Rosés for Mother’s Day

The time’s come again, folks – Mother’s Day. The day to thank Mom for changing our diapers, wiping our tears, and laying the foundation for all of us to become the lovable lushes that we are. Many of us will be hosting some sort of brunch, lunch, dinner, or drinking jag on some front porch or other.

Anyone can get a bunch of roses for the celebration. I suggest sticking with the pale red color family and snag a bunch of rosés! What says love for your maternal unit like wine, I ask you?

Depending on where you find yourself on Mother’s Day, there’s a bottle of pink goodness that can accompany you.

For Brunch

If you’re doing brunch, you’re going to want bubbly. While I ordinarily recommend bloody marys for All Things Brunch, this is a celebration, dammit! Celebrations call for sparkly things. And if you’re feeling really, really classy (and don’t mind paying through the nose), you could snag a bottle of Charles Heidsieck Champagne Rosé Réserve.

This rosy bottle from “Champagne Charlie” is a blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier. This lovely, fruity sipper packs a load of flavor. Strawberries and a little bit of baking spice start the nose. The bubbles are soft and velvety, adding a luscious creaminess and lots of berry flavors on the palate. The finish is delicate, creamy, and slightly tart. Truly a lovely wine, one which carries a special occasion pricetag of $70-80.

Now, if you don’t want to go full-on walletbusting, but you’d still like to have the benefit of a bubbly brunch, you could go with a less expensive domestic alternative. One suggestion might be the Mumm Napa Brut Rosé from California. The distinctive delicacy and creaminess of Champagne may be missing, but many of the same flavors are there – although they lean more towards cherry than strawberry. Still a lovely bottle of bubbles – one you can find for $20-25.

For Dinner

If an evening meal is on your agenda, especially if you’re visiting one of your local dining establishments, everyone around the table might want something different. To limit any potential for familiar disagreement when the wine list comes around, I recommend that you consider a full-bodied rosé for the table. While rosé is often considered a delicate drink, many are now built with firmer fruit backbones to stand up to broader ranges of cuisine.

So long as Mom’s not insisting on steak au poivre, you certainly could get away with a bottle like the Villa Gemma 2015 Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo Rosé. This rosé is made from one of my all-time “just drink it” grapes, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. (Cerasuolo is the town near where the grapes are sourced.) It’s considerably darker in hue than most rosé. In the bottle, the wine could easily be confused for a lighter red, like a Chianti. It pours bright ruby red with a medium weight body and flavors of cranberry and cherry. Despite the fruitiness, it’s quite dry and somewhat acidic on the finish, which would make it practically ideal for a varied table. $12.

For Cocktails

Several months back, I mentioned a rosé shortage because of the huge uptick in the wine’s popularity over the last few years. Wine supplies (other than high-end limited production wines) tend to trail a couple of years behind consumer demand. Some rosé producers may have overshot a bit when it comes to the most recent vintage.

In the wine stores I frequent, I keep running into very decent bottles of French rosé -- often Provence rosé, which can be quite pricey – for $6-8. If you’ve gone to the store and rightfully stocked up, you know know that dry rosé is actually a pretty good choice for a cocktail mixer. They’re usually somewhat acidic, have low sugar content and light body, and have those soft fruit notes that perk up mixed drinks. With that in mind, here are a couple of potential recipes you can use to surprise Dear Mum:

Rosénade

1 (5 oz.) glass rosé; 1 oz. citrus vodka; 2 basil leaves, ripped; lemon wedge; ½ oz. simple syrup; 1 ½ club soda.

Muddle basil, lemon, and syrup in a cocktail shaker. Fill the shaker with ice and add vodka and wine. Stir, then pour into glasses. Top with club soda. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

Rosé Bouquet

3 oz. rosé; 1 ½ oz. gin; ¾ oz. Lillet; 3 oz. red grapefruit juice; sprig of rosemary.

Fill a lowball glass ¾ full with ice. Add ingredients in order. Stir. Garnish with rosemary and a wedge of grapefruit.

Pink Glow

5 oz. rosé (use a full-flavored one); 2 oz. bourbon; 1 oz. orange juice.

