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Episode 63

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Published on:

2nd Dec 2024

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

Champagne is lovely. It means “festive” to most of us. But it’s pricey. Very.

We’re Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, veteran cookbook authors of thirty-six (and counting) cookbooks. We love bubbly wine! But let’s talk all sorts of alternatives to the budget-busting champagne.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[00:50] Our one-minute cooking tip: Use a salad spinner to fix an overdressed salad.

[02:35] Champagne alternatives for the holidays: Cava, Prosecco, and Cremant.

[17:57] What’s making us happy in food this week: wild pheasant braised with apples and lamb birria.

Transcript
Speaker:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is

the podcast Cooking With Bruce and Mark.

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And I'm Mark Skarborough.

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And together with Bruce, we have

written, as you probably well know

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at this point, three dozen cookbooks.

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We're working on our thirty seventh.

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We have written other books, too.

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I wrote a memoir.

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Bruce has written Well, knitting books.

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Bruce teaches Knitting Online.

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You should check out his website,

Bruce weinstein.net to find out

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where his classes are and what

he's up to with knitting next.

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But this is our podcast about

the main passion in our life,

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which is food and cooking.

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We've got, as is always the

case, a one minute cooking tip.

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We have entire.

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segment coming up about sparkly

wines for the holidays that

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are not champagne from France.

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And we'll tell you what's making

us happy in food this week.

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So let's get started.

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Our one minute cooking tip.

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Have you ever overdressed a salad?

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Of course you have.

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I have.

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I have.

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Here's what you do.

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Dump it back in your salad spinner.

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Oh no.

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Give it a whirl and

the dressing flies off.

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Oh, this is like your gravy thermos idea.

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What?

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But then, you've taken most of

the dressing off, and the leaves

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may be a little bruised, so put

some fresh, new, undressed crisp

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leaves with them and it's perfect.

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Okay, wait a minute.

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Stop.

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This works if you've dressed your salad

as we always do with oil and vinegar.

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It does not work with

Thousand Island dressing.

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You cannot put leaves in a salad.

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Spinner with Thousand Island

Dressing, or Creamy Ranch, or French.

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You can, as long as it has no,

you know, crunchy bits in it.

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There are no solids in

your salad dressing.

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Thickened dressing's not

gonna spin off, come on.

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In that case, you just

need to warrant leaves.

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But yeah, okay, I'll buy it.

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If you overdress an oil and vinegar,

or a clear ish vinaigrette, On a salad,

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you can probably spin it off in a

spinner, but you got a mess to clean up.

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You do have a mess, but if you're short

on lettuce and don't have enough left

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for a whole new salad, then there you go.

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Okay.

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I get it.

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All right, fine.

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I'll grant you this one minute cleaning

tip because it didn't involve a thermos.

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Anyway, before we get to the next segment

of the podcast, let me say that there

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is a Facebook group called Cooking

with Bruce and Mark, and you can also

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follow us on all kinds of channels.

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We're on Instagram under our own names.

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We're at TikTok, uh, in a channel

called Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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And of course, as you know, there's

our website, Cooking with Bruce

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and Mark, or just bruceandmark.

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com.

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You can find us all over the place, and

we'd love to connect with you elsewhere.

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Okay.

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I'll Up next, a whole discussion

about bubbles for the holidays.

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By now, I think you know Mark and I

love champagne more than any other wine.

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I do.

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And you also know that we like a

champagne alternative called Petnat.

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But we're not talking about

Petnat today, finally.

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It's an episode where we're

not discussing Petnat.

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Oh, no, we always talk about Petnat.

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Pétalons naturels.

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We always talk about Petnat.

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And one of the reasons we always go to

Petnat is because a case of champagne

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often costs Or more, and we don't

want to spend that kind of money.

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With tariffs coming, who knows

how much it's going to cost.

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Right, so you want to stock up for

Christmas and New Year's, so we've done

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a little, you know, research, and we've

got champagne alternatives that you might

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want to think about for the holidays.

