Wines of the week: good reasons to drink sparkling wine to your heart’s content

Bollinger PN VZ19, Champagne, France NV

£84, The Finest Bubble; Berry Bros & Rudd; Lay & Wheeler; Farr Vintners; Hedonism Wines; Fine + Rare

We need to drink more champagne. No, really, we do. It’s a health thing – champagne is officially good for you. Well that, at least, is what a headline-grabbing study published by the Canadian Journal of Cardiology in April suggested as it made a link between a regular intake of champagne and a reduction in the risk of cardiac arrest. Let’s leave to one side the many other contributory factors the researchers cited for a moment, and revel in the idea that, to paraphrase the famous words of Lily Bollinger, the legendary 20th-century boss of the eponymous champagne house, we now have licence to drink champagne when we’re lonely and in company, whether we’re hungry or not, and particularly if we’re thirsty. After all, champagne is medicine now, a fact that somehow makes the latest sublime, glamorously shimmering, richly, deeply flavoured and complex, insouciant and vivacious edition of Bollinger’s pinot noir-based PN VZ19 feel like an entirely reasonable, even necessary prescription.

M&S Classics No 12 Crémant de Bourgogne, Burgundy, France NV

£14, Marks & Spencer

Of course, there’s nothing in the research to suggest that doctor’s orders require champagne specifically or that there is something specific about the wines made on those particular soils in that particular climate in that particular corner of northern France that has the health-giving effect. Which means we’re perfectly at liberty to pick one of the many exciting wines being made using the same bottle-fermented method all over the world these days. You don’t even have to stray all that far from Champagne to find wines that measure up, in terms of quality to, if not quite the best of Bollinger and other top-end producers, then certainly many supermarket champagnes. I’m thinking of the crémant wines made a little to the southeast in Burgundy, of which M&S’s Classics version is a particularly lively example. Made by a co-operative cellar based in the cooler, higher vineyards of the Hautes-Cotes sub-region of Burgundy, it’s a softly creamy-foamed mix of ripe apple, stone fruit, and cool breezy freshness.

Codorníu Gran Cremant Cava, Spain NV

£10.49, The Co-op

Crémant wines, not just from Burgundy, but also Alsace, the Loire, the Languedoc (Limoux) and Bordeaux, have been a big hit in recent years, as quality has improved exponentially and more and more people have cottoned on to the excellent value they represent. Also among those cottoning on to the crémant croissance, it seems, are Spain’s cava producers, who have been working hard to battle falling sales and shake-off an image problem which has seen their product, a style that can be every bit as good and distinctive as champagne-method fizz from anywhere else, become firmly associated with the bargain basement. Perhaps that explains why the word “cremant” (sans accent) is so prominent on the label of Cava giant Codorníu’s cuvée, while the word “cava” gets only a tiny little font. Either way, it’s a – I have to say it – typically good-value example of the Catalan fizz, made with the traditional local trio of cava grape varieties (macabeu, parellada and xarel·lo) and offering a gentle camomile-infused apple-and-pear juiciness and a limey, fresh finish.