Giles Fallowfield is an award-winning journalist and a Champagne specialist who has been writing about the region for over two decades.
Champagne prices have gone back to what passes for normal as the frantic Christmas and New Year activity susbsides. But if you only buy discounted fizz, don’t worry, as a new pack of deals will soon emerge for Valentine’s and Mothers’ Day with pink offerings to the fore.
For the best current deals see the Retail Offers page
As usual at this time of year the supermarkets are desperately trying to attract more customers into their stores and once again ‘cheap’ champagne is one of the instruments they are using to do this. So far we have seen prices fall to as low as £6, albeit only briefly with some de-listed stock at ASDA while Tesco on-line (De Vallois), ASDA (Pierre Darcy’s), ALDI (Philizot) currently all have champagne at £10 or £9.99 a bottle.
It is hard to get excited about these wines but in the next rung up, typically from £12 to £20 a bottle, far more interesting fizz is to be found among the supermarkets’ best Own Label lines, champagne from some of the less well known houses and one or two growers’ cuvées.
We have tasted our way through many of these champagnes to try and find the best drinking for the Christmas holidays and New Year at the most competitive price. We have also picked out some of the best vintage champagne for current drinking, both from less well known producers and the big international brands (to follow soon). See the ‘Best current buys’ section on the Latest Retail Offers page.