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Okay, basically to lay this out, we're

going to Cava, Prosecco, and Cremant.

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Uh, these are different, uh, sparkly

wines from different places, from

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Spain, from Italy, and from France.

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Not from the Champagne region,

but from other places in France,

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particularly from, uh, Burgundy.

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But we want to talk about that,

but let's start with Cava.

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Okay, so Bruce is the person who actually

introduced me to Spanish Cava in my life.

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I didn't even know it was a thing, um,

so what do you want to say about Cava?

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Well, we've talked about Cava before,

and so, you know, we have said it before.

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It mostly comes from northern Spain, and

it's a relatively inexpensive bubbly wine.

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Most people think that, oh, Cava's

going to cost you about 10 a bottle.

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But there are a couple of levels of

Cava above that standard base level that

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you're going to find in your liquor store.

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There is Reserva Cava

and a Grand Reserva Cava.

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The Reserva actually

requires 15 months of aging.

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Which is the same requirement, get

this, for non vintage champagne.

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I think one of the problems here, and

often the argument about cava, is that the

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Champagne region of France, where so much

of World War I was fought, in that region,

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the grapes are subjected to a more humid

and slightly, well, not even slightly,

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colder climate that is damper and colder,

and I think the, uh, kind of standard

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answer here is the grapes then produce,

like the Pinot Noir grapes and others that

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are used for champagne there, are juicier,

and they have less of a raisiny quality

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to them because they're not in such a dry

climate, and I think that's also true.

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Often the knock against kava

is that it gets too dry, but of

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course for us, we like dry wine.

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So for us, it works better.

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I think also it works better because for

me, the grapes are, how do I say this?

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It's delicately less soft.

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Mark has this thing

about wines in general.

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The grapes have to suffer.

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And so you like, Mark, you like wines from

regions that are dry and arid and desert

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like because the wine tastes more intense.

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I prefer southern Italian

wines to Tuscan wines.

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I prefer southern French wines

to Burgundies and Bordeaux's.

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I like Spanish wines.

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I like wines where, again,

things have to Yeah.

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Worked very hard.

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I like Paso Robles in California

much more than I like Napa wine.

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And because of that, when we get down

to talking about, Cromance is actually

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one that I think Mark likes better than

Champagne, but we're still on cavas.

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We had the Reserva Cava, right?

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15 months of aging, same requirement

for non vintage Champagnes.

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Then there's a level called Gran Reserva.

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That is not only is the wine required

to be from a single vintage, and

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these bottles are vintage dated,

it must age for at least 30 months.

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If you compare this to vintage

champagne, their requirement is

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36 months, so it's really close.

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It's close.

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You'll actually find many Grand Reserva

Cava producers that age their wine much

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longer than this minimum 30 months.

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And we should always say that

all of these Reserva and Grand

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Reserva Cavas are vintage.

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are running half the

price on an average basis.

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Let's say half the price of what

a French champagne would run you.

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And then there is this problem of

what is now lying beyond the various

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levels of Spanish control of wine

production with Reserva and all that.

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And that is a group of producers

recently, uh, spearheaded by

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Raventos, who we actually love.

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It was our favorite cava, which is.

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No longer kava as you're

about to explain, right.

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They have spearheaded, uh, an initiative

with 11 other wineries and have actually

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broken away from the Spanish kava, DOC,

that is the official Spanish designation

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of Kava in the last couple years, and

they're starting to produce wines with.

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Only native grapes without any of

those French traders like Chardonnay

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and Pinot Noir that have made their

way down to the Iberian Peninsula.

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And they're trying to do it with,

again, well, they are doing it

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with native grapes and they're

escaping the strictures of the D.

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O.

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C.

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in Spain.

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However, they are producing wines that are

finer than a lot of the Grand Reservas.

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Reventos was a Reserva

and a Grand Reserva.

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wine maker.

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So they are still following really strict

rules to make really good wine, but

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they have made it intrinsically Spanish.

