Best Champagne for Mimosas: Picks by Budget, Style and Juice

A few days before a brunch, the bubbly question usually comes down to two worries. Will a $12 bottle make the drinks taste cheap? And why does the bottle marked Extra Dry taste sweeter than the Brut next to it?

We carry $12 Brut and $70 Champagne, and for a table full of mimosas we point most hosts toward the cheaper bottle. The reason comes down to what orange juice does to a wine's flavor, and it's why a cheap Brut holds its own in a glass that's half juice.

Best Champagne for Mimosas: The Short Answer

Buy a dry sparkling wine labeled Brut or Extra Dry, with good acidity, and plan to spend around $10–20 a bottle. Orange juice already brings sugar and tartness to the glass. The wine supplies the bubbles, a crisp edge and enough body to keep the drink from tasting like soda.

Spending more stops paying off quickly. Good Champagne costs what it does because of the toasty, bready flavors from long aging on its yeast, and juice covers most of them. In a mimosa, a $70 bottle and a $14 Cava taste far closer than they would side by side in a flute.

We use "champagne" the loose way most people do at brunch, to mean any dry bubbly. Real Champagne, Prosecco, Cava, Crémant and American sparkling wine all make good mimosas, and our champagne and sparkling wine shelf carries Champagne, Prosecco and American bottles.

If you only need a quick pick:

• Big crowd on a budget: an American Brut such as Cook's, or a Cava Brut, around $10–15.

• Fruit-forward and easy-drinking: an Extra Dry Prosecco.

• One or two people: 187 ml splits, so nothing sits open.

• A splurge: non-vintage Brut Champagne, with a light pour of juice.

Brut vs. Extra Dry: Reading the Sweetness Label

Sweetness terms on sparkling wine run backward from what they sound like. Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut, and a bottle labeled Dry or Sec is sweeter again. Here's the full ladder, using the EU's limits for residual sugar in grams per liter:

For mimosas, stay in the Brut and Extra Dry rows. Go much drier or sweeter and the glass loses its balance, turning either lean or cloying.

Champagne, Prosecco, Cava or Crémant?

Where a sparkling wine is made and how its bubbles get into the bottle explain most of what you'll notice in a mimosa: bubble size, flavor and price.

1) Champagne

Champagne comes only from the Champagne region of France, made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Its second fermentation happens in the bottle (the traditional method), and the wine rests on the spent yeast, which gives it brioche and toast notes along with fine, long-lasting bubbles.

Entry-level bottles start around $40 and pass $70 quickly. If you're choosing a house for a toast or a gift, our rundown of the best Champagne brands compares them by style, price tier and occasion.

2) Prosecco

Prosecco is Italian, from the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, and made mostly from the Glera grape. The bubbles form in large pressurized tanks (the Charmat method), which keeps the wine fresh and fruity, with pear, green apple and citrus. It's lighter in body than Champagne.

The bubbles are larger and lose their fizz sooner than Cava's or Champagne's. A classic style on US shelves is Extra Dry, which suits tart, fresh-squeezed juice. Most bottles cost $12–20.

3) Cava

Made mostly in Penedès, in Catalonia, from Macabeo, Xarel·lo and Parellada, Cava is Spain's traditional-method sparkling wine. It gets its bubbles in the bottle the same way Champagne does and tastes dry, crisp and lightly yeasty.

For mimosas, Cava is often the best value in sparkling wine. A Brut Cava usually costs $10–15 and has the acidity to hold up against orange juice.

4) Crémant and American Sparkling

Crémant is traditional-method sparkling wine from French regions outside Champagne, including the Loire, Burgundy and Alsace. Its style comes closest to Champagne's, usually at $18–25.

American sparkling wine includes the grocery-store names most people know: Cook's Brut, Korbel and André. Some older producers, Korbel among them, print "California Champagne" on the label. US producers already using the term before the 2006 wine agreement between the United States and the European Union were allowed to keep it. The wine itself is Californian.

Best Bottles for Mimosas by Situation

1) For a Big Brunch Crowd on a Budget

Buying four or five bottles calls for something under about $15, dry, and consistent enough that the third bottle tastes like the first. The best budget champagne for mimosas usually falls into one of two groups:

• American Brut: Cook's Brut runs about $11–13, with crisp apple and pear and a light toasty note.

• Cava Brut: Spain’s traditional-method Brut usually sits around $10–15 and brings the crisp acidity a mimosa needs.

Poured straight, the cheapest of these taste a bit rough. Once juice goes in, few guests could pick one out from a $15 Cava, so buying several makes sense. Any dry sparkling wine in this price range will do the same job, as long as the label says Brut or Extra Dry.

2) For Fruit-Forward, Easy-Drinking Mimosas

An Extra Dry Prosecco makes a softer, fruitier mimosa with less acidic bite. It's the better choice when you're squeezing your own oranges or pouring a tart juice, since the wine's touch of sugar rounds out the glass.

For the best Prosecco for mimosas, we usually start with La Marca Prosecco. It's an Extra Dry with citrus, green apple and a light honeyed, floral note, and it runs about $19–22.

