Forget the credit crunch, Christmas without champagne or a good sparkling wine would be unthinkable. While the usual run of sub-£13 champagnes are as tart and tinny as ever, you can still pull out the odd plum. Our continuing love affair with champagne – almost half of Britain’s drinkers regularly crack open a bottle – has led to a rise in the quality of sparkling wines from other countries.So while the recession bites and forces Britain’s fizz drinkers to trade down, the selection and choice this season is one of the best yet.

Big-name, non-vintage champagne bibbers need not fuss unduly, then, about switching to own-label bubbly, and supermarket own-label champagne swiggers should not fret if their budget can only stretch to good, ordinary fizz. There are lots of alternatives.

My only real grumble is that truly great vintage and prestige champagne is scarce. True, the gorgeous 2002 vintage is widely available, but too many costly top-drawer champagnes are all froth and no flavour. Be warned.

La Rosca Cava Brut, Método Tradicional, Spain, WAITROSE, £4.99 or buy two for £3.49 each until January 6. Cheap as chips, easy-drinking Christmas party sparkler that improves every year. A young, bright, zesty wine with lots of vibrant lime and lemon fruit – Britain’s best cheap fizz.

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2005 Extra Special Mas Miralda Cava Brut, Spain, ASDA, £5.97. Not a single-estate cava as the name suggests, but no matter, within lies the best £6 bubbles you can buy. A superior, vintage- dated, bouncy, fruity cava, whose bold, yeasty, almost champagne-like complexity is good with or without food.

Sparkling Burgundy Blanc de Blancs, Crémant de Bourgogne Brut, Cave de Lugny, France, WAITROSE, £8.99, £7.19 from January 7. An elegant, waxy, floral, fruity blanc de blancs, a classy chardonnay-based méthode champenoise. The next best French fizz to champagne.

Langlois Crémant de Loire Brut Rosé, Langlois-Château, France, ODDBINS, £10.99. Don’t be a Scrooge and crack open a dirt-cheap pink hoping the hue will mask its faults. It won’t. Serve instead this redcurrant and strawberry-laden rosé made, à la méthode champenoise, from cabernet franc grapes, and rejoice.

2004 Green Point Vintage Brut, Australia, ODDBINS, £12.49, MAJESTIC, buy two for £12.99 each, WAITROSE, £13.99. Bored of champagne? The Antipodean alternatives often lack class but Green Point is on a roll, and this now consistently stylish, creamy fizz oozes with zippy, perfumed, faintly citrus-scented fruit.

Duval-Leroy, Fleur de Champagne Brut, WAITROSE, £12.99 from November 26. Swanky premier cru-rated grapes, two-thirds chardonnay to one-third pinot noir, help make this the best festive sub-£13 champagne, with some elegant, floral, yeasty fruit. NB: it costs £25.99 from December 3-26.

2002 Heidsieck & Co Monopole Gold Top Brut Champagne, MAJESTIC, buy two for £16.99 each, MORRISONS, £19.99 from December 1. Everyone should try to stretch to one bottle of vintage champagne this Christmas, and as 2002 is the finest since 1998, GT’s splendid, waxy fruit is the recession-busting bubbly to buy.

Lanson Black Label Brut Champagne, BUDGENS, £16.99, SAINSBURY'S, £17.33, MAJESTIC, buy two for £17.99 each, BOOTHS, £18.99. My favourite big-name, non-vintage bargain Brut, Black Label remains the delightful, floral, lemony bubbly of old that hangs on to every joyous ounce of champagne acidity. Hallelujah.

2002 Veuve Clicquot Vintage Brut Champagne, TESCO, £39.94, JEROBOAMS (020-7730 8108), £39.95 until December 24. Great vintage champagne from a great champagne house at a splash-out but not extortionate price. A wonderful, rich, fruity, classy, pinot noir-dominant Christmas fizz.

1999 Pol Roger Vintage Brut Champagne, Berry Bros & Rudd (01256 340123), £49.95. MAJESTIC, buy two for £49.99 each. Blow the budget: after the top Nineties years (’98, ’96), 1999 is next best. This full-flavoured, lemon and angelica-spiked ’99 foams with the creamy pinhead bubbles for which PR is renowned.

jane.macquitty@thetimes.co.uk

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