They're pushing pretty hard to get you to care, for sure. In my experience, pretty much anywhere that can make wine can make sparkling wine, and anywhere that isn't the champagne region of France can make much more interesting sparkling wine than what the French usually have on offer. I once had a spectacular sparkling shiraz out of the West coast of Australia. When I'm celebrating, money no object, let's impress people and myself, the champagne I buy is Perrier Jouet Fleur, not just because I complimented their social media channel on this ad and they sent me four posters: But when I'm just drinking sparkling (which I do - a lot - nearly as much as beer) I default to Freixenet and it's f'n Spanish. (But when it's not on sale I drink Barefoot with no shame) The French have done a helluva job convincing the world that they and only they know how to make wine and I'll be honest - I've never really bought it. There's this marvelous idea of sun-kissed vineyards in Provance where grapes are picked by hand by blonde virgins or some shit but frickin' Napa is just one part of Cali And there's some damn fine wine grown in Yakima, which is Rehh-hedNECK. Hell. The 2nd largest wine growing region in the US is upstate New York.
For sure. I mean, I think they have to. Their price point is pretty much on par with Champagne, which has had put in a lot of money and energy into marketing itself as the cream of the crop of sparkling wine (though, to be fair, methode champagnoise is significantly more time- and labour-instensive than most other methods of producing sparkling wine, though Champagne isn't the only place that uses it). Haha, yeah. It's always kind of funny to see the contrast between the oenologists/marketing people and the people who actually look after the vineyards. People who make wine (even in Champagne and Burgundy) are farmers at the end of the day. They're pushing pretty hard to get you to care, for sure.
And there's some damn fine wine grown in Yakima, which is Rehh-hedNECK.