Easter is early this year and so are your requests for swanky champagnes and fancy sparklers to drink at parties. Some of you just want good, ordinary fizz to pop open whenever you want. The problem with assessing sparkling wine is that the bubbles mask the quality of the base wine, a loophole the wine trade takes advantage of. If you want to pick the best of a bunch for an important function, my advice is to leave a glass of each fizz out overnight. By the time the bubbles have gone and the wine is flat the next day, the quality, or lack of it, will be clear.

Not helping fizz fans in their quest is the huge variation in quality from one batch of bubbles to the next, with noticeably different flavours cropping up, owing to age, vintage changes, use of reserve wines and unprincipled producers eking out popular blends. Of the dozens I waded through, the only sub-£5 bubbly I found worth drinking was the surprisingly elegant, lively, smoky, lime juice-redolent Cava la Rosca Brut (buy two for £3.99 each at Waitrose until April 1). From the same Codorníu stable and méthode champenoise process comes the Reserva Raventós Brut (down £3 to £5.99 at Sainsbury’s until April 1, or two for £5.99 each at Majestic Wine until April 7). This chardonnay-based fizz delivers pleasing, peppery, waxy spice and closes on a fine marzipan-like note that would make it a happy partner to a wedding cake or traditional Easter simnel cake. Avoid the dumb scent and sour palate, though, of its pink pinot noir sister.

Alas, there are no half-priced Easter champagnes to drool over as in times past, but there are plenty to avoid, with Veuve Edouard a £9.99 filterpad-scented horror from Somerfield, and Charles de Villers a £13.99 cardboard-redolent nightmare from Morrisons. Never mind. One merchant- sourced bubbly hit the spot: the wondrous, long, verdant, biscuity, black grape-based Henri Chauvet, Blanc de Noirs Brut Champagne, which is made from two thirds pinot noir to one third pinot meunier. With the added bonus of one third aged reserve wines in its blend, this one is easily worth the £15.75 Private Cellar (01353 721999) is charging until Easter. The same price – well, one penny less – at Waitrose brings you what I am sure must be the last of the Héritage Brut Champagne. My bottle was fully mature with a fine, beefy, biscuity flavour, and I doubt whether discounted stock will last until the April 1 cut-off.

As for vintage champagne, you do not have to pay much for the privilege of drinking the gorgeous 2002 vintage. Take your pick from the 2002 Duval Leroy Brut with its delicate, light, floral, waxy palate or the marginally finer, richer, citrus and candied peel-charged 2002 Heidsieck & Co Monopole Gold Top Brut. Both are £15.99 each until April 7 if you buy two or more at Majestic. Party planners take note.

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

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