Add to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into martini glasses and garnish with an orange wedge.

The Mosé

2 strawberries, sliced; 1 tsp. sugar; 2 oz. white tequila; 1 oz. fresh lemon juice; 2 oz. dry rosé

Muddle strawberries and sugar in a cocktail shaker. Add ice and other ingredients. Shake well. Pour into a rocks glass.  

Champagne Charlie, the Lonely Widow, and Bubbles $60 Apart...

I had the opportunity to try a bottle of pretty high-end Champagne. Specifically, the Champagne Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve, which typically retails for somewhere in the $60-70 per bottle range.

I was feeling a bit cheeky during a trip to Smaller Wine Store. On a whim, I decided to snag the least expensive bottle of French bubbly I could to do a side-by-side tasting. That bottle was the Veuve du Vernay Brut Sparkling Wine. “Crisp and Fresh” the label read in French and English, right beside its $9 pricetag. I set out to determine whether the premium Champagne was really sixty bucks better than its cheapo country cousin.

My somewhat cynical attempt at an easy column theme didn’t quite work out as planned, but let’s come back to that. First, the wines themselves.

If the name “Heidsieck” rings a bell with you, you’ve probably seen the name “Piper-Heidsieck” on the side of a pricey bottle of Champagne at some point. Piper-Heidsieck was founded by Florens-Louis Heidsieck, Charles Heidsieck’s great-uncle. Charles’ father, Charles-Henri, founded the Champagne house that now bears his name.

You might also know Charles Heidsieck from the fascinating historical case of international intrigue. In the early 1850’s, Heidsieck visited New York and New England with cases of his family’s Champagne. (His father, Charles-Henri, founded their Champagne house in the early 1800’s.) Predictably, his bubbly was a huge hit among the NYC glitterati, and he became known across the country as “Champagne Charlie.”

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Heidsieck ran into trouble. Many of his outstanding debts, especially those in the Confederacy were unpaid. Whether because of legal decisions from both governing bodies eliminating debt owed across the Mason-Dixon, or whether Heidsieck’s American partners were swindling him, the result was the same.

Heidsieck traveled to New Orleans in secret, evading the Union Army by going clear to Kansas, and accepted payment for his champagne in cotton, scarce in Europe because of the North’s naval blockade. His ships attempted to run the blockade, but were sunk. Heidsieck was captured and imprisoned as a Confederate spy as he tried to return to New York. This diplomatic tussle became known as “The Heidsieck Incident” as Napoleon III lobbied Abraham Lincoln for months over his release.

Heidsieck was eventually released and returned to France nearly penniless. (His misfortune was short-lived. One of his other southern debts was paid off with deeds to land – which turned out to be about a third of the property in the newly founded village of Denver, Colorado…)

The Veuve de Vernay has its own little story. The original owner of the winery, Robert Charmat, is the son of Jean Eugene Charmat, the French scientist who developed the Charmat Method – the “other” method of carbonating wine used most often in Prosecco. A widow in the town of Vernay in the Rhone region had bankrolled John Eugene’s work, so Robert named the wine in her honor.

Moving to the present, Champagne Charlie’s signature bottle is a blend of 40% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, and 20% Pinot Meunier. Of that blend, 40% is made of up wines from Heidsieck’s 10-year old “reserve” wines to add depth and complexity. Each methode Champenoise-carbonated bottle is aged for a minimum of five years. The Veuve de Vernay, carbonated with the Charmat Method of course, is a blend of Colombard, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc.

To start our comparison, I subjected the Sweet Partner in Crime to a blind tasting of the two wines. Not surprisingly, she was able to discern the two fairly easily. The Heidseck is an austere, elegant wine. The bouquet is a complex combination of yeast, apricot, and apple blossoms. There’s a twisting balance of green apple, nuttiness, and cream on the palate, with an extended, sparkly finish. This wine is clearly crafted with great care, which the pricetag reflects.

We found the VdV much more straightforward in bouquet and flavors. Pear and peach were more in the forefront here, and the palate was much more crisp than creamy. The carbonation didn’t feel as “smooth” as the Heidseck. The finish was fruity with just a hint of sweetness at the very end. That said, though, this is a pretty damned decent bottle of bubbles. For less than ten bucks, this wine is superior to almost any sparkler you’ll find.

