Picking Some Winners For New Year’s Eve

Merry Christmas!

I hope Santa left you something spectacular under the tree. Like maybe a bottle of Dom Perignon.

This festive time of year naturally calls for bubbly.

As much as sparkling wine makers would like us to quaff the stuff every day of the year - and who wouldn’t, if they could afford it - champagne is forever linked to toasts made at the stroke of midnight Dec. 31.

Before I list my recommendations, here’s some champagne trivia that you can use to impress your drinking buddies:

The typical bottle of sparkling wine contains 44 million bubbles, more than 7 million per glass. (My question is, who counted them?)

Popping a cork can be hazardous to your health. Some corks have been clocked at 40 miles per hour. (That’s good enough speed to pitch in the minor leagues.)

Residents of Washington, D.C., are this country’s top champagne consumers. No big surprise there. Our tax dollars are hard at work.

The 17th century Benedictine monk Dom Perignon is credited with inventing champagne. But it was a woman, Madame Clicquot, who is responsible for the development of the cork. That clever invention helped the bubbles develop more fully inside the bottle.

Sparkling wine contains 80 calories for a 3.5-ounce glass, less than the same amount of chardonnay.

Extra-dry champagne actually contains a trace of residual sugar, making it slightly sweeter than the arid brut.

If money were no object (and isn’t that what credit cards are for?), I’m a sucker for French champagne.

Maybe it’s the water. Maybe it’s all that history. Or the terroir (French for dirt). Maybe it’s the way the French skillfully blend various still wines together to create complex layers of flavor. But nobody makes champagne better than those producers in and around Reims, France.

Still, it’s tough for me to cough up nearly $40 for a bottle of nonvintage brut. That’s what Veuve Clicquot goes for these days.

What I love about it, what makes me willing to occasionally splurge for the good stuff, is the beautiful balancing act it achieves in my glass. Toasty, nutty qualities meld together for a bright, elegant flavor. And the bubbles knock me out.

Other high-end bubbly from France worth exploring includes Bollinger (James Bond’s favorite), Drappier (Charles de Gaulle’s favorite) and Taittinger (Bette Midler’s favorite; see following item).

Spanish sparklers are more down-to-earth, price-wise. Look for Castellblanch cristal for under $15. Even that sparkler in the black bottle, Freixenet, is pretty decent.

Though California bubbly producers continue to attract a lot of attention, I would pass over the sparklers from the south in favor of the Northwest’s best. And it’s made right here in Spokane.

Mountain Dome’s ‘91 brut is so good, in fact, it could easily pass for a French champagne. It’s full-bodied and creamy. The lively mousse (that’s French for “it makes my nose tingle”) explodes in your mouth. It’s top-notch and sells for under $20.

I also like the affordable nonvintage brut, with the whimsical portrait of the gnomes on the label. And I’ve seen it for $8.

For those who like their bubbly with a touch of sweetness, I’ve always had good luck with Ste. Chapelle sparkling riesling. It’s under $7 and it goes great with fruit desserts.

A couple more champagne tips:

It’s best to store your bottles of bubbly in the same spot as your other wine - in a cool, dry, preferably dark place. Long-term refrigeration can take the edge off the bubbles.

Champagne is food friendly. It makes fine match for salty, rich, buttery or oily foods. (In other words, all those decadent nibbles like caviar, lobster and pizza.)

How about cold duck?

When Bette Midler was in town for a recent concert, she had the staff at the Spokane Wine Company hopping. They were trying to locate Taittinger brut rose and Veuve Clicquot brut rose.

The former just wasn’t available and when the latter was presented to the Divine Miss M, she turned it down because she didn’t want a “brut” with her pink champagne.

But here’s a reality check - all French rose champagnes are brut roses.

I guess even big-shot celebrities can be uninformed wine snobs.

We knew they were good

A recent issue of The Wine Enthusiast listed names of hot producers to watch for. Several should be instantly recognizable to Washington wine devotees.

Making the grade were Apex, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Hogue Cellars, Porrteus, Preston Premium, Waterbrook and Yakima River.

Also, Chateau Ste. Michelle’s ‘93 cabernet and the ‘93 merlot were recently listed among the top 10 wine buys in the Quarterly Pocketlist of Top-Rated Wines for $15 or less. It was the only winery with two wines listed.

This nifty publication compiles ratings from national publications and averages them out for letter grades. It is published seasonally.

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, DataTimes MEMO: Grapevine is a monthly feature of IN Food. Write to: Grapevine, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Call 459-5486, fax 459-5098 or e-mail to lesliek@spokesman.com

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Leslie Kelly The Spokesman-Review