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And I cannot say enough how much we

love Reventos wine, which used to be

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a cava and there's really no lava.

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So that is a fabulous wine.

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in just a conversational way cover,

but they can't actually come under the

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official governmental bureaucratic.

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And you'll find those bottles, and

they make whites, they make rosés,

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uh, they make really, really dry

brutes and some little semi brutes.

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You'll find them for a steal

at about 20 bucks a bottle.

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And they taste like they

are worth the money.

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A lot more than that, right?

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And I think that that is Bruce's

and my go to is the Raventos covers.

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Well, they're not covers, but yeah,

Raventos, sparkling wines and the other

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wineries that have broken with them.

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I think that's our go to at this

point if we're not gonna pop All

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the money for true French Champagne.

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So let's move on to Prosecco from Italy.

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And my thing is that Prosecco often

gets in North America and outside

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of Italy, a lot of Europe a bad rap.

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It does.

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Well, it's often very inexpensive.

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And what you'll find as a house

pour of Prosecco in a lot of

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restaurants and bars in the U.

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S.

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Right.

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Is really inexpensive.

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Right.

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Because just the fact that it's

sparkling, Restaurants and bartenders

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think, Oh, people will like it.

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And it's not always the best

Prosecco that is produced.

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No, it isn't.

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I tell you, if you're ever in

Portland, Maine, we have a favorite

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oyster joint called The Shop.

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That it's not the one

that everyone talks about.

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This is a separate restaurant.

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I mean, it's not separate.

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It's a different restaurant altogether

up on Monjoy Hill, The Shop.

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And just so you know, if

you ever go to The Shop.

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All they've got is oysters, raw oysters,

and some clams, but that's really it.

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But here's the kicker.

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They have Prosecco on tap, on tap,

so you can get a picture of Prosecco.

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So, you know, it's not the

finest Prosecco ever produced.

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And I kind of like that picture

of Prosecco, it cranks me up.

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Most Prosecco is produced in

the region North of Venice.

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And again, On inexpensive, you can

normally get a bottle for under

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10 bucks, but you can look for

Prosecco superior, especially from

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the DOCG, the Italian designation.

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And I'm going to butcher this Italian.

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That's coming from Conigliano

Valdobbiadene, and I'm sure

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I've pronounced that wrong.

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If you speak Italian, please drop me a

note and tell me how I screwed that up.

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But this is a hilly region that

is directly between Venice.

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And here are two really good bottles

of Proceco Superior to look for.

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One is Ribuli, R I B U L I, and the

other is Bottega, B O T T E G A.

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Both are going to set you back a little

more than that Reventos did, maybe 25.

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Have to price a good champagne still.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And, you know, listen, a part of

this has to do with the economies

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of these countries and also the

international reputation of the product.

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So Spain is in a slightly more

depressed state even than Italy.

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I know Italy's economy is

kind of teetering right now,

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but even more so than Italy.

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And so, you know, the Spanish wine is

going to naturally be cheaper because

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of economic factors, but that said,

you shouldn't look down on Cava and

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certainly not on Prosecco themselves.

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And they are all cheaper

than French Champagne.

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And remember the thing about

French Champagne, which I love,

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listen, I love French Champagne.

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There's no doubt about it, but

you're paying for the brand.

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You're paying for the

regional brand Champagne.

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And there are a thousand different

bottlers of Champagne in Champagne.

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And to be honest, they're not

all fantastic just because

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they're in the Champagne region.

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We have had bottles of champagne

that I've been like, eh, that's

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not so great, not worth the 50.

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I'm not sure I'd buy it.

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You think every champagne is good?

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No, I don't think every, but,

okay, every Italian out there can

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hate me now and every Spaniard can

hate me now, but I can't help it.

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The French are the masters of wine.

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Don't hate me.

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They are the masters of wine.

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I think I hate you for that.

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Every California producer now hates me.

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I think the Italian wine.

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But, okay, let me finish my sentence.

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Come on.

