The Naked Vine Guide to Buying Wine for Thanksgiving

We’re three weeks away from The Big Feed and you need to start thinking about buying wine. Since you’re the classy, thoughtful individual that you are, you actually give a rip about how the wine goes with food and you don’t want anyone to take a sip, and go “um…ew.”

Thanksgiving wine-buying can be challenging. At a standard dinner party, there’s usually a general theme or national cuisine you can pull ideas from. A traditional Thanksgiving meal presents you with bunch of flavors beyond turkey that usually don’t play well with grapes. Cheesy casseroles, sweet potatoes, various beans and legumes, yeasty rolls, and other homestyle favorites create a riot of flavors that simply aren’t conducive to a pause and savor pairing.

Your goal instead is to treat Thanksgiving like the gluttonous feast it is. We’re shooting for a selection of “good enough” wines to please a range of palates, yet give people enough options so they’re not making wine runs after the salad course. Here, for your grape-purchasing pleasure, are the Naked Vine’s steps to success:

First – How many wine drinkers at the table?

Get a rough count. Even if you have guests who have expressed that they don’t like wine, budget for them anyway. Assuming it’s too late to uninvite them, they’ll probably end up sneaking a glass or two anyway because they “just want to try it with food.” Worst case scenario: a couple of extra bottles get left over for slugging during cleanup.

I subscribe to the 80% rule. Let’s say you’ve got 10 guests. Eighty percent puts you at 8 bottles. Each bottle holds 5 glasses of wine, so you’ve got 40 glasses total to go around. In my experience, heavy and light imbibers tend to balance each other out. Adjust accordingly if you are cooking for a number of true teetotalers or if you know that you’ve got some professional lushes like your narrator at the table. Also, since most people bring at least one bottle with them, you should have a comfortable cushion.

Second – Start with bubbly.

My one hard-and-fast rule for Thanksgiving beyond the above calculation – start everyone off with bubbly. Toasting the start of the meal with a glass of bubbles wakes up everyone’s palates and appetites and gets everyone in a good mood. Also, since you generally don’t pour full glasses of sparkling wine, you’ll likely only need an extra bottle or two, max.

I’d recommend something like the Gruet Blanc de Noirs from New Mexico or my old Spanish standby Freixienet Extra Dry. Again, nothing complex -- think crisp, refreshing, and food friendly. Some of your guests might also prefer bubbles with your first course, whether it’s soup, salad, or something else.

Third – Taste the Rainbow

Now we get to the actual wines for dinner. We’re not going to mess with course-by-course pairings. That takes too much energy and besides, you might have to make a mad dash to the kitchen, frantically searching for your copy of your local newspaper to fan the smoke detector, which is still sounding incessantly after you left your oven mitt on the burner.

In most cases, I’d suggest getting three different types of wine. Why three? Like I said – we’re doing wine in broad brushstrokes here and people like to sample. Think about basic flavor profiles. We can immediately rule out super light whites like pinot grigio. They’ll get run over by the feast’s flavors. On the other end of the spectrum, avoid highly-tannic or oaky wines like most American cabernets or Chardonnays or big rustic French and Italian wines. We don’t need complexity to get in the way of the stuffing. The three profiles I use are:

Fruity and Flavorful Whites – For the white wine drinkers, I’d suggest whites with a lot of fruit flavor and usually a little sweetness. I’m a big fan of Thanksgiving Riesling. Chateau St. Michelle Dry Riesling  and Kung Fu Girl Riesling are a couple of easy to find choices. If you’d like to go German with your Riesling, look for bottles that are labeled “Trocken,” which means dry.

Light, Comfortable Reds and Rosé – Good middle of the road, “keep on pourin’” wines that pair up with almost any sorts of food, be it meat or fowl. I love my rosé, but for this occasion, avoid those beautiful, delicate flowers from Provence. Go with a fuller, more fruit-forward bottle – perhaps something from Italy like Villa Gemma Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo or a South American version like Montes Cherub Rose of Syrah from Chile.

If you can’t bring yourself to buy pink wine, then another quality option here is Beaujolais, specifically, Beaujolais-Villages. Thanksgiving is also the one time of year that I find it OK to buy Beaujolais Nouveau, which is usually released around then. Don’t get suckered by a sale and buy last year’s vintage, though.

