Find the Best Holiday Bubbly

December. The most wonderful time of the year is when those sparkling wines flow once the corks have been popped bringing celebrations and good cheer for everyone there.

The Christmas and New Year holidays traditionally are times when the most Champagnes and sparkling wines are drunk and enjoyed. (Valentines Day comes in second place.) Restaurants, wine bars and retailers everywhere have shelves stocked with everything from those fine French prestige de cuvee’s (which sell for over $260) down through the inexpensive (but good) Spanish cavas to the bottom shelves where California-made sparklers sell for $5 a bottle.

Happily, lots of those same retailers, restaurants and wine bars are devoting special wine tastings and parties all this month, offering many places to go, sip and sample that bubbly. Bottles will be opened with a sword. There are special beers to enjoy, fine Scotch whiskies, even an art show about wine offering wine sips! Go to these events, sample as much as you want to discover what tastes best to you! Now glance through next few paragraphs. It’s a little primer to prepare you.

Unless the bubbly is created in France’s Champagne districts from three specific grapes, it is illegal to call it “Champagne.” Everything else that’s wine and bubbles in the bottle is termed “sparkling wine,” or “bubbly” or “sparklers.”  Words saying Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry, Sec, Demi-Sec and Doux designates that bubbly’s style, starting with the driest (Extra Brut) to the sweetest (Doux).

So many different sparkling wines are produced, bottle labels bear names like Cava (Spain), Sket  (Germany), Cremants or Vin Mosseux (French names for Champagnes not produced in Champagne), other names like Spumante or Prosecco (Italy) and  things saying “California Champagne” or “Rose Sparkling Wine. “Read the bottle labels. Look for words saying “Fermented in this Bottle” or “Methode Champenoise.” This shows that a Champagne-like second fermentation takes place after yeast and sugar is put into the bottles to help aging, creating finer bubbly.

There is a third method for mass-producing sparkling wine. Termed the Charmat Bulk Process, that all-important secondary fermentation occurs in metal tanks before the liquid is bottled. 

Those secondary fermentations are responsible for making the bubbles. Champagnes and sparkling wines are served well chilled. Imbibers steadfastly maintain they get higher faster and that is true. The carbon dioxide bubbles expand in the warm stomach cavity, quickly pushing the alcohol through the stomach walls into the blood stream, even though sparklers, like still wines, only have alcohol contents of from 7 to 14 percent.

Words of WARNING. There is 80 pounds per square inch of pressure in the bottlenecks, under the cork and wire net. This net, called a muselet, is wrapped over the top to keep the cork or plastic stopper from popping out. When opening bottles, always point the bottleneck away from your face and gently twist the cork out with your hand firmly over the muselet. An exploding cork can hit and break something, even injure someone. 

Never, never, NEVER, put a sparkling wine or Champagne bottle in the freezer to chill or there will be a forceful explosion when the liquid freezes. Chill the bottle overnight in the fridge or fully immerse it for about one hour in a large container filled half and half with a crushed ice and water slush. Buckets and ice chests are fine. For large parties sinks and bathtubs are great! Ditto for beer.

Throughout December, The Wine Cellars Inc. in the Smyrna Market Village offers free tastings from 2-4 p.m. each Saturday which feature two sparkling wines, the Jacque Pelvas Blanc de Blanc Brut from France and the J. Winery Sparkling Brut Rose from California, along with a selection of still wines.

Duluth’s Park Café Restaurant & Wine Market on West Lawrenceville Street is continuing its Wednesday night wine tastings, offering four different vintages, up to and including the Wednesdays before and after Christmas. Café Manager Aaron Bridgeman personally visits each table, pouring the selected wines. Information about the vintages is posted on the Café’s Facebook page. Costs are $15 per person or $10 with an entrée order. 

Buckhead restaurant Eclipse di Luna offers its “endless glass of wine” from 6-7 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 6. Six different still and sparkling wines are getting served. Offered are a French cremant, a California sparkling wine and a Spanish Cava.  An Australian Port Wine with two two lighter-style red wines are also on the list, according to presenter Lisa Smith. Cost is $10 per person. This event is not offered at the Dunwoody Eclipse.

C’est un soiree magnifique! Chamblee’s newest artisan wine store, Le Caveau Fine Wines, is popping corks on four French Champagnes, three imported dessert wines and a Vintage Port from 5-7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7. Definitely a not-to-be-missed event, it is co-hosted with neighbor gourmet French bakery Maison Robert. The two share a building in 5256 Peachtree Center which, s’il vous plait, is at 5256 Peachtree St. NE. Costs is $35 each with RSVP’s toinfo@lecaveauwines.com.