We also tried both of them with our dinner. I seared up some sea scallops and put them over some couscous alongside roasted red and orange bell peppers, garlic cloves, and fennel. The VdV was a good accompaniment, but the Heidsieck was culinary ecstacy. Something about those nutty, yeasty flavors next to scallops seared in butter entangled gloriously.

In thinking about doing the comparison, doing an actual apples-to-apples comparison of these wines isn’t fair to either, honestly. The VdV isn’t trying to be a premium wine. It’s an inexpensive bottle of bubbles perfect for cracking with a pizza or fried chicken. On the other hand, the Heidseick is intended to be a sophisticated wine for a sophisticated occasion, whatever your definition of “sophisticated.”

For me, personally, I have a hard time justifying a $70 pricetag for Champagne, since there’s usually a lower-cost alternative that’s nearly as good. However, if you’re really looking to treat yourself – or someone else – and money’s not really your primary consideration, you’re going to be in good hands with the Heidseick. Is it a better wine than the Veuve du Vernay? Absolutely. But I sure as heck won’t make be making a “Heidseick Bellini” anytime soon. 

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.

Good Bubbly

Sparkling wine is like any other vino in terms of quality. There are super-cheap headache producers, everyday bottles, and loveliness to pull from the cellar when something magical is going on. I won’t touch the first and I’ve talked enough about the second in other columns. Today, we focus on the good stuff.

Sparkling wine, more so than any other type of wine that I can think of, has a “top end” dominated almost exclusively by wines with strong name recognition. Let me demonstrate with a quick game of word association. What’s the first wine that pops to mind when I say “good cabernet sauvignon?” Just answer, don’t think.

Were I able to magically see all your answers, I’d probably have a list of hundreds of brands with prices ranging from fifteen bucks to hundreds. Now, try it again. Do the same thing for “good bubbly.” No thinking – just whatever comes to mind.

I can practically guarantee 95% of you immediately pulled something from this list: “Dom Perignon,” “Cristal (or Louis Roederer),” “Krug,” or “Veuve Clicquot.”

These names rise to the surface for a reason. Yes, they’re excellent wines – and they’ve been excellent wines for decades. Because so few wine makers, relatively, make sparkling wine – the top end sparklers prices’ end up inflated simply because of name recognition. Hooters puts a $200 bottle of Dom Perignon on every menu for a reason, no? You won’t find any of those wines for under $60-70.

The other notable fact – all of these wines are Champagnes. There’s romance in the word “Champagne” which adds several dollars to the sticker price. As we’ve discussed here before, most sparkling wine is not Champagne. For a wine to be truly “Champagne,” it must be made in the Champagne region of France using “Méthode Champenoise” – a particular technique for carbonation and aging. (“That Champagne’s not Korbel” is actually an indication of quality.)

There’s a good reason why these wines are as expensive as they are. Wines made in the Champagne are, on average, more complex and of higher quality than similar wines made elsewhere in the world, even if the same production methods are employed. However, there’s plenty of excellent sparkling wine made in other places without as much notoriety.

During this festive season, there are plenty of occasions for bubbly. Some of those occasions might call for a “better than everyday” sparkler. I have a couple of ideas, and I asked some of my local friends in the wine biz for recommendations on some bottles that would be appropriate for when “good” bubbly is on the menu, but you might not want to blow all of your gift-buying cash in one place.

So, with many thanks to Kevin Keith of DEP’s Fine Wine & Spirits, David Lazarus of Water Tower Fine Wines, and Danny Gold of The Party Source, here are some ideas. First, from France:

Baumard Crémant Brut-Carte Turquoise ($17-23) – from Anjou in the Loire Valley, a blend of chenin blanc and cabernet franc has a crisp flavor of apricots and a very clean finish.

Charles Ellner Brut Reserve Champagne ($30-50) – a classic Champagne. Plenty of earth and yeast on the nose with long flavors of vanilla and honey on the finish.

Piper-Heidsieck Brut Champagne ($40-55) – one of the “just below the top” producers in Champagne. A little more fruit than many, but a consistent, high-quality product that’s been around for many, many years.