Big, Boomin’ Reds – Because every table will have at least one person who likes to drink big ol’ reds, don’t leave them out. My go-to wine when I need something big, fruity, and rich is good old California Zinfandel. Seven Deadly Zins, Ravenswood Vintner’s Blend, and their other $10 cousins should do nicely. If you want to look beyond California, a Garnacha (Grenache) like Los Rocas from Spain or a Cotes-du-Rhone like M. Chapoutier will certainly fill the bill without giving folks big mouthfuls of tannin.

In my previous eight-bottle example, I’d probably get two bottles of the whites and three bottles of

each of the other two categories to start with. I find that folks tend to lean red as the night goes on. Obviously, you know your dinner guests better than I, so jigger as necessary. And remember – while you can send leftovers home, all remaining wine stays with the house!

Happy Thanksgiving!

In Time for the Holidays -- The Naked Vine Guide to Champagne and Sparkling Wine

Champagne. Sparkling wine. Spumante. Bubbly. It’s that time of year.

Dom Perignon, the monk who popularized the concept of carbonated wine apocryphally stated, “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!” upon opening a bottle in the wine caves of his monastery, and generations thereafter have shared that particular sensation, especially around this time of the year, when the loud pop of a cork accompanies celebrations large and small.

As party season cranks up, you might get called on by your friends to “pick up some Champagne” for your next soiree. The word “Champagne” is, for all intents and purposes for most people, a stand in term for all sparkling wine – much like “Coke” in the South translates as “any kind of soda/pop.”

“Champagne,” remember, is not a grape varietal or type of wine. It’s the region of Northern France where this style of wine originated, and where the most famous and most expensive versions of this sparkling wine -- like Veuve Cliquot, Moet & Chandon, and the aforementioned Dom Perignon -- are produced. If you go to the wine store and ask for “Champagne,” you might get steered over to this rack, where you’ll be staring at a bunch of French names and pricetags starting at forty or fifty bucks.

“Waitaminit!” you say. “I’ve seen Korbel Champagne in the store! Isn’t that Champagne?” Nope. It’s sparkling wine made in California that was labeled for years as “Champagne” as a marketing ploy. In 2006, a trade agreement outlawed labeling US wines as “Champagne” unless they’d been using that as a traditional trademark – but they were required to relabel their wines as “California Champagne.” Sparkling wine that’s not from Champagne, whether from California or elsewhere, is now generally labeled “sparkling wine.”

Getting back to the French stuff, and getting down to brass tacks – in all honesty, Champagne can be a real ripoff. Yes, Champagne is wonderful. I’ve had the opportunity to try a few high-end champagnes, and they’re delightful. They’re flavorful and sensuous…and completely overpriced for my semi-educated palate. I say this since, if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re likely not going to be doing vertical tastings of high enders like Krug or Pol Roger anytime soon. Still, why are these wines so damned expensive?

Simply put? Brand loyalty.

We pay a premium for these wines because of the name on the label – no different from buying clothes, cars, or headphones. In some cases, the quality of actual Champagnes might be slightly higher than other sparkling wines, but at 11:59 on December 31^st, are you really thinking about doing a Parker-esque pull-apart of the various flavors? I thought not. If you’re opening vintage Champagne at midnight on New Year’s, you’re either showin’ off, or you’re at a ritzier party than I’m ever getting invited to.

That said, there’s nothing quite like the ritual of cracking open a bottle of celebratory bubbly. Good news! Consumption of sparkling wine has increased sharply in the first half of this decade. (We must be in a collective mood to get down!) Because of this increased demand, there are many options to allow you to have a good experience while still maintaining a grip on your fiscal sanity.

A couple of quick things to consider about buying sparkling wine. Unlike most reds and whites, many sparkling wines do not have vintage dates, as they’re often made from blends of wines from different years to produce a consistent product. Vintage wines often command higher prices, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re better.

Also, remember that the wine’s sweetness level is on the label. The traditional French nomenclature for sparkling wine is more or less the standard. The ones you’re likely to see are, from sweetest to driest: Doux (sweet) → Demi-Sec (semi-dry) → Sec (Dry) → Extra Dry → Brut. Yep. Brut is “drier than dry.” There are actually another two, even drier, levels -- Extra Brut and Brut Nature, but you’re unlikely to come across those.

