Choosing good pink champagne can be a fun process, particularly if you plan ahead and consider both your budget and the formality of the event. If you are selecting pink champagne for an event that takes place in a reception hall or restaurant, talk to its sommelier or beverage manager and ask for suggestions. Once you have a list of recommended bottles, do some online research and get the opinions of experts and consumers as to the champagne’s quality. If you are hosting the event in your home or office, try to sample various types of pink champagne before committing to a purchase: you can do this by visiting wine bars that offer “flights”, a set of small, sample pours of champagne that allow you to decide which is your preference. Many wine retail shops also regularly offer tastings to customers, so be sure to ask local wine stores for a schedule of events.
Pink champagne or sparkling wine typically includes the juice of pinot noir or pinot meunier grapes. The color of the champagne is due to the winemaker allowing continued contact between the champagne and the skins of these dark grapes. Many manufacturers also add a small amount of red wine to their batches of pink champagne to ensure consistency in color. Unless you are a wine connoisseur, your primary concerns may not be the exact grapes used to produce the champagne but rather how it tastes and what it costs. True champagne from the Champagne region in France can be costly, so if you are on a budget you may wish to look into less expensive, but very tasty options from other regions or countries.
Keep in mind that if you are choosing wines and spirits for a catered event in a restaurant or banquet hall, you will typically pay a lot more for each bottle then you would if you were making a purchase for home use. Since you may have to select a lower tier brand to meet budgetary requirements, it may be a good idea to purchase these bottles at a retail shop for home tasting. This can help prevent the embarrassment of serving guests inferior quality pink champagne.
When selecting a bottle for a special occasion, a general rule is that vintage champagnes are of higher quality than non-vintage champagne. This does not mean, however, that a non-vintage champagne can't be absolutely delicious. In fact, you may find that some non-vintage bottles are far tastier than vintage options. For this reason, it is generally a good idea to try to sample higher end bottles by attending tastings or patronizing establishments that offer a variety of champagnes by the glass.
