After Sam’s fruitless search for a sparkling-wine benchmark in California comes this rather more fruitful one. Dr Konstantin Frank's bottles maturing on yeast lees, above.
In terms of quality potential, it is exciting to see the sparkling wine emerging from New York State. The growing conditions of the Finger Lakes are especially well suited to the needs of traditional-method sparkling wine, making it the benchmark region for the state’s fizz.
Some examples are also made from vineyards in Long Island, although more variable growing conditions result in less consistency for the style. There, however, there are also a few producers...