What you will come across, however, are plenty of alternatives to higher-end stuff. Here are a few that you’ll be able to find without too much trouble:

Crémant – We’ll start in France. Crémant (pronounced cray-mahn) has come to refer to French sparkling wine produced outside the Champagne region. Most Crémant is produced with the same methode Champenoise process that Champagne is, often with the same grapes. The big difference? These are more “everyday” French sparkling wines, and usually can be had for between ten and twenty bucks. The best known will be labeled Crémant d’Alsace, Crémant de Bourgogne, Crémant de Loire, and Crémant de Jura. All of these make excellent alternatives if you’re trying to look classy by putting a bottle of French sparkling wine on the table at your next party. Are they as high quality as high-end Champagne? No. Is that quality difference worth $50 or more? You be the judge.

Cava – Over to Spain. Cava is my go-to inexpensive sparkling wine. This sparkler, produced in the area around Barcelona. The name “Cava” stems from the caves in which these wines were originally stored and aged. These wines are also produced in the same method as Champagne. I find most Cava to be crisper and somewhat more acidic than the creamy gentle bubbles in the French versions. The extra acidity, in my opinion, is what makes Cava perfect for tapas – allowing it to go alongside almost any kind of food. Cava is also quite inexpensive. For a typical bottle of Cava, if you’re spending more than $15, you’re overpaying.

Prosecco & Moscato – The Italian sparkling entries. Prosecco is the more “traditional” version of sparkling wine – and you’ll typically find it nestled next to the Cava in your local wine store. I find it to be fruitier and slightly sweeter than other sparkling wines, which I think makes it a better option for an early evening palate cleanser or morning-after mimosas than for cracking at the end of the year, but your mileage may vary. Moscato, whose popularity boomed in the early 2000’s, is a sweet, peachy, low-alcohol sparkling wine that – as a wine-savvy friend once put it – “you could drink for breakfast.” Produced in both sparkling and still versions, Moscato is a favorite of brunch aficionados and high school shoplifters everywhere.

United States Sparkling Wine – While some more expensive versions of “California Champagne” are decent (for instance, President Obama celebrated his inauguration with a special version of Korbel Natural), in general, they’re best used for christening boats or hosing down your friends after winning the sports contest of your choice. That said, there’s no shortage of high quality bubbly within our own borders. In my experience, the highest quality stuff comes from Northern California, and can be every bit as expensive as its French counterparts. However, there are many of these California products you’ll find in the $15-20 range that are very serviceable for any occasion. Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico are producing very good sparklers at bargain prices.

Bottom line – unless you’re really wed to the idea of having “traditional” Champagne for whatever your occasion may be, you’ll have good luck finding alternatives that won’t break your bank. So snag some bottles and pop your corks. You deserve it.

A Chill in the Air, Some Whites for your Glass

I had a couple of requests after the last column (“A Chill in the Air, some Reds for your Glass") for a companion piece on cool-weather whites. As I ease into fall, I tend to think about white wines less. I don’t usually get a craving for a big glass of pinot grigio on a day where the wind is whipping the heat from my bones, but I can’t lose sight of them altogether. Dinner parties, social events, or perhaps the occasional 80 degree day in December might call for whites, albeit slightly heavier ones. Here are a few that you might want to stash away:

Yalumba 2010 Viognier – I haven’t had a lot of luck with inexpensive Viognier lately. Viognier’s a great blustery-weather white. It’s probably got my favorite white wine aromatics, but the inexpensive ones can taste a little bit “oily” and have an alkaline aftertaste. Not pleasant in my opinion and not my usual cup of tea. Still, since it had been a while and after happening along a few offerings from South Australia, I thought I’d give the grape another whirl. I was pleasantly surprised to find this one. The Yalumba (great name, too – Aboriginal Australian for “all the land around”) has plenty of peach and floral scents on the nose, followed up by a nicely balanced peach flavor. It’s “weighty without being heavy,” if that makes sense. Viognier is a great choice with a traditional turkey meal and it also works well with spicy stuff. As a bit of a warning, this is a high-alcohol white. It clocks in at 14.5%, which is around cabernet sauvignon level. Not to worry, the alcohol is masked with a little residual sweetness. Swirl well and approach gently. $9.

