As the wine world’s biggest success story, champagne is rarely off the front pages. Since champagne producers can happily sell every bubble they blow, the latest news is that the region’s growers are aiming to extend their vineyards to make it possible to produce an extra 100 million or so bottles a year on top of the 330 million they already make. With demand outpacing supply, it’s hardly surprising that its famous houses are not shy when it comes to charging. Last month Krug launched its first blanc de noirs, Krug Clos d’Ambonnay, a rosé champagne that will retail at around £1,500 per bottle (no, I haven’t had the sample yet). Absurd? Perhaps so, but not one of the 60 Krug devotees offered it at a ‘knockdown’ £12,000 per case when visiting the cellars to taste the wine declined.

The biggest champagne success story in recent years has been the rise and rise of rosé fizz. Where once rosé bubbles were the province of just a handful of champagne houses, notably Billecart Salmon and Laurent Perrier, the number of rosé champagnes today have reached the necessary critical mass to turn it into a ‘category’, as the wine trade likes to call it. In other words, every champagne house worth its salt produces a rosé, and some do it better than others. If you’re keen on both champagne and rosé wine and haven’t yet experienced the thrill of a really good rosé fizz, you might try the toasty, elegant, red berryish Ayala Rosé NV Champagne, £26.99, Marks & Spencer, or the slightly more affordable, pale salmon pink, raspberryish Petrot Bonnet Rosé Brut Champagne, £22.99, also at M & S.

For some time champagne producers have been trying to convince us that demi-sec champagne is going to be the Next Big Thing. It’s not quite a dodo yet, but there’s an altogether more interesting trend that’s bubbling under: a fashion for natural champagnes with no added dosage. Dosage? Like a fresh lemon pressé, natural champagne can be quite acidic on its own. The dosage, or liqueur d’expédition, is the spoonful of cane sugar combined with an equal amount of champagne with which each house tops up its brut fizz in degrees ranging from zero up to 15 grams per litre to help the medicine go down. Following in the wake of its Grand Vin Sans Sucre, for which it was known in the 19th century, Laurent Perrier has made a success of its summery Laurent Perrier Ultra Brut Champagne, £31.99 - £36, Oddbins, Harvey Nichols, Harrods, which comes with a tart Granny Smith bite to it.

A number of other producers are now following suit, with names such as Brut Nature, Extra Brut, Sauvage, Non-Dosé, Brut Zéro and Zéro Dosage. They include Tarlant, Dumangin, Drappier, Nicolas Feuillatte, Mandois, Piper-Heidsieck, Pannier, Pommery and Ayala, the latter making a big splash with a superb ultra dry rosé to be launched in the UK soon and a new prestige Perle d’Ayala. Probably the most notable of the new launches comes from Pol Roger for the simple reason that PR is arguably the most prestigious of the champagne houses to test drive the new style. Pol Roger Pure Brut, £32.99, Harvey Nichols, and Amuse Bouche bars, has been produced, according to Pol Roger, ‘specifically for gastronomy’ and with its stylish look, natural and tantalisingly zesty flavours, it has plenty going for it.

The bone dry style is well-adapted to oysters, seafood and Japanese cuisine, as Didier Gimonnet pointed out when I caught up with his brilliantly creamy 1999 Gimonnet Extra Brut Oenophile Non-Dosé Champagne at this spring’s Champagne Bureau tasting, £180.97 per 6 bottles, John Armit (020 7908 0600), Inverarity Vaults (01899 308000), Bowland Forest Vintners, Clitheroe (01200 448688). Pierre Larmandier Bernier is another grower whose elegantly dry champagne’s character is derived from chardonnay vineyards in the village of Cramant. He achieves considerable success in the natural style with a pure, minerally 2003 Vieille Vigne de Cramant Grand Cru Extra Brut Champagne, £34.25, The Vine Trail, Bristol (01179 211770).

With a growing number of champagne houses leaping aboard the sugar-free bandwagon, expect ultra-dry champagne to become the next food fashion trend. But it’s not everybody’s cup of bubbles for the simple reason that it can be too austere for many palates. According to the champagne authority, Tom Stevenson, after tasting great old champagne vintages disgorged straight from the cellar (and great, mature vintages require little or no dosage), ‘certain French wine journalists theorised incorrectly that champagne per se did not need any added sugar, so it became macho to want no dosage champagnes’. As Didier Gimonnet cautions, while the style appeals to true champagne lovers looking for a natural wine without embellishment, ‘it’s not easy to do it well and in order to get the right balance, you have to choose the best vintage cuvée, otherwise it can too easily become unbalanced’. Pure as the new style may be, the blender’s art is still the ace up the champenois sleeve.

Something For the Weekend 3 May 2008

Under a Fiver

2007 Marlborough Hills Sauvignon Blanc, £4.99, Majestic, on special offer, normal list price £7.49, until 17 June.

There are very few Kiwi sauvignons that make the cut at under a fiver, but thanks to a generous discount for a limited period, this Marlborough dry white contains sufficient elderfloral fragrance and refreshingly tropical gooseberry and guava flavours to hit the spot.

Under a Tenner

2006 Etim Blanc, Montsant, around £6.99, Fresh & Wild, Camden 020 7428 7575, Bacchanalia, Cambridge (01223 576292), Bentley’s, Ludlow (01584 875520), Yarrow Wines, Cheshire (01619 731470), Big L, London NW5 (020 7482 5944).

It may not sound very Spanish (because it’s Catalonian), but don’t let that put you off this refreshingly pure, old vine garnatcha blanca (Spanish spelling) with its light touch of smoky oak and powerfully full-bodied, grapefruit-crisp, thirstquenching fruitiness.

Splash Out

2005 Circumstance Merlot, Waterkloof, £11.99, Noel Young Wines, Cambridge (01223 844744), Momentum Wines, Shropshire (01691 654499), Amps, Peterborough (01832 273502), www. sawineonline.co.uk.

From Waterkloof in one of the cooler, sea-breezy reaches of Stellenbosch in the Cape, this is a polished, richly fruity, dark cherry-fragrant merlot whose stylish cedary oak frames a wine of substantial cassis fruitiness in the St.Emilion mould.