Montaudon Brut Champagne

For our family Christmas meal Dr Desert Flower baked a ham and sweet potatoes and a corn pudding where she used ground flax instead of wheat flour, ad well as organic spinach salads and organic dressings.  We'll be feasting on the leftovers for the rest of the week. But paired along with the food, I broke out a real bottle of Champagne - not a California knock-off that claims to be Champagne (and is priced like it too) but is just sparkling wine.  We'd picked up the bottle of Montaudon Brut Champagne Reserve Premiere (www.champagmonaudon.com) (bar code 6 575582 00001 2) at Trader Joe's some time ago for less than $20, and it's been chilling in the fridge all weekend.  Our family meal and long discussion lasted from 1/2 an hour before dusk until just before the Packers began to mop up Lambeau with what's left of the Bears this season (21 to 35, bleh. Go Lions, Saints, and 49ers!). The champagne was gone before night had fully fallen.

If you're looking for a delicious, inexpensive bottle of Champagne for New Years, it is hard to beat Montaudon.  Dr Desert Flower's and my palates are not "refined" enough to differentiate in a blind taste test between a $20 and a $80 or $180 bottle of Champagne, so the Montaudon fits the bill quite nicely.  Highly recommended.  Not too fruity.  Not so dry it knocks you over.  Excellent in the nose & on the palate.  It did not disappoint.