Villa Maria 2008 Marlborough Riesling – Staying with the Down Under selections, we pop “next door” to New Zealand for this extremely food-friendly Riesling. I found it to be a intriguing mix of some of my favorite “traditional” Riesling styles. My best description would be “dropping a hunk of pineapple into a glass of Alsace Riesling.” Alsace Rieslings are almost always bone dry and full of mineral flavors, while the pineapple reminds me of Pacific Northwest dry Riesling. Trust me – for some reason it works. The Villa Maria has a lovely tropical-fruit-and-flowers nose. I picked up lots of minerality at first taste, blended with the aforementioned pineapple. The burst of fruit quickly yields to dryness and flint on the finish. If you enjoy “drinking rocks” as I do, you’ll love this wine. At around $13, this is a nice alternative to more expensive Alsatian offerings.

Adler Fels “Kitchen Sink” (NV) California White Table Wine – I’m honestly not sure why I picked this wine up. I was browsing the California white section for a sauvignon blanc. Since I’d used “everything but the kitchen sink” in a work context that day, the faucet on the label caught my eye. I took that as a sign. I read the back label and thought, “Huh…Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, and Gewurztraminer. That should be fun.” I thought it might have a little more oomph than a sauvignon blanc for the meal I was planning, and I wasn’t disappointed. Even though it’s comprised of over one-third California chardonnay, it’s still a fruity, acidic white. My first taste yielded lemons and tangerines. The finish is surprisingly crisp even with its nice weight. I thought it was very pleasant on both palate and pocketbook for around 10 bucks. What was the meal? Orecchiette pasta with chickpeas, greens, and grilled calamari (sounds weird, tastes nummy). Flavors from all directions made friends in this pairing. I would imagine it would stand up to cream sauces as well.

Gruet (NV) Blanc de Noirs – I would be remiss in putting together a whites column without throwing in a sparkler. One of the primary differences I find between French sparkling wines and other sparklers like cava is the “creamy” flavor that accompanies the fruit and the bubbles in the French offerings. There’s usually also a pleasant, somewhat “yeasty” aroma in the bouquet that reminds me a little of freshly baked bread. When I got a sip of this little number from New Mexico, I thought it was about as French-tasting as any inexpensive sparkling wine I’ve sampled. I found berries and cream on the tongue with good “mousse” (WineSpeak for “bubble strength and feel). The finish is toasty and pleasant. We cracked this as an aperitif for a recent dinner party for our neighbors (including Dinner Club Jeff) and it got raves. Around $12-13 and well worth it.

The Best Meal of the Day -- Brunch wines

Breakfast is "the most important meal of the day." Lunch is all too often fast food or something you scarf while you're plowing through the workday, since America hasn't adopted the tremendously civilized siesta. Everyone puts their focus on creating tasty dinners. I'd venture that upwards of 90% of wine pairings, tastings, et al focus on dinner.

But what about brunch?

Brunch is decadence. It's the "No alarm. I slept in today." meal. It's flexible -- go light or heavy, healthy or greasy. It's my most mood-dependent meal. At what other time will you see a Reuben, poached eggs, breakfast sausage (or goetta for the locals), fresh fruit and a panini happily coexisting on the same table? A good brunch means you've had a good time the night before -- either in a big group (which often means nursing a hangover along with your V-8) or with one other lucky person so that, come late morning, you're gazing moonily across steaming lattes.

Of course, if you're going to be truly decadent, you need wine. [I know, I know -- there are some of you out there saying "Beer. It isn't just for breakfast anymore," but let's move past shotgunning a Schaefer's to get ourselves going on a morning after.]

If you're thinking of wines to go with brunchiful goodness, keep it simple. Sure, you could put a lot of thought into finding the perfect wine, but just like with Thanksgiving, you're probably not going to have much success. Honestly, who has that kind of mental energy in the morning?

So, easy enough...Sparkling wine. You can't miss. No one's going to care. Most people's palates wake up more slowly than they do, so give them something that's basically going to cut through the clutter of foods and just plain ol' taste good.

If you're out and about and you want to impress a group without breaking the bank, order a bottle of Gruet Brut Sparkling Wine ($15). While it may sound like a French bottle, it's actually produced in New Mexico and, for my money, is as interesting as almost any sparkler out there. The reason, I suspect, is that it's made in the traditional French method, called "Methode Champenoise." (If you want to know more about that, I wrote about it once before.) The result is a very crisp, balanced sparkling wine that pairs with almost anything -- but dry sparkling wine really shines when you've got something that's a little bit (or a lot) fatty. So, if you need a plate of hash browns to go with that throbbing headache and queasy stomach, this will be the perfect hair of the dog.

