One of the great ironies in wine is the exclusive association in our minds between Champagne and New Year’s Eve. It’s ironic because Champagne is one of the most versatile, food-friendly, and increasingly sanely-priced wines in the world. That so many of us “splurge” on Champagne only once a year, and then drink it at midnight paired only with a kiss, well, it’s as shameful as NBC hiring poor Dick Clark to embarrass himself at their party in Times Square, just for ratings.

Personally, I try to break the Champagne-on-New-Year’s connection by:

1. Keeping an inexpensive bottle of bubbly in my refrigerator at all times, so that I’m equipped for all the special occasions that do pop up between January 1 and December 31, from milestone birthdays, to historic presidential elections, even my nephew’s new tooth. Any of the delicious sparkling wines that come from regions other than Champagne in France, including Cava from Spain or Prosecco from Italy, are perfect for this purpose.

2. Celebrating Sunday mornings with breakfast in bed and a bottle of decent bubbly, whether it’s “real” Champagne (i.e., from Champagne) or a good equivalent from California. Schramsberg from Napa Valley or Gloria Ferrer from Sonoma are current favorites for this exercise.

3. Drinking Champagne with meals. Turns out, this is surprisingly easy to do. Because it is low-alcohol (typically between 11 and 13 percent), fresh (it has a higher, mouth-watering level of acid than most other wines), and comes dry or off-dry, white or red (well, rosé to be exact), Champagne is the perfect pairing for almost any food, even some of the most notoriously difficult to pair with wine, like spicy Asian food or apple pie. I have enjoyed Champagne with everything from turkey to chicken in mole sauce.

So there you have it, the perfect New Year’s resolution: to break the Champagne=New Year’s tie. It’s a noble one. And did I mention that at about 75 calories per flute, drinking Champagne may help you with another promise you may have made recently?

One last question: did I really write that Champagne is “increasing sanely-priced”? I’ll explain this shocker in my next blog, so stay tuned for my report on the Ladies Tasting Society’s 6 Champers to Continue Celebrating with in 2009.

There’s a cloak of mystery still surrounding wines from South Africa. Because the wine industry there is so young, most wine drinkers in the U.S. will draw a blank when asked about South African wine. In fact, when my tasting group, The Ladies Tasting Society, sat down last week to taste its way through eight samples, we discovered that two in our group of seven had never had a red wine from South Africa. Another three could not remember the last time they’d drank one. Only two of us had partaken within the last few months, and in my case I confess that was because I was, how should I put it, priming my pump in preparation for the tasting.

For our enounter with wines with flamboyant noses, banana notes, and wacky names, click here: More

As the financial crisis worsens, I have to say I’m glad I’m a wine drinker. Regardless of how painful the downward stabs of the Dow charts feel, I can always get pleasure from a glass of wine. And no matter how complicated the subprime meltdown may seem, the job of sharing a bottle of bubbly with friends is so simple.

Plus, when it comes to my (modest) wine collection, I literally have no liquidity issues. It’s true, actually. I’ve been watching the real-time, price-at-auction value of my collection, and although I’ve been drinking good wine and not necessarily replacing it at the same rate, over the past two weeks I actually made money in my cellar.

See, wine really is recession-proof. To test the dictum, I treated myself the other day on a nice red wine from Napa at a restaurant. I needed a little fuel injection, but I didn’t want to spend fast and furious, so I went for a producer that’s become a repeat favorite - and who also happens to be a former race car driver. Click here for my recommendation on today’s best splurge wine to order during a recession: More

Malbec, the signature varietal of Argentina, isn’t a red wine that most people reach for as a rule. Its South American provenance has only been on fine wine drinkers’ radar for a couple of decades, and the vine itself — with its sensitivity to frost and disease, plus its tendency to make ham-handed, tannic wines — just hasn’t been able to achieve the kind of profile of, say, cabernet sauvignon or merlot.

And that’s a crying shame. Or at least that was the conclusion of the Ladies Tasting Society after blind-sampling our way through nine delicious malbecs last week. Overall, we thought these wines were expertly crafted, surprisingly drinkable (even “silky” and “juicy” by some ladies’ estimation), and attractively priced (our average expenditure was $24 per bottle, even though we set ourselves a limit of $45). Not one struck us as clunky or flawed. All of them underlined our mental note-to-self to buy, pop, and enjoy more malbec in our lives.