Delamotte Brut Champagne ($40-55) – the flipside of the Piper, this one is tart and crisp. Long and complex. The word that I see over and over again in reviews of this wine is “stylish.”

If I’m getting a good bottle that’s not from France, I’m looking to California:

Roederer Estates L’Ermitage Brut ($35-55) – I had the good fortune to visit this winery on a recent trip to California. Roederer Estates is the California branch of Louis Roederer, creator of Cristal. However, for about $80 less a bottle, you can take the cage off a bottle of this beautiful sparkler. Probably as close to Champagne style as I’ve had from an American bubbly. I highly recommend.

Mumm DVX ($40-55) – From Napa Valley, this is the high-end bottling from this very well-known winery. Like Roederer, they put together some very solid $20 bubbly, but if you need something a little higher end with a bit of an edge, the DVX is a yearly award winner.

Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs ($25-40) – K2 calls Schramsberg the “King of the California Sparklers.” Their Blanc de Blancs is a very flavorful, apple-laden blast of flavor that’s a real bargain at the price. I was lucky enough to get a couple of bottles of this as a wedding gift. It doesn’t disappoint.

Iron Horse Russian Cuvee ($25-40) – This sparkler is near and dear to my heart, as I had a chance to try it on our very first trip to wine country. From Sonoma County, this is a little fruity and would probably land in the “extra dry” rather than “brut” category (meaning there’s a little bit of residual sugar). This wine was designed for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meetings at the end of the Cold War. It’s especially good with a few pomegranate seeds in the glass.

There are also some excellent values from Germany and Argentina, and there’s any number of good producers of Prosecco from Italy. Bottom line? Talk to your local wine merchant. If his or her first recommendation when you ask for “good bubbly” is Dom Perignon, go elsewhere.

TNV’s Guide to Wine & Cheese – Part I (Soft Cheese)

(Note: This series goes out to Dr. Randa. Here’s your daggone wine & cheese column…)

Mmmm…cheese.

Wine and cheese are inextricably linked. Both are the delicious products of well-managed fermentation. Both can be found at almost any gathering where noshables are present. And there are darned near endless varieties of each.

(The two are also at the core of one of my favorite sports quotes of all time. The immortal Sam Cassell called the assembled at UNC-CH’s Dean Dome a “cheese and wine crowd” during his Florida State days. It’s an apt descriptor of the usual level of crowd noise there.)

An important note of irony – as much as we think of wine and cheese going hand in hand, it’s exceedingly difficult to “perfectly” pair wine and cheese. There’s so much variation in individual wines and cheeses that it’s nearly impossible to say with confidence, “This type of wine always works with this type of cheese.” This difficulty gets compounded when you have multiple cheeses with a wine. Still, in the name of science, let’s press on.

There’s a basic process in most cheese production. Milk is allowed to ferment (sour) at room temperature. Certain kinds of mold and bacteria can be added during the fermenting process to impart more distinct flavors. The milk then separates into solid curds and liquid whey. The whey is drained off, the curds are pressed and often salted, and there you have it -- cheese. (Specifically, at this point, it’s cottage cheese – which was Little Miss Muffett’s “Curds and Whey.”)

For firmer cheeses, an enzyme called rennet is added to the fermenting milk. This accelerates the curd separation process. The curds are then often cut into small cubes and pressed into balls or logs. Soft cheeses stop here. Harder cheeses are pressed into molds and squeezed tightly, forcing out more of the whey and creating a firmer, drier product. This, in turn, allows the cheese to cure for a longer period of time. The harder the block, the longer a cheese can age.

Cheese can be classified in any number of ways – by location (much as many wines are); by texture; by flavor; by price; and so on. For our purposes, I’m going to use a three part classification: soft cheese, hard cheese, and stinky cheese. I’ll pick some cheeses for each category that you should be able to find without too much difficulty, along with what is normally considered the “classic wine pairing” for each. Just for fun, we’ll try each cheese and each wine together. Let’s start with soft cheeses. We chose these three:

• Fresh mozzarella (pairing: Chianti)
• Brie (pairing: extra dry sparkling wine)
• Chevre (pairing: Sancerre)

For information’s sake, Sancerre is a delicious, minerally sauvignon blanc from the Loire in France. It’s a little on the pricey side, but I was in the mood to splurge for this experiment. You could substitute a less expensive French sauvignon if you wanted. Extra dry sparkling wine usually works better than brut in my experience. The Chianti should be young. Aged Chianti will lose its complexity. How did things work out?