For those of you who aren't big fans of dry wines, you're not out of luck. One of the best brunch wines out there is on the sweeter side -- Moscato d'Asti. Moscato d'Asti is, in general, a sweet, fruity, lightly carbonated wine. "Asti" refers to the Italian locale where the wine is made.Also, these wines are traditionally only between 5-6% alcohol, so if you're looking for something you can drink without catching too much of a morning buzz, this type of wine is a perfect choice. These wines generally have a lot of peach and pear flavors, and are quite refreshing. The nicest thing about them is that they're generally rather uniform in quality, so the majority are going to be decent, and usually around $8-10. The best I've tried is the Tintero 2007 Moscato d'Asti. (Many thanks to the Liquor Direct crew for turning me on to this one.) While it shares many of the same characteristics, for a couple of extra dollars, I thought its flavors were more defined and more interesting. See what you think.

Finally, there's the "champagne cocktail." Way back in January, I wrote about toasting in the new year with cava, and then saving the bulk of the bottle for morning mimosas. Now, honestly, if you're just mixing together some store bought OJ and some leftover bubbly, you don't have to be too choosy. That said, if you're doing this right, and you've got some fresh squeezed on hand, I'd prefer to use some relatively decent wine as a mixer. I've also discovered that "extra dry" sparkling wines make better mixers, largely because they have a little bit of residual sugar. I started the year with Freixenet and I'll finish the same way. I stand by Freixenet Extra Dry Cordon Negro Cava ($10) for any of your mimosa-making needs. It would also work well with kir (which is sparkling wine with crème de cassis) or bellini (sparkling wine with peach puree).

And, with that, The Vine closes the book on 2008. Your humble reviewer is going to take a couple of weeks off to let his liver recover, and I'll be back with more fun in the new year. Thanks to all of you out there for sticking by me in this little venture. You guys are my motivation, and I appreciate all the good vibes.

Have a great holiday season, travel safely, enjoy the parties, and may the new year bring you health, happiness, and wonder.

Later days.

Ringing in the New Year -- Champagne & Sparkling Wine

As we close 2006, I figured we'd end the annum with the traditional New Year's drink. After all, what's New Year's Eve without a little bubbly…

Champagne is the region in France where this celebration-and-headache-inducing wine originated. "Champagne," in common parlance, has come to mean any sparkling wine. The only wines that are truly "champagnes" are from the French region, so when you hear "This champagne's not Korbel!" -- that statement is 100% accurate. Korbel is from Sonoma, California -- so the correct phraseology would be "This Korbel's not Champagne!" Most non-French producers now simply label their productions as "sparkling wine."

However, a useful related term to know is "Méthode champenoise." If a sparkling wine bears this designation, the bottle has been carbonated in the traditional style of the Champagne region. This process was discovered by a French monk by the name of (wait for it…) Dom Pérignon. This procedure is near and dear to my heart as a homebrewer -- as I bottle-condition homemade beer with practically the same process. Here's how it works:

After a wine has barrel-aged for what a winemaker deems a proper length of time, the wine is bottled with a little extra sugar and yeast and capped. The additional yeast and sugar causes fermentation -- but since the CO2 cannot escape, the bubbles are forced back into the wine, carbonating it. This step is where homebrewers stop, since we don't mind the lees (WineSpeak for "leftover dead yeast") in the bottle bottom. However, as most wine drinkers prefer a clear product, we proceed to step called "riddling" after the carbonation is complete and the wine has "rested on the lees" for an appropriate length of time (usually at least a year).

During riddling, the bottles are racked with the neck pointing downward about 45º. The yeast settles into the neck of the bottle. The bottles are turned a quarter turn every day or more often and the downward angle is increased. After a month or two, we are ready for the removal of the yeast or "dégorgement." At this stage, the neck of the bottle is plunged into a sub-freezing liquid, and the settled yeast freezes into a plug. When the plug is fully formed, the cap is removed and the carbonation forces the plug from the bottle. The bottle is then quickly corked and "caged." You're ready to go.

There are, of course, less expensive methods of bottling, but méthode champenoise tends to create the best quality of carbonation (meaning the tiniest, longest lasting bubbles) and flavor. The carbonation also tends to force the alcohol into your bloodstream more quickly, causing the "quick drunk" of champagne, as well as the intensified potential hangover, so keep that in mind.

Sparkling wines can be made from just about any varietal of grape. Traditionally, they're either made from chardonnay ("blanc de blanc"), pinot noir ("blanc de noir"), or a blend of a number of other grapes.