For the results of our tasting, including a delish best value: click here: More

There are a number of wine tasting party kits on the market, all of them having the advantage that a wine tasting event, no matter how poorly organized or equipped, is kind of hard to torpedo. A pretty table, delicious snacks, good friends, ten bottles of wine … what possibly could sink this ship? So I had my doubts when I received an email from Time to Wine asking if I’d test their kit for Wine Girl Online. My pessimism deepened when I took the bonus quiz ahead of time and discovered an ill-posed question and an ugly typo.

For how this kit soon cured of my crabbiness, click here: More

Everyone, not just wine lovers, should see Bottle Shock for the same reason that everyone, not just Republicans, should have listened to John McCain’s acceptance speech last night. That’s because the film lit a similarly patriotic flame in my heart (me, a shameless liberal elite whose New Year’s resolution was to buy more French wine and who has never voted GOP). But after Bottle Shock, the new feature film based on the infamous 1976 blind tasting in Paris when a handful of upstart California reds and whites bested their French counterparts, I walked out of the theater with a big heart of love for the Napa vintners who believed, against all ideological odds, that they could make fine wine to rival the greats of Bordeaux and Burgundy. (I also left with a burning thirst for a decent glass of homegrown Amurican cabernet sauvignon.)

Similarly, McCain’s speech — especially the parts where he recounted his experience as a P.O.W. in Vietnam, and especially the story of how he declined to be released early because of the armed forces code of “first in, first out” — made me proud of my native country’s characteristic bravery, heroism, and mule-headed optimism.

Don’t worry. I’m not going over to the red side come November. And as for the rest of Bottle Shock, well, let’s just say Sideways has nothing to fear. For more on the movie, including the truly shocking historical inaccuracies, click here: More

Riesling, the rich white native to Germany, is one of the most underappreciated wines of all time. There are two reasons for this: the common (and mistaken) impression that all riesling is sweet, and the indecipherable labeling on most Old World examples. Lucky for white wine lovers, a superhero has stepped forward to save this wine from total obscurity. Its name is Australia and its secret power lies in dry, simply-labeled rieslings that also happen to be appealingly priced (though that was never a problem with this underdog varietal).

For two Aussie rieslings, one to quaff and one to avoid, click here: More

I gained a friend at a party last weekend thanks to an embarrassingly nerdy discussion we had about, of all things, storage. (I promise I am not usually such a dweeb at parties, but I was standing around with a handful of Internet and high tech types.) My new friend was delving deep into the intricacies of archiving film and video, which I was surprised is not as easy as copying onto a big hard drive. As she was wrapping up by citing some technologies that look promising, but haven’t been time tested, I got to thinking about wine.

“That sounds like the great cork debate,” I said. To follow my logic, click here: More

I have a suggestion for novices who find themselves in possession of the wine list at a restaurant but at a loss for what to do with it. Before I break it down for you, though, I have three caveats.

First, my trick will only work at a certain kind of restaurant, that is, where somebody — the owner, usually, but perhaps the head chef or a partner — has put more than a thought or two into the wine. Fortunately, this sort of spot has become ubiquitous, even at levels below “special occasion” restaurants. You can tell you’re in the right place if the wine list has more than two pages, more than three wines by the glass, and lots of wine names you don’t recognize.

Second, if you’re on a date, and you’re stressed to impress, I recommend you conceal your strategy from your companion. You’ll see why in a moment.

Finally, you will need to decide first whether you want to drink a white or a red. If you can’t do this, I can’t help you. Otherwise, for my proposal click here: More

In a landscape of rolling, oak-dotted hills and vineyards producing loads of forgettable wine, one Sierra Foothills winery is determined to make its mark. It’s called Cedarville Vineyard and it’s run by “tech refugees” and UC Davis oenology graduates Jonathan Lachs and Susan Marks. (That’s me with Jonathan at their tasting room.) Cedarville’s acreage is well-positioned on a hillside at a slightly higher altitude than most of the area’s wineries, so the grapes are protected from late frosts and kept cool at at night. Just as importantly, the husband-wife team is keeping quality high by keeping quantity under control: low yields in the vineyard, hands-on attention in the winery, and a very small production. (They do less than 2,000 cases a year and have no plans to grow beyond that.)

For our special favorites from Cedarville’s current line up, click here: More