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But that doesn't mean that I think

that I'm always drinking French

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wine, nor am I always paying

the upcharge for French wine.

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When French wine is right, it is right.

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There is no doubt about it.

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And there is no doubt about that

when champagne is right, it tops

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everything that we're saying.

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But the key words you said there, the key

words you said there was when it's right.

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Yes.

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It's not.

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Always.

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And now I'm going to say that I think

it's more right than it's wrong.

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Okay.

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It's more right than

these are often right.

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That all said, my wine cellar, our

wine cellar right now is full of kava.

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So yes, I do.

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I think that kava is great.

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Of course I do.

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Do I think French champagne,

like a beautiful bottle of

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Paul Roger is spectacular?

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Of course, but you know,

it's, it's hard to pop.

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55, 60 for a bottle.

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So, uh, I, I, you can see

we've popped for Cava.

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Okay, that's way too much information.

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But let's talk about Cremant, which is a

French wine that is not from Champagne.

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But it is the same wine.

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It is made the same way, often

made from the same grapes.

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It is.

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And it is, you know, put in those

wooden racks and it's riddled where

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you, they shake them and all the It is.

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yeast falls to the top and they I, I think

that there's this thing about Cremant.

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And it is that, uh, for many of us my

age, when we were tramped around with

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let's go Europe in the 1980s, late 70s and

80s, and we're backpacking across Europe,

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Cremant was the crappy, bubbly wine that

we drank because we didn't have any money.

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It's way changed since then.

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Oh my goodness.

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Way, way changed.

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But for many of us, it still

carries that kind of, Oh, Jesus.

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cheap bottle of wine we bought and

drank in a public park in France.

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Well, it basically is Champagne

made outside of any region except

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Champagne, and there are 20 regions

in France where they make this.

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The most famous four, we'll start with

the first, the Cremant de Bourgogne.

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Right.

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Burgundy.

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Most of the Cremon you'll

find is from Burgundy.

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It has the same quality as Burgundy wines.

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They tend to be a little bit lighter, they

tend to be a little softer and smoother.

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It's a very wet, moist, humid region.

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So the wine doesn't suffer,

the grapes don't suffer.

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Not like they do down south.

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Which now, let's talk about

down south for a second.

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There's Cremon.

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de Limoux, which is made basically

in the French Riviera in the

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Languedoc Roussillon region.

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That's much more to your liking, isn't it?

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Well, yeah, because the grapes

are going to suffer down there

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in Languedoc because it's so dry.

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It's basically, if you don't know

that, uh, southern bits of France,

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like near Roussillon and down that

way are kind of the northernmost

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outpost of the Saharan ecosystem.

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So the grapes are definitely

going to suffer down there in that

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dry and at times bitter bitter

climate, well, bitter wind climate.

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Uh, there's also a Cremant that's made in

Alsace, which is up by the German border.

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And it much more, uh,

looks to German wines.

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It has that kind of Germanic wine taste.

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If you know what that means a

little bit, uh, uh, what do I say?

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A little bit sweeter, a

little bit more of sharp.

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points in it.

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I'm not putting down German wine,

but German wine is not as notoriously

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rounded as French and Spanish wine.

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And so there are crements made in

Alsace that kind of look toward Germany.

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I know there's a lot of

history in what I just said.

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They look toward history.

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So there, uh, they, you

should check this out.

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They're all made with Pinot

Blanc, not Pinot Noir.

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And our favorite one, this is, and I

think this is probably our favorite

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crement, is from Alsace and look for it.

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Albrecht Tradition and Albrecht Tradition.

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It's 100 percent Pinot

Blanc, as Mark said.

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It's an incredible champagne stand

in, also for about 25 bucks a bottle.

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And we said there were four.

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The fourth one is actually right

across the valley from Burgundy.

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It's Cremon de Jura.

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And you're going to get very

similar Cremons there that you

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get in the Cremon de Bologna.

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Similar, but Slightly, oh man,

this is an overgeneralization,

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slightly less sophisticated.

