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The founder of Karma says this sparkling wine is about 'enjoying life, living in the moment and just having fun.' Does Karma live up to expectations?
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Mike Supple: You're watching Screw It on SuppleWine. I'm your host, Mike Supple.

I recently ran across a rather unique bottle of sparkling wine and decided to take a closer look. It's called Karma California Brut. This bottle is 187 ml. That is one quarter the size of a regular wine bottle. With a regular bottle of Champagne you get six glasses; a quarter of that is a glass and a half.

"Brut" is a term you might see on a lot of different sparkling wines and Champagnes, and it refers to the amount of sugar that's left in the bottle of wine. If you see the word Brut on a bottle of wine, generally it means that it has a little bit of sugar. You might be able to taste it, but not so much that you would describe the wine as sweet.

So what is Karma? What are they doing here? Obviously it's a rather interesting bottle. If you note, a standard Champagne flute is rather similar in shape and size - that's no accident. By having the wider bottle top, the wine should be able to breathe so I can smell the aromas. The point of the narrow bottle - and the reason we have narrow flutes: if you've ever poured sparkling wine into a standard wine glass, or one of those wide celebration toast glasses, you may have noticed that the bubbles disappear incredibly quickly. The larger the surface area, the faster the bubble dissipate out of the glass of wine. So by keeping it in a narrow bottle like this, the bubbles will last longer.

Why would that matter if you're going to be pouring it into a flute and drinking it from that anyway? That's kind of where they're going with this. Karma is designed so you can easily enjoy sparkling wine without having to have the proper glassware. Put this in the fridge or an ice bucket, crack the top and you're ready to go. A little plus that Karma has: the glass for these bottles is substantially thicker than your standard flute. If you're holding the bottle while you're walking around, the extra thickness of the glass provides insulation to prevent it from getting warm too fast.

There are several different ways to make sparkling wine. In the traditional Champagne way, after they make still wine the way it's made anywhere else, they take that wine in the bottle and add concentrated grape juice (or sugar) and add yeast into that already finished wine, and put the cork on it. That yeast and sugar will react - the yeast will turn the sugar into alcohol - and create carbon dioxide. Since the bottle is closed, that carbon dioxide is trapped in the bottle and results in natural effervescence. Because of Karma's unique packaging they can't necessarily do this particular process. It says on the back label that Karma is California Carbonated Wine. They've gone with the injection method which you may be very familiar with when if comes to drinking soda. After they finish the wine they just inject CO2 into it and bottle it. So it still has the bubbles in there, which we'll see as soon as I crack it, and they come from injected CO2. The big differences between these methods: generally with the injection method like this you're going to have larger bubbles than you would with the traditional Champagne method, and the bubbles tend to disappear faster with the injection method as opposed to the traditional method.

This particular wine is made of a blend of two grapes: Chenin Blanc and French Colombard. Chenin Blanc is really popular in the Loire wine region of France. It is used to make high quality sparkling wine. The reason for that is because Chenin Blanc has naturally high acidity. High acid is great in sparkling wine. Good sparkling wine gives you a crisp, refreshing feeling that motivates your palate and gets things going. That's why sparkling wine is great to get your appetite going before eating. The Chenin Blanc should also add nice floral aromatics, light fruits and overall great aromas. French Colombard is a fairly neutral grape - it doesn't have a lot of flavor or aroma - but it is also naturally high in acid, so it should give some body to the Karma and help keep the acid high, making this a nice, fresh bottle of sparkling wine.

All that being said, I think it's time to give it a taste and see what it's all about. Pretty easy to crack open - like a little bottle of jelly or something like that. You can see some foam has gathered at the top, however I don't see a lot of bubbles coming up through it. We'll see what the carbonation feels like here.

It definitely smells like wine. There are some nice green apple notes with little bits of melon and sweet pear hints. Let's see what it tastes like - obviously more important. I'm definitely feeling the bubbles in my mouth. I'm not seeing a whole ton of them flying up through the glass like you would in a typical Champagne flute, but the bubbles are definitely present in my mouth. They're actually fairly small and creamy, more like a lighter mousse and something you'd expect from a Champagne rather than the heavy aggressive bubbles in soda. The flavors are very similar to the aromas. There is a lot of yellow and green apple - very bright. A lot of ripe pear - almost sort of a baked pear with a little bit of a candied note. And that touch of sugar is coming in with the fruit, making it taste a little riper. Even though there is some sugar in there the acid keeps it clean and it does finish very crisp and pretty light.

Of course what it tastes and smells like is only part of the equation. You want to know what it costs. The suggested retail price for this is $6.99. For a single serving bottle of sparkling wine that's a pretty good price. So if what you need after a hard day of work - or anything else - is just a glass or two of bubbly wine and you don't feel like knocking back an entire bottle, then you might just need a little more Karma in your life.

If you start to extrapolate the price out, $6.99 X 4 to get a full bottle is $28.00. For $28 you can get some really impressive sparkling wines. So if you're sitting down and drinking a whole bottle of wine with some friends you don't necessarily want to go this route. You'll get higher quality for less money by getting a full bottle of something else.

Remember, if you start seeing guys with multi-colored dreads on the back of riverboats, you might want to knock off. I think you've had a little too much Karma.

[Clip of "Karma Chameleon" by Culture Club.]