8 great Brazilian sparkling wines from 30 reais – 12/30/2023 – Red or White

Did you leave it until the last minute to buy New Year’s Eve sparkling wine? Don’t have time to search for special offers on the internet? No problem. Buy at the supermarket closest to your home. In general, supermarkets are not the best place to buy wines, both in terms of price and variety.

In the case of sparkling wines, however, it is quite easy to find good labels at good prices. I believe this is due to the fact that Brazil produces great sparkling wines in all price ranges. With national sparkling wine, you can hardly go wrong. Just remember to check whether it is brut (dry) or demi-sec (sweet).

Sparkling wines are wines with carbon dioxide bubbles. How does this happen? Most of the time, with two alcoholic fermentations. Fermentation is the transformation that yeast causes. In the case of alcoholics, they eat sugar and release alcohol and carbon dioxide. In the production of common wines, this carbon dioxide is released into the environment. In the case of sparkling wines, he is imprisoned.

The two most common methods of producing sparkling wine are traditional and charmat. In both cases, there are two fermentations. First, alcohol is formed and gas is released. In the second, which is caused by the addition of more sugar and more yeast to the base wine (the one produced in the first fermentation), the environment is closed and the gas is trapped. In the charmat method, the second fermentation takes place in a pressurized tank. Traditionally, it happens in the bottle.

In general, sparkling wines from the charmat method are fresher and fruitier. Those using the traditional method have more aromas of dried fruits and brioche. This, however, is not mandatory.

Below is a list of great sparkling wines that you can find in supermarkets. All at a good price.
I chose only dry, but if you prefer something sweeter, go with muscat. There are several Brazilians of excellent quality. In the supermarket next to your house, you may not have any of these, but you will certainly have a Brazilian sparkling wine. You can buy without fear. One tip is to look at the text I wrote a few weeks ago about how to read a Brazilian sparkling wine label.

Saint Germain Brut

Produced by Vinícola Aurora, using the charmat method, this sparkling wine is a great alternative when you want to spend very little. I tasted it for the first time at the winery and I remember that I spontaneously commented: “How delicious!’. Lourdes, marketing director at the time, who I met that day and later became my friend, told me, then, that I was the first journalist to agree to try that product because it was too cheap. I tried it, liked it and published compliments. After that, I saw it in several publications. Always well classified. I always use it to open works.

On the Aurora website, the grapes that go into the cut are not specified. As it is a very cheap product, I imagine it varies according to the availability of the harvest, but there is certainly chardonnay and italic riesling, the two white wines most produced in Serra Gaúcha, where it comes from. The 660 ml bottle (a little smaller than the normal 750 ml bottle) costs R$26.90 at Carrefour.

Ode Rosé Brut

When I was in Rio de Janeiro for the last time, the great discovery I made was the Zona Sul supermarket right in front of the apartment I was staying in, in Ipanema. More specifically, the wines from Zona Sul. I know it’s nothing new, but whenever I went to Rio, I stayed in a hotel. So, I had never really explored any supermarket.

This is a sparkling wine made especially for the South Zone, a rosé, using the charmat method. A blend of pinot noir and italic riesling. The producer is the excellent Courmayeur, a medium-sized winery from Rio Grande do Sul that has stood out for its sparkling wines. The price is very good, R$46.80.

Amitié Brut

Amitié Winery is quite new and has been growing a lot. Founded in 2018 by winemaker Juciane Casagrande Doro and sommelière Andreia Gentilini Milan, it was a gypsy winery, that is, without its own headquarters. It was very successful from the beginning. In 2023, the partners opened a headquarters. They started with sparkling wines, but today they have a very broad portfolio.

This is one of their oldest labels. Made using the charmat method, with chardonnay and Tuscan malvasia grapes, it is a fresh and aromatic wine. It costs R$54.90, in the South Zone.

