Running with Champagne? Yes.

I promise this post will be including wine!!    Yesterday was my birthday!! and I “celebrated” by running the Cape13 relay, a 24h 200 mile 12-person relay race across the cape.   My amazing team and I spent about 22 of those hours.. awake, eating or running.  So, needless to say we were psyched to finish and we wanted to CELEBRATE!  Not only because we finished the thing but we WON our division and were only 2nd overall to an ALL men’s team while we had 7 women!!  How awesome is that?!  Clearly the women were not holding us back, we finished 2h and 40m in front of the next team in our division.  Unreal.  So, this is all to say, we wanted to celebrate and LUCKILY I had a handy bottle of Champagne chilling in the fridge!  It was an amazing bottle of wine and was enjoyed by the team, which made it extra special.

According to the L.A. Times, the Vin du Bugey-Cerdon is “Ever so slightly sweet, and makes a delightful party wine!”  This rose bubbly is an unusual non-vintage sparkling red wine from the Savoie in eastern France.    It primarily uses the Gamay grape, which is found in France’s Burgundy region and is responsible for the red wines of Beaujolais. Typically, Gamay grapes are light and medium bodied wines, more limited tannins and balanced acidity.  I find alcohol rules really interesting and this region has a bunch.  This is a sparkling rose wine from Bugey (region in France) and that means it MUST contain either 100% Gamay grapes OR the blend with ONLY the local grape Poulsard and in this case it’s a blend of 80% Gamay with 20% Poulsard.  So we aren’t breaking any rules drinking it… phew.

The taste of the wine is refreshing; it’s light and CHOCK full of berries.  I tasted and smelled cherries, strawberries and possibly a hint of raspberry- or that could just be the fruit wine talking…  The color is gorgeous- it’s actually a light pink.    To call the wine “delightful” is an understatement; it was the perfect accoutrement to the post-race exhaustion and warm sun on the Cape.  We filled cups, shared the bottle and celebrated in good style with this bottle.  I’m excited to have it again this summer- it’s a perfect afternoon wine, would go amazingly well with a light cheese and fruit platter and could work as a dessert with a little bit of chocolate, too!  Delicious find!

JuliaUncorked says: 92/100. I love it!  It’s pricier than an average wine ($24), but it’s a bubbly worth the small splurge for any special occasion!

Post race ceremonial opening of the bottle!

So classy! but so thirsty!