OP, have you had covid and lost your sense of taste/smell? I think there have been some others on this board (and others I know irl) talking about how their palate shifted for certain things after recovering.
Also a long shot, but do you have any room scents that could be impacting the taste of sparkling wines? Might be making this up, but I would imagine sparkling bubbles aerate the volatiles more than just swirling a still wine, and if the volatiles are mixing more with the ambient air there could be a funky combination there that’s causing things to taste bad at home.
Two thoughts that I’m not sure have been mentioned.
Could the open bottle of Champagne in your fridge be the issue? Sometimes fridges can impact the taste of certain wines through residual odors. Maybe something in your fridge is just affecting Champagne. This doesn’t explain the 08 Cristal at the restaurant though.
Could high humidity be bad for Champagne? I know that a humidity level of 80 can be ideal for most wines, but maybe not Champagne? Most storage facilities keep at 50-60.
This is quite a perplexing problem. As a few have mentioned, it’s possible that it’s in your head because of a few bad experiences. But you seem to have thought this out fairly thoroughly. So while I doubt, this shouldn’t be ruled out.
The idea of blind tasting against other bottles out a restaurant is a very good test. Probably the 1st one you should do.
I can really only think of 2 plausible explanations. First off, the air in your cellar is not the cause. There’s no way it’s consistently getting through Champagne corks. There is absolutely no point in pursuing that as a cause.
What it might be:
Heat damage. This happens frequently when wines are on their way to the US. The good bottles you’ve had in restaurants could have different importers or be from different import batches with the same importer.
That’s fair. However, the failure to answer the questions re: recent COVID? or recent medication start/change? counts for something … the thread does have an underlying trollish feel to it, imo.
As is Power of Suggestion (of which “expectation bias” is a subset, I suppose).
Brief story about the Power of Suggestion:
Once upon a time, I lived in the countryside; sheep roamed many nearby pastures. On some days, when the wind was blowing in certain direction(s), the town in which I lived was blessed with the aroma of nearby sheep poop. One time, while walking in town with an acquaintance, this phenomenon was happening. The air clearly smelled like shit. I took the opportunity to demonstrably sniff at the air, and remark to my acquaintance: “Do you smell that?”
Acquaintance: “What are you talking about?”
Me: {sniff sniff} “That aroma. Can you smell it? Smells kind of like strawberries and freshly-baked sweet rolls” {sniff sniff} “You can’t smell that?”
Acquaintance: {sniff sniff} “Oh yeah … I do that smell that now!”
Me: “Smells nice, right?”
Acquaintance: “Yeah, it does.”
Me: LOL ,… “Seriously?!? You can smell strawberries and fresh bakery in the air right now”?
Acquaintance: “Yeah! Smells nice.”
Me: “And THAT, right there, is the power of suggestion at work.”
Acquaintance: “What do you mean”?
Me: “I don’t smell any strawberries or fresh bakery. I was completely full of what the air is full of right now — shit. I was merely seeing how powerful the Power of Suggestion might be in this moment, and here we are …”
Acquaintance: “But I really do smell strawberries and fresh bakery.”
Me: “Okaaaaaay … ”
Those questions don’t warrant an answer. The guy said he tasted the same bottle on the same day from separate locations. 1 in a restaurant and 1 from his cellar, and the cellared bottle was bad.
COVID or medication would have no role in taste changing within the same day.
I believe I am healthy and do not take any medicines. This has been going on consistently for 18+ months since moving into our home and cellar. I have consumed many wonderful red and white wines throughout this time period in my cellar. Older and new vintages. All under similar circumstances, its just the champagnes that keep disappointing.
”