Fresh Mozzarella – While Mozzarella can be made from cow milk, it’s traditionally made from the milk of the domesticated water buffalo. Until I met the SPinC, I thought you only found mozzarella in baked pastas and on pizzas. I was used to seeing it shredded, imprisoned in a plastic bag instead of fresh, capable of being eaten alone. It’s a “clean” tasting cheese – which is to say that it doesn’t have much of a flavor in and of itself other than “milky and slightly granular.” With the Chianti alongside, it was OK. The cheese calmed the acidity of the wine a bit. It was decent but lacked something, so we ended up making little sandwiches with bread dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, some fresh basil, and hard sausage. (Basically, we used all the things Chianti tastes good with.) It didn’t disappoint. With the sparkling wine, the yeasty flavor of the sparkler came out, but it wasn’t all that interesting. The Sancerre showed as far too acidic. There wasn’t enough flavor in the cheese to balance the wine and the gentle flavor of the wine got lost. Recommendation: mozzarella is a much stronger complimentary player. Consider serving it Caprese salad-style – with basil, tomatoes, and really good balsamic vinegar – instead of just by itself. Stick with Italian reds if you want to pair it.

Brie – The best known soft “party platter” cheese. You’ll usually see this cow’s milk cheese with a white rind, which is the product of the addition of rennet to the curd. The rind is edible if you’re so inclined. The cheese has a lasting, creamy, buttery flavor with a little bit of funk to it. Sparkling wine is the recommended pairing. The bubbles cut the fat & funk and mellow the flavor of the cheese. It’s pleasant. The Sancerre makes the cheese more funky, and the complexity of the wine is completely lost. The Chianti was a disaster. The chalkiness and acidity of the Chianti was as complementary towards the cheese as your average Kentucky basketball fan is towards Christian Laettner. Recommendation: like you need another excuse to bust out a bottle of bubbly.

I made an initial bobble with the brie. I initially bought a chunk of “Brie de Meaux,” an aged brie. When brie is aged, it gets very strong flavors – including ammonia (which is created in the fermentation process.) It’s supposed to be good soaked in café au lait, but I’m not that brave. It was disastrous with all the wines. Stick with the cheaper brie. Brie de Meaux…Neaux.

Chevre – Chevre is French for “goat.” Goat cheese has a tarter flavor than most cow’s milk cheeses because of the makeup of the milk itself (which is actually close to human milk). It often reminds me of buttercream frosting in consistency. There’s a little funkiness to it, but it’s largely a smooth, creamy experience. Sancerre is the pairing here for good reason. There’s something about the makeup of the two together. Fruit, creaminess, tartness, minerality – all balanced and working together as a heavenly, fluidly balanced combination. While there may be no “perfect” pairings, this is close. The sparkling wine was interesting. The thick buttery consistency initially gets stripped away by the bubbles and a blast of minerality & yeast, leaving sweetness and cream behind. An interesting, lively combination. As for the Chianti, my first comment was, “That’s really kinda nice!” An acidic vs. buttery contrast, but still pretty decadent. Recommendation: If you’re doing a soft cheese on a platter and you don’t know what kinds of wine you’ll have, you can’t go wrong with chevre. Easily the most interesting, wine friendly cheese that we had.

Next up – hard cheeses.

La soirée française paresseuse

[Rough translation: The slothful French evening]

Like just about every other foodie we know, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I went to see the now-ubiquitous "Julie & Julia." We enjoyed the movie quite a bit, especially the parts about Julia Child's background. Afterwards, we promptly rented some old The French Chef DVD's from Netflix and snagged a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

[Side note: I read the book on our honeymoon and discovered that most of the "Julia parts" were additions when the screenplay was adapted...and that Julie was hardly the cute little junebug Amy Adams portrayed. Still, both the book and movie portray the ultimate fantasy for bloggers...getting "discovered," garnering a huge following, and getting our words read widely.]

