Firstly, thanks for this site, it's great and I know it must take up a fair amount of time to keep up to date and relevant. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Secondly. We'replanning on having a blind tasting and quite fancy comparing some cava against champagne.
We don't want to break the bank, so we wondered if you could recommend a cross section of champagne and cava that should be on our list?
Many thanks and best wishes for Christmas....

When are you buying it for? Is it for NY or for a wedding, or something. If you're able to warrant buying a case at Majestic, Canard Duchene is reduced to ?14.99 if you buy 3. Mind you, you don't want to be forced into buying 3, just for a tasting. It's a very good buy for 14.99. They also have Duval Leroy vintage at the same price. Waitrose have the Duval Leroy NV at ?13.99 - a vg wine. Tesco "Premier Cru" champagne is well thought of.

Oddbins have 20% off a mixed case of 6 - but they have to be exclusive, so you won't get grande marque champagne (ie names you've heard of).

I'm no expert on Cava, but I think it's worth buying supermarket own labels and choose vintage, if you get the chance. Worth tasting NV vs vintage, for interest. If it's for a wedding, you might want to choose Demi Sec, because Brut can be hard work if you're drinking for any length of time.

If money's no option (unlikely, and certainly not the case for me) Nyetimber would be my choice - Waitrose have it at about ?21/?22. Beautiful.

We'd all be v interested to hear your opinions.

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mel

Thank you Mel.

It's not for any event as such, just for the experience. When we visited Spain a few years ago, I was totally struck by the quality of the cava we tasted there. The taste alone was preferential to a lot of the champagne we'd tried here in the UK, and the cost made it an absolute bargain. Unfortunately, we've not able to get the stuff we tried in spain over here, so a tasting seems a good chance to compare what is available.

We'll be getting a selection together over the next few months ready for an early summer tasting and we'll let you know how we get on.

Many thanks for your input.

Have just had the nod that the Oddbins 20% offer is only definitely on until 10 March. They'll make a decision nearer the time.

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mel