Le Caveau offers very special vintages. They are the Ulyssee Collin Champagne Blanc de Blanc Extra Brut, Billecart -Salmon Champagne Rose Brut, Jean Laurent Champagne Blanc de Blanc Brut and the  Voulette et Sorbee Champagne Cuvee Fidele Extra Brut, which Le Caveau sells exclusively. Also offered is the 1994 Graham’s Porto Vintage along with three dessert wines, a Grand Cru Auslese from Germany, Donnhoff Niederhauser Riesling; a red Italian still wine, the Bertani Ririoto della Valpolicella Valpantena; and lastly, the French equivalent of a German Eiswein, the Barrer Clos Cancaillou Jurancon Gourmandiee.

Aye! Would ya’ be enjoyin’ wee drams of fine Scotch? In Athens, Aromas Wine Bar is offering a “six at forty-five” Scotch whiskey tasting beginning at 8 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7. The six are Big Smoke 40, Arran Single Burbon Cask 1998, Caol Ila 20, Dalmore Mackenzie, Longrow CV and Old Pulteney #17. The tasting is offered at $45 per person. RSVP online.

Thursday, Dec. 8, from 6-8 p.m., Bloomingdale's in Lenox Square hosts an offering of “artisan wines” during another of its “Chefs in the City” cooking demonstration, food and wine tastings. Heather Hurlbert from Just Desserts is the featured chef. Event proceeds  benefit Project Open Hand.

Wine is not all that bubbles! Dec. 8, from 6:30 p.m., until late that Thursday night, the Beer Connoisseur Magazine, the staff and guests are hoisting glasses of fine craft beers at the Cypress Street Pint & Plate downtown at 817 West Peachtree St., celebrating the second anniversary edition of this Atlanta-based publication. Neither cover charges nor reservations required. Enjoy the party’s beer special, a keg from Hampton’s Jail House Brewing, and food paired with draft and bottled beers. For info call 404-815-9243.

The Tiger Mountain Vineyard in Rabun County hosts its Holiday Open House from noon-4 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 10.  For $5 per person, there are hot soup and wine pairings, samples of all of Tiger’s award-winning wines, Appalachian Christmas fiddling, hot mulled wine by the open fireplace and Sweet Grass Dairy’s Georgia-made cheeses.

From 6-7:30 p.m., Dec. 15, Vino 100 in Alpharetta, located at the corner of South Main Street (Alpharetta Highway) and Old Milton Parkway, offers a special holiday affair featuring critically acclaimed wines from California’s Arnot-Roberts Vineyards. A charity donation gets guests sips of Arnot-Roberts’ Chardonnay, two of their Syrahs and two Cabernet Sauvignons, including the $88 per bottle Arnot-Roberts Bugay Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. RSVP online.

An especially fine Port, Champagne and Sparkling Wine Tasting is coming to Dawg land. The Five Points Bottle Shop in Athens hosts the event, 6-8 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 15, in Aromas Wine Bar.  The restaurant is matching chocolates -- dark, milk and sweet -- along with several varieties of artisan cheeses, with four different Portugese Ports as well as bubbly! The Port wines range from a 1995 vintage to a 20-year-old Tawney. The sparklers include Champagne Tattinger “La France” Brut, the Gustave-Lourenz Rose Cremant from Alsace, New Mexico’s Gruet Winery’s Demi Sec, and a brand-new Crimean-made Brut sparkling wine being introduced for the first time. Admission is $15 each. RSVP online.

Remember that mention of a saber? A French technique for opening Champagne slams a heavy saber’s blade against the bottle’s neck to take the cork off.  Sabarage is the French word for it. At 6 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 28, the St. Regis Hotel’s Sommelier and Wine Director Harry Constantinescu will sabarage Champagne and sparkling wine bottles during the Midtown hotel’s “All About Bubbles” party. For $20 per person, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., the hotel is offering two French Champagnes -- a Rose and a Brut -- a French Cremant, an Italian Prosecco and a Cava from Spain, all served with excellent and tasty hors d’ oeuvres, cheese plates and chocolates. RSVP online. This is a perfect party to get back in training for New Year’s Eve festivities!

How ‘bout  mo’ beers to end the year? Come to the “Heavy Seas Waaay Below Decks Barleywines” party starting at 5:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 26, at the Midway Pub, 552 Flat Shoals Road in Atlanta. The party offers three of these brewskies from Maryland’s Heavy Seas Brewery. Barleywines -- high-octane British-style Ales -- get aged in both Bourbon and Cabernet Sauvignon barrels passed-down from whiskey distilleries and wineries. Make reservations online.

Have a wonderful 2012 remembering, always, to drink responsibly and drive safely throughout the entire new year!

About this column: Wine expert Charles Arnold writes about wines and tasting events in the metro Atlanta area.