Kulers Uncorked: Break Out The Bubbly

As dense as my friends say I am, I do understand the celebratory nature of one of my favorite styles of wine. The bubbles. The popping of the cork. Those nifty, tall glasses. I get it. Sparkling wine is fun and remains the spokes-wine for celebrations since the time of Dom Perginon, who supposedly declared upon his first sip of Champagne: “I’m drinking the stars.”

Credit: Gil Kulers

Credit: Gil Kulers

Of the 18.4 million cases of sparkling wine consumed by Americans in 2013, about 9 million of them were popped open in last three months of the year, with preponderance around the holidays, according to The Wine Institute. For most, I’m guessing, this may be the only time of year they had a glass or two of bubbly. That’s a shame.

News flash: Sparkling wine is yummy. That is if you can somehow overlook all the celebratory distractions of the popping and the foaming and the gentle bubbles rising up in your glass. It is just as yummy in December and the early hours of January 1 as it is on a Thursday in February, especially if there is food involved.

Now, I know a lot of those sports championship winners out there are wiping the stinging, bubbly liquid out of their eyes and saying to themselves: “Wait. You can drink this stuff, too?”

In a word, yes. And while it does make for a fine celebratory locker room shampoo, sparkling wine sparkles best when paired with food.

Sparkling wine accentuates the flavors in food for the same reason it stings the eyes of those standing in the winner’s circle. All sparkling wine is naturally high in acidity because its grapes are harvested when they are slightly under-ripe and replete with malic acid. (That’s the stuff that makes your cheeks flush when you bite into a tart Granny Smith apple.) Sparkling wine is so acidic that most winemakers add just a touch of sweetness before putting the cork in the bottle to make a more balanced wine. It’s the acidity in wines that brighten flavors of food they are paired with.

While not my first choice for a medium-rare New York strip, sparkling wine is an easy choice for any seafood, especially seafood that comes out of a shell or walks around on spindly legs and has big, red claws when they are cooked…or not cooked. I love sparkling wines, especially those from Champagne, with sashimi and ceviche. And as I’ve mentioned in these columns more than once, there is no better wine pairing for southern fried chicken than rosé sparkling wine.

As a state and a metropolitan region, Georgia and Atlanta really need to get their acts together when it comes to bubbly. Californians drank more than 3.6 million cases of sparkling wine in 2013 and ranked first in a report published by The Beverage Information Group. While higher consumption paralleled states with larger populations, as a region, the Atlanta metro area didn’t make the list that included only the top-10 metro areas. Boston, San Diego and Detroit made the list. Atlanta didn’t.

Detroit! We can do better than Detroit, right?

Let’s enter the New Year with an enlightened attitude about wines with bubbles in them. My challenge to you is to open a bottle tonight to celebrate nothing. It is time as a state and a region that we stop and celebrate nothing with sparkling wine.

Gil Kulers is a sommelier and maitre d’ for an Atlanta country club. You can reach him at gil.kulers@winekulers.com.

Note: Wines are rated on a scale ranging up from Thumbs Down, One Thumb Mostly Up, One Thumb Up, Two Thumbs Up, Two Thumbs Way Up and Golden Thumb Award. Prices are suggested retail prices as provided by the winery, one of its agents, a local distributor or retailer.