Vezzoli Franciacorta Brut

If you love champagne but find its rising prices hard to swallow, try Italy's answer to the world's best bubbly - with this blanc de blancs from Lombardy in north central Italy. Vezzoli is renowned as a producer for making bone dry wines and this lovely lively, dry sparkling wine is a top notch example. Yeasty and fresh, it rocks into a citrusy purity of flavour a long, beautifully balanced finish from extended ageing on lees (decomposing yeast) for 20 months.