutney to serve with, and it was spectacular. I had butter And salt and pepper on my baked potato, but okay, uh, that's great. But I, that's what I had on my baked potato. It was spectacular.

Uh, they were really mild for wild pheasants. I mean, you know, I know these things are released for, for hunting expeditions, so they're not game birds per se in the United States, but still, nonetheless, they were nicely, uh, mild and it was really beautiful stuff all the way around. I guess what's making me happy in food is because something beautiful. Bruce made. He made, earlier this week, lamb birria. And he made it in the old fashioned way of making a birria, if you know about this.

It's a Mexican braised dish with lots of chilies and aromatics. You serve it with tortillas. He made his own homemade blue corn tortillas. Of course I did. And we had lots of salsa macha to go on top of it and sour cream. Pickled red onion. Pickled red onions, and the lamb birria were on lamb necks from a local farm. He pulled the meat off after it got tender in the oven after 900 years, and he pulled the meat off and then crisped the meat on a griddle and just brought the griddle to the table.

In bacon fat. Crisped. With the crisp lamb meat having been made nice and crunchy and bacon fat. That was really an insane meal. Um, thank you. It was delicious. Always. Yeah. That's the podcast for this week. Thanks for listening. We appreciate your spending time with us. us in the giant podcast landscape, as we always say, and we would love to connect with you on any social media platform. And every week we tell you what's making us happy in food.

So connect with us on the social platform, Facebook in our group, Cooking with Bruce and Mark. There, you will find some videos that we do. You will see some things we share about the stuff we're eating, and please go there and tell us what is making you happy in food this week, because we want to know on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.