Sparkling Wine

Franklin Salek tends to his vineyard with paternalistic care. He wades through muck after a summer rain to make sure every branch, every leaf is secure, nourished and thriving, the better to make a grand wine. The retired engineering professor could be doing this in California's Napa Valley or near the Loire River in France, but he does it in what he thinks is another, more underrated, wine-making region of the world - rural South Jersey. "When you think of it, it is much like Bordeaux," said Salek, whose winery and vineyard, Sylvin, is in Atlantic County.

Remember those effervescent eves of yesteryear when we'd toast the new year with out-of-season strawberries drowning in champagne? How quaint. Auld Lang Syners are now more likely to trade strawberries for strawberry liqueur. Or spike their champagne with plum-flavored vodka, strawberry-infused rum, Oprah's favorite pomegranate liqueur, or any number of libations from around the world. "There's been an explosion of customer interest in liqueurs to add to sparkling wines," says Robert Peters, a consultant at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's Wine and Spirits Shop in Ardmore.

Wine glasses facilitate the ritual of wine tasting: judging the color, swirling, smelling and sipping. The ideal glass is clear and thin, making it easy to control the flow of wine into the mouth. RED WINE Red-wine glasses are larger than white and usually curved slightly inward at the top so the bouquet can collect above the surface of the wine. Fill the glass only half-full so there's room for the bouquet (and so your nose won't get wet when you sniff it.) WHITE WINE White-wine glasses are smaller than red, though an all-purpose glass with an 8- or 10-ounce capacity may be used for both.

Other retailers may be hurting after a disappointing Christmas season, but managers of liquor stores say customers appear to be spending as much as last year. Today, they expect long lines of folks ready to buy champagne to bring in the new year. At the Wine Reserve, a state liqour store on 18th Street off Rittenhouse Square, manager Gerard Haney said his Christmas sales were above last year's. Today, which is New Year's Eve, he said, "we expect . . . to be deluged. " He expects a crowd even though at the Wine Reserve, "Most of my champagnes are pricey.

One of the happiest moments of 2008 - for Philadelphians, at least - was one soaked in champagne: a long-awaited World Series victory doused in a shower of tiny bubbles. Scratch that. It was a "sparkling wine" from Washington state that Chase and the Fightin' Phils were spraying like firehoses across their euphoric locker room. But if anyone actually managed to taste the bubbly, they would have found that Domaine Ste. Michelle Brut is not bad at all. It's got a lively fizz and a well-tuned balance of toastiness, tangerine sweetness and limey citrus that has made it a perennial value pick.

Do you remember last year as the False Millennium was approaching? Champagne prices were higher than usual. Then there was a rumor of a champagne shortage, and prices went still higher. People who absolutely had to have Dom Picayune or Perrier Jose paid restaurant prices in the retail store. One man I know, a red wine drinker and a generous host, decided that he just wouldn't buy champagne that year. Instead he bought two cases of Raspberry Lambic Ale ($8/750ml) from Lindemann's, the Belgian brewer.

PROFESSOR BURSTS BUBBLE OF LEFTOVER CHAMPAGNE LORE Richard Zare's thirst for knowledge led him to a sparkling discovery, just in time for New Year's Eve: If you want to keep leftover bubbly bubbly, put a cork in tradition, not in the bottle. "The best thing may be to leave it alone and just return it to the refrigerator . . . unstopped," says the Stanford chemistry professor. Zare, several colleagues and their spouses studied the admittedly minor problem of storing unfinished bottles of sparkling wine.

HOUSE-TO-HOUSE If you can bake a house, you may be able to help some youngster find a home. The second annual Gingerbread House Competition will be held Nov. 26 at the Fountain Court in the Bellevue. Participants are asked to donate their entries so that they may be auctioned off, with the proceeds benefiting the National Adoption Center. For information about the contest rules, dates and deadlines, call 875-0740. TRICK OR TREAT There's another benefit cooking. The folks at Jack's Firehouse, London and Rembrandt's are staging a Halloween night of tricks and treats at the old Eastern State Penitentiary in the city's Fairmount section.

I know, I know: I did vow in print never to return to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where a few weeks ago I was stunned and infuriated to be charged $12.95 for a single Kir Royale - a delightful, fizzy concoction of champagne and black currant liqueur. But that was before I got a call from Lenny Zilz, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, at 17th and Chestnut streets. Zilz, who's been honcho of the local hotel since April and worked for the management chain for 12 years, disarmed me with his I'm-just-a-regular-fella style.

You could serve the full spectrum of booze at your holiday party. But all of that mixing, shaking and stirring would leave you no time to overeat, smooch underneath the mistletoe or gossip about your neighbor's collection of sequined holiday sweatshirts. Instead, offer a limited menu. Assemble one or two signature drinks, a colorful nonalcoholic option and a cooler of beer, preferably from a local brewery. Some of these festive recipes can be prepared in advance; others require just a few ingredients.