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Um, It's not Bourgogne.

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It's not Burgundy, and the climate, the

microclimates are different, and it's

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not quite as layered and sophisticated as

Burgundy grapes get, and Burgundy wines

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get, and even Clermonts from Burgundy get.

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But, listen.

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If, if I were spending money, and I did

spend money for the holidays, and I did

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buy wine, we bought Cava, as you heard,

and we went right to Raventos and to

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those other wineries selected around

Raventos that have kind of broken off

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from the Spanish bureaucratic system.

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You can find them all.

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That's where we went.

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Yeah, go to Raventos.

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com, look them up, Google Raventos

Winery, and you will find their whole

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list of wineries that have broken from

the DOC and are producing amazing wine.

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Wonderful wines.

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Before we get to the last segment of this

podcast, let me say that it would be great

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if you could subscribe to this podcast

and, more importantly, could you rate it?

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Dare I ask for five stars?

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If you could rate it, that would be great.

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And if you can write a review, even

just nice podcast or thanks for

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the podcast on whatever platform

allows you to write ratings.

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That helps us because otherwise we

have chosen to remain unsupported

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and our support is from you.

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So that's the way you can

help us out with this podcast.

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It keeps the podcast

fresh in the algorithms.

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Thanks for helping us out.

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Okay.

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As is traditional, the final segment.

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of this podcast every week.

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What's making us happy in food this week?

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Wild pheasant braised with apples.

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Oh my gosh.

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And juniper berries.

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That was something.

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Last night we were invited to

a friend's house for dinner.

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Yeah, Bruce did not make this.

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I did not make this.

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A friend of ours made it.

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Allison made it.

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And if you're listening

Allison, that was delicious.

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You are a very good cook.

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And of course there was so

much food to eat before dinner.

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All this smoked salmon.

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Cold smoked, hot smoked, there were

cheeses, there was shrimp cocktail, and

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then she braised these wild pheasants

that her son had shot in Montana, and

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she braised them in wine and cream and

butter with juniper berries and apples

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and served them with baked potatoes that

I brought, of all things, a plum chutney

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to serve with, and it was spectacular.

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I had butter . And salt and pepper on my

baked potato, but okay, uh, that's great.

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But I, that's what I

had on my baked potato.

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It was spectacular.

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Uh, they were really

mild for wild pheasants.

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I mean, you know, I know these things are

released for, for hunting expeditions,

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so they're not game birds per se in the

United States, but still, nonetheless,

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they were nicely, uh, mild and it was

really beautiful stuff all the way around.

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I guess what's making me happy in

food is because something beautiful.

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Bruce made.

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He made, earlier this week, lamb birria.

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And he made it in the old fashioned way of

making a birria, if you know about this.

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It's a Mexican braised dish with

lots of chilies and aromatics.

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You serve it with tortillas.

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He made his own homemade

blue corn tortillas.

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Of course I did.

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And we had lots of salsa macha to

go on top of it and sour cream.

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Pickled red onion.

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Pickled red onions, and the lamb birria

were on lamb necks from a local farm.

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He pulled the meat off after it got

tender in the oven after 900 years,

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and he pulled the meat off and then

crisped the meat on a griddle and

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just brought the griddle to the table.

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In bacon fat.

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Crisped.

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With the crisp lamb meat having been

made nice and crunchy and bacon fat.

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That was really an insane meal.

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Um, thank you.

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It was delicious.

400

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Always.

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Yeah.

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That's the podcast for this week.

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Thanks for listening.

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We appreciate your spending time with us.

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us in the giant podcast landscape, as we

always say, and we would love to connect

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with you on any social media platform.

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And every week we tell you

what's making us happy in food.

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So connect with us on the social

platform, Facebook in our group,

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Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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There, you will find

some videos that we do.

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You will see some things we share about

the stuff we're eating, and please go

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there and tell us what is making you

happy in food this week, because we want

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to know on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

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Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!