So, with this experience in our heads, we decided to do a French-themed New Year's Eve. (If you're not familiar with our little tradition, see here, here, and here.) Unfortunately, some family health issues called the SPinC out of town for the couple of days where we ordinarily did our prep. I figured she'd be exhausted when she got home and wouldn't be in any semblance of mental space to want to cook -- but I sure as shootin' wanted to keep our ritual rolling. So, the SPinC's worst nightmare came to pass -- Mike alone in the kitchen for an extended period of time. This usually leads to a good percentage of the household's pots and pans being used at least once, a few sauce and oil splatters in hard-to-reach places, and a somewhat stickier floor than when she left.

I did my best to keep things tidy. Really I did.

Here was the menu for the afternoon & evening:

• Course #1 -- Potato & Leek Soup; Chateau Riviere-Lacoste 2006 Bordeaux Blanc
• Course #2 -- Steamed King Crab Legs; Domaine Chanson 2007 Chablis
• Course #3 -- Boeuf Bourguignon; Moray St. Denis 2004 Bourgogne
• Course #4 -- Cherry Clafoutis; Piper-Heidsieck Brut Rose Sauvage

Courses #1 and 3 were from Julia Child's book. Steamed crab is pretty straightforward, and the clafoutis was a recipe I poked around the Internets to discover. Now, so you don't think that we're even more shamelessly gluttonous than we clearly are -- our little "meal" took place over the course of an afternoon and evening. We got the party rolling around 2, once the SPinC had a chance to get home, go for a run to clear her head, and get into appropriate loungewear for the day.

I never knew much about leeks for most of my life. I'm addicted to the bloomin' things now. I put them in as many recipes as I can find for them. This soup, classically French, has such a remarkable flavor -- which is amazing because it's really just leeks, potatoes, water, salt, pepper, some butter, and parsley. But it's SO good. I feared the white Bordeaux might be too light for a soup like this one, but the acidity and minerality made a lovely balance.

A couple of hours later, we moved on to the crab legs. I'd initially thought about doing a lobster for this course, but neither of us really felt like committing arthropodicide on New Year's. We let someone else do the dirty work for us and stuck to king crab, which was plenty rich and tasty enough for us. A little drawn butter alongside, we cracked the Chablis which we snagged at the dinner at the Phoenix a few months ago. Chablis & shellfish is a heaven-sent pairing, and we certainly were not disappointed.

A job well done...

We gave ourselves some digestion time as we listened to some jazz and then watched Duke's utter detonation of the Penn Quakers as an interlude. During the second half, I put the Bourguignon on to simmer itself to proper warmth. By game's end, we were ready to go. I'd opened the Moray a few hours before to let it breathe. We dished it up and headed to the table. Now, I'll admit -- I was a little bit skeptical of the recipe. I wondered why you just wouldn't throw everything in a slow cooker and turn it loose. After all, it's just beef stew, right?

Wrong. There's something about the way that the flavors from the various steps of cooking marry that you end up with waves of flavors coming at you from any number of directions. Throw in the smoky loveliness of a very very good pinot noir, and it's a pretty magical dining experience.

Admittedly, I did tweak the recipe a bit -- basically amping up the various levels of spice. For instance, the original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of salt for the entire dish. Only a dash? Balderdash. I also had some new potatoes, which I quartered and added, rather than doing boiled potatoes on the side.]

In a nod to our advancing ages, we ended up admittedly taking a nap at this point to get ourselves up until midnight. We made it in time to crack open the Champagne and dig into the clafoutis.

Now, I'd not even attempted a dessert like that (pies and pastries are the SPinC's bailiwick) -- and if I were to do it again, I'd probably have used a slightly larger baking dish -- just so it would have cooked a little more quickly, but I was pretty pleased with the result. We used cherries from our year's harvest from the tree in the backyard, and they overwhelmed the subtlety in the Champagne (a rosé Champagne at that) -- so we finished the two up separately before clinking glasses at midnight and smiling at another New Year's well done.

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.