Bubbles At The Beach

I was in the US last week, near the ocean, and keen to try something new and different. I picked up a bottle of The Beachhouse, a chenin blanc/gewurztraminer sparkler from South Africa. It seemed appropriate for the setting, and fit my hankering for 'something different', but it was sadly not for me. It was very sweet, tasting of ripe pears and elderflower. It was also just fizzy, not really bubbly. And I'm not writing this because I think sparkling wines should have a high alcohol content, but on drinking this one and thinking I was drinking soda pop, checked the label to find it was only 8% by volume. You could kind of tell...it's the sort of thing teenage girls on summer holidays would drink. As I said, not for me.