- I'm Patrick Cappiello, Wine Director of Rebelle restaurant in New York City, Eater National and Food & Wine Magazine's Sommelier of the year. And today, I'm going to
blind-taste cheap, sparkling wines. (upbeat music) When I'm tasting sparkling
wines, I'm looking for the same things I'm looking
for with still wines but obviously with the
addition of bubbles. Those bubbles can range
in intensity and size, but in the end, if the wine's no good, it doesn't matter how
many bubbles are in it, it's probably not gonna be any good. All right, well it smells like
it might be made from grapes. It's very, it's pretty
aggressively bubbly. Makes me wonder how the
bubbles got in there. It's very sweet, wow, it's super sweet. It's too bubbly (laughs). Too bubbly and too sweet. It has kind of a creamy, sweet texture with acidity but disjointed. Yeah, that's like an
F, for sure it's an F. If I had to guess the
grape, Concord (laughs). Ah, Cook's (laughing). Okay, it's California
champagne, it says right there. Oh, my God, wow. Brut is supposed to mean dry. They misunderstood what it means. Like, it has a scale
of Brut Grand Reserve, Brut Extra Dry, Sweet Rose. None of these things are real wine terms. They basically took
every tradition of making sparkling wine all over
the rest of the world and bastardized it. All right. Oh, wow. I mean, this smells like a
Moscato but like real Moscato. Like Moscato that you
would get from Italy, which is a traditional
sparkling wine from Italy that is supposed to be sweet. It tends to be more favored for dessert and it smells a lot like that. It smells kind of like honey,
actually, a lot like honey. It doesn't smell terrible, it just smells like it's gonna be sweet. It tastes like a wine that is sweet because it's supposed to taste sweet. Not a wine that tastes sweet
because they made it sweet. It's not terrible. The bubbles are super fine. There's good acidity there
that's balanced out as well. It's more of a dessert wine but it's well-constructed, well-balanced, and I think it speaks of
a certain style of wine. I'm gonna give it a B plus. Oh, my God, that's awesome. Wow, I'm actually very happy about this because this is like old school, 1863. I bet this wine tasted the
same in 1863 as it does now, and that's super cool. Martini & Rossi Asti
Spumante, man, awesome. Made from the finest
Moscato Bianco grapes. Moscato, I nailed it, nailed it. That's OG right there. All right. What (laughs). It smells like Banana Now and Laters. Very tropical, pineapple, banana. There's some, like, perfumed,
kind of floral notes. It's very aromatic, like,
extraordinarily aromatic. And it tastes nothing like it smells. It's just like all acid. There's some sugar there
for sure, but it's like flavor bursts and it's gone, immediately. It just tapers right off. 'Cause when you smell it you think it's gonna be extraordinarily
sweet, but then when you taste it, it's
really, really dry. That's like a D minus. It's really close to an
F but not quite there. Trader Joe's, ai yai
yai, I didn't even know they made sparkling wine. How did I not know all these
sparkling wines existed? French Sparkling Wine. I can't believe it comes from France. Not that they only make
great wine in France, but that somebody would have paid to have this brought here from France. They should have left it there. Thanks, France. This looks kind of normal. Oh, my God, it smells like Peach Schnapps. Yeah, it smells like candy,
like almost Gummy Bears. Wow, that's really weird. This is gonna be really
fuckin' sweet, too, I know it. It's actually not as sweet
as I thought it was gonna be. It's still very fruity
and, ugh, it's like bitter. It's almost like Sour Patch Kids. Like, when it's super
fruity, when it's super tart. And it's like they went out of their way to make it extra sparkling. Your mouth fills up with gas. Then there's definitely
some sweetness there but it's sour, that's also terrible. I'm gonna give that an
F, too, that's an F. I would never drink this. I would never, this is punishment to make somebody drink this. If I had to guess I would say it's a sparkling Riesling from someplace that shouldn't be making wine. Oh, man, wow. Sophia, from Francis Coppola. Coppola crushes it again. Man oh man, that guy is gonna absolutely murder me at some point. I hate shitting on your wines, Francis, but you make it so easy. Something was definitely lost
in translation here, though. This one seems to be
retaining its frothy head, which is scary. Oh, man. Again, this one smells like candy. Medium sweet, if there's such a thing, but fully terrible. Again, there's something unnatural about the bubbles in this thing. It maybe went through a soda stream. And again, acid level is really high. It's so strange that with these wines that they're just
aggressive on both sides. Super sweet, super high acid. It's not as bad as we've seen so far, so therefore I don't want to give it an F. So I'm going to give it a D. Oh, ho, yes. This one I've heard of before, Korbel. You know a Methode Champenoise,
which is definitely alive. There's no way this is made
with Methode Champenoise. Come on, for 15 bucks? I've never been happier
to have the last glass. Yeah, I mean, it smells like wine. That smells, I'm not afraid
to put this in my mouth. It smells like pear, like ripe pear. It's not delicious, but
it's dry, which is great. There's no sugar at all in that. That's very, very dry. Not bad at all actually,
I mean, I would give that, in the realm of what
I've seen so far, a B. Oh, nice, okay, Piper Sonoma. That makes sense. It says here that it's perfect
for mimosas or French 75's. I kind of respect that,
the fact that they're willing to admit that their inexpensive sparkling wine might be
better off in a cocktail than it is in a wine glass. For a dry, sparkling
wine that's affordable, I think you could do worse. So I think we've learned
a lot of things today. First of all that it's
hard to find good value in the sparkling wine genre. Most sparkling wines are
expensive for a reason. There's a few more steps that go into making sparkling wine,
and if corners are cut and they're just going for the end result of getting bubbles in it,
sometimes you're gonna sacrifice some of the
other things about it that make wine great or that make a wine delicious to drink. So there's no doubt that
this is the winner for today. And what I learned today is that even though I think that
I don't like sweet wines, I actually do, but the
difference here is quality. And as much as I like
finding great value in wine, with sparkling wines it might be worth spending just a little bit more or just skipping it all together. From playboy.com, I'm Patrick Cappiello.