Brut Traditional Art

This is a classic, one of the best value for money in the country. I always buy it for my own consumption. It is produced by Casa Valduga, using the traditional method, the same as Champagne. The grapes are also the same, chardonnay and pinot noir.Above

Above, I said that traditional method sparkling wines tend to have more aromas of dried fruits and brioche. This happens because, in the traditional method, the wine tends to stay in contact with the lees (remains of yeast) for longer. They are what give these aromas to the sparkling wine.
In the case of Arte, contact with the lees lasts for at least one year. That is, after
Once the second fermentation is complete, the bottle rests with the lees for 12 months before going through disgorgement (when the bottle is opened and, very quickly so that the gas does not escape, the lees that accumulate in the neck are removed, as the bottle rests lying down). It costs R$69.80 at Zaffari (this was the best supermarket price I found).

Fausto Brut

Another great traditional method sparkling wine for a great price. On the winery’s website, we found that it is a blend of 93% chardonnay and 7% pinot noir. There is no specific information about the contact time with the lees. It is only said that it is brief. In fact, it is more fresh and fruity than baking aromas.

Pizzato is a medium-sized winery from Rio Grande do Sul well recognized for the quality of its wines. This line is cheaper, but maintains the standard. It costs R$69.99, at Pão de Açúcar.

Salton Ouro Brut Rosé

Salton is one of the largest and most traditional wineries in Brazil. It produces wines and sparkling wines in all price ranges. At the end of last year, I was in their showroom here in São Paulo and tried some of the more expensive labels, such as Évidence Cuveé Sur Lie (R$ 125.00) and Lucia Canei rosé (R$ ​​175.00). Wonderful.

Shortly afterwards, I went to dinner with my brother, and he appeared with two bottles of Ouro Rosé that he had bought for a bargain at the supermarket opposite. I didn’t put much faith in it. I remembered some cheaper sparkling wines from Salton that I hadn’t liked so much. The prejudice, however, disappeared after the first sip. The wine is delicious. Fresh, with aromas of red fruits, it went very well with the curry we were eating.

It is made using the charmat method, with chardonnay and pinot noir grapes. It remains in contact with the lees for 6 months. So, it has a certain body and unctuousness. It costs R$70.00, at Casa Santa Luzia.

Amadeu Rustic Nature Cave

The Família Geisse winery, which produces this sparkling wine, is considered a model of quality throughout the sector. Chilean winemaker Mario Geisse, its founder, is one of the main people responsible for the evolution of sparkling wines in Brazil. It was he, for example, who discovered that Pinto Bandeira, today a designation of origin, was the perfect terroir for the production of sparkling wines.

The Cave Amadeu line is the simplest, but the pattern is the same. This is a sur lie sparkling wine, that is, it does not undergo disgorgement. It is sold with the lees still in the bottle and the beer cap that sparkling wines usually use before disgorgement.
The sur lie style is very fashionable in Brazil. Sparkling wines of this style tend to have a lot of baking aromas. How much? The consumer decides. The longer it takes to open, the more aromas of dried fruit and brioche it will have. It costs R$ 124.00, at Casa Santa Luzia.

Chandon Blanc de Noir Extra Brut

The trajectory of the Chandon winery in Rio Grande do Sul, part of the French group that produces Möet & Chandon champagne, coincides closely with the history of the development of technology and know-how for the production of sparkling wines in Brazil. When it settled in the south, in the 1970s, it brought winemakers from outside (Mario Geisse was one of them) and invested in research. It provided training and technical support to winegrowers who wanted to invest in the production of fine grapes (and not table grapes, as was the rule at the time).

He worked hard on developing the charmat method and, to this day, he only makes sparkling wines using it. They are proof that the charrmat method can also produce complex sparkling wines. Just leave the tank standing still (which is very expensive) with the sparkling wine in contact with the lees, as they do with Excellence (R$ 212.90), which stays on the lees for 12 months.

Blanc de Noir has 6 months of contact. A little more than the starter cuveé which has 4. It is the brand’s most recent launch. It is a 100% pinot noir and, despite being white, it has aromas of red fruits, as well as peach and almonds. It costs R$ 129.90 (less than on the Chandon website), in St. Marche.