One final important note when choosing a sparkling wine. There are three basic flavor profiles. They are, from driest to sweetest: Brut, Extra Dry, and Demi-Sec. Yes, you're reading that correctly -- Extra Dry is not as dry as Brut. There is also a fourth category, Doux, which is very sweet -- but I haven't seen much of that. My personal preferences tend to fall on the drier end of the spectrum, but your mileage may vary.

I would also be remiss in a sparkling wine column if I didn't include a quick note on opening these bloomin' bottles. While it's a great deal of fun to take the cage off, put both thumbs under the cork's ridge, and launch the cork off three walls or partygoer's noggins and drench yourself and everyone around you like you were Jim Edmonds in the Cardinals locker room a couple of months ago -- you're doing three problematic things. First, you're gonna put an eye out. Second, you're wasting the carbonation. Third, if you get a nice fountain of foam, you're WASTING WINE. Do. Not. Do. This.

Instead: get a towel, remove the cage from the cork, put the towel over the cork and grasp it firmly. Twist the cork gently and slowly back and forth. The cork will start to come loose. Ideally, you'll release the carbonation with a small pop or hiss instead of that loud POP. If you open the bottle like this -- not only are you protecting your guests, but the bottle often retains its carbonation for hours. If you don't finish the bottle that night, put a bottle stopper in and you'll have perfect mimosa makings.

Here are a couple of offerings as you do your party planning:

Gruet “Methode Champenoise” Brut Sparkling Wine – Gruet is a winery in New Mexico which produces very solid, inexpensive sparkling wine. As you can see, Gruet does traditional style carbonation. Since they produce such solid wine, I appreciate them taking the extra time to carbonate it properly. This wine is also the traditional blend of grapes: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. As with most Brut, this wine is very dry and crisp. A little grapefruit nose and green apple flavor. A very nice, sharp, bubbly wine for any occasion. (Many sparkling wines also come in half-bottles, which is a nice option if you're doing a tasting.) While most people think of these wines as either for a party or after a meal, dry sparkling wine goes very well with any number of foods. My wine mentor, Renee Koerner, clued me into a great secret about sparkling wines. Most countries produce wine to match their regional cuisine. French cuisine tends to be very fatty (the "French Paradox") -- so many of their wines go smashingly with fatty food. A great deal of American food, especially fast food, is fatty as well -- so drier, Champagne-style wines go extraordinarily well with french fries, fried chicken, potato chips, and other such bad-for-you-but-oh-so-good foods. A regular "we don't feel like cooking" meal around the Vine House is a pizza with a bottle of brut. Give it a try. You'll be amazed. $10-12 for a standard size (750 ml) bottle.

Freixenet Extra Dry Cava Sparkling Wine – This wine, instantly recognizable in the jet black bottle, is a product of Spain. Cava is this wine's native Spanish grape. As promised by the designation, you'll find this wine a little bit fruitier and “wetter” than the Brut. While they have similar flavors, I often like the little bit of sweetness to cut through the carbonation. Asian or Mexican food go great with extra dry, as does almost any pasta that isn't in a heavy tomato sauce. So do hard cheeses and nuts. As for the morning after, extra dry probably makes the best mimosas. Experiment! $8-10 for a standard bottle.

Mondoro Asti Spumante -- Asti Spumante is an Italian version of sparkling wine. Unlike the semi-dry prosecco from my Thanksgiving column, Astis tend to be sweeter -- much more of a "dessert" sparkler. ("Spumante" means that it's "fully sparkling") Asti is made from Muscat and the product tends to have a fresh, grapey taste. I wanted to try something other than Martini & Rossi, the ubiquitous makers of Asti, so I went with the Mondoro. An Asti -- or other demi-sec sparkling wine -- is an entirely different taste experience. This is a very fruity wine with a gentle pleasant sweetness and a little bit of raisin on the finish. Sweeter sparkling wines are best after a meal or with desserts. The Mondoro would go well with fruit or with dark chocolate. Dark chocolate dipped strawberries would be divine with this. $10-12 for a standard sized bottle.

So, have a happy New Year, everyone. I sincerely thank you all for making The Naked Vine a success. I appreciate you taking the time to stop by to read my musings and I hope you've picked up a little something here and there. Also, an anniversary wish to my sweet partner in crime. How you've put up with me for five years still astounds me. Peace and love to you and yours and I'll catch you after the ball drops.