You could serve the full spectrum of booze at your holiday party. But all of that mixing, shaking and stirring would leave you no time to overeat, smooch underneath the mistletoe or gossip about your neighbor's collection of sequined holiday sweatshirts. Instead, offer a limited menu. Assemble one or two signature drinks, a colorful nonalcoholic option and a cooler of beer, preferably from a local brewery. Some of these festive recipes can be prepared in advance; others require just a few ingredients.

Dear Martha: How do I preserve wine left over from an opened bottle? A: To keep leftover wine fresh, store it in a cool place and limit its contact with air. Refrigeration is a good idea - it will slow oxidation and curb the organisms that can spoil the wine, says Andrew Waterhouse, chairman of the department of viticulture and enology at the University of California, Davis. (Bring red wine to room temperature before serving.) Two products - vacuum pumps and inert gas dispensers - reduce exposure to air, giving you a few extra days to enjoy white wines and up to a week for some sturdier reds.

One of the happiest moments of 2008 - for Philadelphians, at least - was one soaked in champagne: a long-awaited World Series victory doused in a shower of tiny bubbles. Scratch that. It was a "sparkling wine" from Washington state that Chase and the Fightin' Phils were spraying like firehoses across their euphoric locker room. But if anyone actually managed to taste the bubbly, they would have found that Domaine Ste. Michelle Brut is not bad at all. It's got a lively fizz and a well-tuned balance of toastiness, tangerine sweetness and limey citrus that has made it a perennial value pick.

Remember those effervescent eves of yesteryear when we'd toast the new year with out-of-season strawberries drowning in champagne? How quaint. Auld Lang Syners are now more likely to trade strawberries for strawberry liqueur. Or spike their champagne with plum-flavored vodka, strawberry-infused rum, Oprah's favorite pomegranate liqueur, or any number of libations from around the world. "There's been an explosion of customer interest in liqueurs to add to sparkling wines," says Robert Peters, a consultant at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's Wine and Spirits Shop in Ardmore.

The night they invented champagne, It's plain as it can be, They thought of you and me. The night they invented champagne . . . - Alan Jay Lerner, from "Gigi" While Dom Perignon, the French Benedictine monk, is credited with inventing champagne in the 17th century, history's naysayers scoff that he stumbled upon the sparkling substance as he was trying to eradicate those irksome bubbles from his wine. Whatever the impetus, Perignon's brilliance in tasting, blending and bottling this creme de la creme of spirits resulted in a drink so celebratory that most revelers wouldn't think of toasting 2006 without it. But cooking your New Year's Eve dinner with a burst of the bubbly?

The old soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division were about worn out after three straight days of being wined and dined and generally fawned over in villages all across the north of France. Walking into yet another reception and handed yet another goblet of sparkling burgundy yesterday, Maurice Graham, 86, of Salisbury, Md., said with a wry, half-smile: "I'm tired, but it's better than being shot at. " Sixty years ago today, on June 6, 1944, the men of the 29th were among the first of 154,000 soldiers from 5,000 ships to land at Omaha Beach on D-Day, the largest sea invasion in history and the event that marked the start of France's liberation from four years of Nazi German occupation.

Franklin Salek tends to his vineyard with paternalistic care. He wades through muck after a summer rain to make sure every branch, every leaf is secure, nourished and thriving, the better to make a grand wine. The retired engineering professor could be doing this in California's Napa Valley or near the Loire River in France, but he does it in what he thinks is another, more underrated, wine-making region of the world - rural South Jersey. "When you think of it, it is much like Bordeaux," said Salek, whose winery and vineyard, Sylvin, is in Atlantic County.

Just after New Year's Day, the holiday season in France gets its second wind. Bakery windows fill with golden puff pastry discs called galettes des rois, as well as brilliant, colorful brioche crowns decorated with candied fruit. Even supermarket shelves are piled high with mass-produced versions of these pastries, which are eaten throughout the month of January for La Fete des Rois (the Three Kings' Feast), which begins on Jan. 6. During a two-week visit to France to spend time with my in-laws one year, my wife, Cecile, and I attended several afternoon fete des rois parties.

Do you remember last year as the False Millennium was approaching? Champagne prices were higher than usual. Then there was a rumor of a champagne shortage, and prices went still higher. People who absolutely had to have Dom Picayune or Perrier Jose paid restaurant prices in the retail store. One man I know, a red wine drinker and a generous host, decided that he just wouldn't buy champagne that year. Instead he bought two cases of Raspberry Lambic Ale ($8/750ml) from Lindemann's, the Belgian brewer.

The most widely told story in the history of European food involves Caterina di Medici. Caterina was born in Florence at the beginning of the 16th century and in the waning years of the Renaissance. She grew up at a time when Italian food was undergoing a rebirth of its own. Newly conscious of Roman and Greek cooking, the learned nobility of her day were throwing off the heavy, scented and spiced cuisine of the Middle Ages and looking to simpler, more natural, ingredient-centered cooking.