When you entertain at home, forget about fretting over glassware, flatware, or matching tableware. Relax. As your guests cross the threshold, disarm them with a glass of bubbles, and the mood instantly changes. That special occasion just became today.
Don’t pour a butter-bomb, overly-oaked (and overly-priced) California chardonnay and expect your guests to be talking about it the next day. Instead, meet them at the door with some sparkling wine or its less-expensive cousins: Spanish Cava, Italian Prosecco, Argentine Sparkling Rosé of Malbec. Offer them a glass of champagne—even if it’s not legal to call it “champagne.” (Work that into the conversation while they sample your famous homemade potato chips and Maytag Blue Cheese dip, telling them it works just as it does with caviar, mimicking the oil and salt content, and eliminating the often-maligned “fishy” aspect of roe.)
Another occasion for champagne: red-wine tastings. After a few samplings of especially robust reds, one’s palate can become fatigued and barely able to discern delicate nuances in each successive wine. Breaking out a bottle of bubbles in the middle of the tasting is the equivalent of the electric defibrillators used to reinvigorate a failing heart. Your resurrected taste buds will spring back to life, eliminating the tannin and other phenols obscuring your enjoyment of the wines to come.
At my house, there’s no resisting the bubbles, from my Joe Six Pack brother to my teetotaling sister-in-law (who abstains from alcohol except when I offer her a glass of champagne). You’ll find that nobody says no to champagne. I mean nobody.
Darryl Vennard, owner of Wine Pros Midwest, has more than 25 years of experience in the wine industry.