Open the bottle right before you pour. A Prosecco left open on the counter during setup will be noticeably flatter by the time guests sit down.

3) For One or Two People

For a small brunch, 187 ml splits solve the leftover problem. Each holds a little over six ounces, enough for about two mimosas at an even pour, and nothing sits half-finished in the fridge losing its fizz.

The La Marca Prosecco 187 ml is the same Extra Dry in a single-serve bottle. The Barefoot Bubbly Brut Cuvée 4-pack is a drier California Chardonnay sparkler at about $13–15 for four. Our minis section gathers small formats in one place.

If you do open a full bottle, a sparkling-wine stopper and a spot in the fridge will keep it lively for one to three days.

4) When Real Champagne Makes Sense

Champagne is the right call for a small group, a special occasion, a bottle someone gave you that's already chilling, or a drink where the juice is only a splash. At three parts wine to one part juice, the toast and fine bubbles still come through. At equal parts, most of that is gone.

Stick with non-vintage Brut. Moët & Chandon Impérial Brut and Piper-Heidsieck Brut both sit around $70–80, and Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label is close in price. Our full Champagne selection is the place to compare other houses' non-vintage bottles.

Save vintage and prestige cuvées, like Dom Pérignon or Armand de Brignac, for a night when they can be poured by themselves. The extra years of aging you pay for in those bottles won't come through a glass of orange juice.

5) Bottles to Skip for Mimosas

A few bottles on the Champagne shelf are built to be served over ice. Moët & Chandon Ice Impérial is a Demi-Sec, and Veuve Clicquot Rich is a sweeter blend meant to be finished with a fruit or herb garnish.

Both are good at that job. Mixed with orange juice, though, their extra sugar stacks on top of the juice's and the drink turns syrupy. Moët Nectar Impérial Rosé belongs in the same group.

Sweet Moscato bubbly, such as Barefoot Bubbly Pink Moscato, carries enough sugar that it only works with a tart juice and a small pour. Also pass on warm bottles, bottles that have gone flat, and anything opened more than a few days ago.

Match the Bubbly to the Juice

Balance sweet against dry: the sweeter the juice, the drier the wine should be, and a tart juice pairs better with an Extra Dry.

With orange juice, the choice depends on what you're buying. Store-bought, no-pulp OJ is smooth and fairly sweet, so pair it with a Brut. Fresh-squeezed juice is brighter and more acidic, and it varies from batch to batch, so an Extra Dry or a Prosecco evens it out.

Pulp knocks down the fizz and leaves bits floating in the glass, so strain fresh juice or buy pulp-free. For other juices:

• Grapefruit: Extra Dry or Prosecco.

• Blood orange: Brut.

• Pineapple: Brut, since the juice is already sweet.

• Cranberry or pomegranate: Brut with a smaller juice pour, a good fit for a holiday brunch.

• Peach purée: Prosecco, which takes the drink into Bellini territory.

A Brut rosé also works well with grapefruit or blood orange and adds some color to the table. An orange slice or twist on the rim is the standard garnish.

For a richer glass, add a splash of orange liqueur such as Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge. It brings depth and a cognac note, and it also raises the sweetness and strength of the drink, so build it on a Brut.

Ratio, Pour Order and How Many Bottles

The classic mimosa is equal parts sparkling wine and orange juice. Plenty of people prefer two parts wine to one part juice, which keeps the drink crisper and fizzier and lands close to a Buck's Fizz, the British drink the mimosa likely grew out of. Go to 3:1 when you're pouring better Champagne and want to taste it.

Pour the sparkling wine first into a slightly tilted flute, then top it with juice. Don't stir. The juice mixes on its own, stirring knocks out bubbles, and pouring wine first keeps the foam from spilling over.

Chill both the wine and the juice ahead of time, with the wine around 40–45°F, and leave out the ice, which waters the drink down and flattens it. A flute holds bubbles longest, though a regular wine glass is fine for a casual table. Mix each glass to order, since a pitcher made ahead goes flat.

For the shopping list, a 750 ml bottle holds about 25 ounces. At 1:1 in a 6-ounce glass, each mimosa uses 3 ounces of wine, so you'll get about eight per bottle. At 2:1, it's closer to six.

Plan on two mimosas per guest over a two-hour brunch. At 1:1, that comes to one bottle for every four guests, so twelve guests need about three bottles. Buy a fourth as a spare.

For a mimosa bar, keep one or two dry bottles in an ice bucket next to three or four juices and a bowl of orange slices.

If the brunch is part of a longer holiday gathering, our host's guide to holiday cocktails covers spirits and batching for the rest of the bar. For guests skipping alcohol, a non-alcoholic aperitif such as de Soi Golden Hour topped with orange juice puts the same glass in their hand.

What to Buy Before the Brunch

For most brunches, an American Brut such as Cook's, around $12, covers the table, with an Extra Dry Prosecco such as La Marca added if you're squeezing your own juice. Count one bottle for every four guests at 1:1, add a spare, and chill the wine and juice the night before.

Save non-vintage Champagne for a small group or a light pour of juice. The Demi-Sec and Rich bottles can stay on the shelf until someone wants a glass over ice.