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Julia Battaglini hasn’t been to a New Year’s Eve party in roughly 20 years, but don’t think that precludes her from being an expert on them. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. “I’m always working during them!” she shouts from a seat in Secco Wine Bar. Her Fan restaurant is one of the city’s most popular destinations for those craving wine, sparkling or otherwise, and for those who want an education on whatever’s in their glass — so when it comes to ideas for bubbly, it comes as no surprise that she’s bubbling over with them.
“A variety is really nice, but don’t go crazy,” she says. If your party is large, she offers, it may be wise to limit your Champagne purchase to only one or two bottles, and stick with three or four varieties of sparkling wine such as crémant, cava or a dry lambrusco throughout the night — intentionally a change of pace from the now-commonplace prosecco. But even if your flutes are full of one of these sparkling wines — poured one half-glass at a time so as to preserve its carbonation and chill in the bottle, naturally — there’s still a time and place for Champagne at your party. And that time is at the start of the evening. “Do not wait until the end of the night to drink it, because everybody’s going to be wasted and they won’t remember it,” she advises. “Do it at the beginning of the night, once everyone gets there, and do a cheers.”
When it comes to throwing his own party, Booth Hardy, a Level 2 sommelier and the owner and operator of Barrel Thief Wine Shop & Café, would stock his almost exclusively with cava, a Spanish sparkling wine undergoing somewhat of a renaissance. “There’s always been a ton made, so it’s always been available at the supermarket level, but now there’s a movement of producers trying to really push the quality and make more serious wines,” he says. Hardy’s Patterson Avenue wine shop stocks roughly 10 varieties of cava, from the funky to the traditional, in addition to the shop’s hundreds of other well-curated wines. When it comes to the oft-affordable cava, price isn’t the only allure; Spain’s climate lends the wine a softness from fully ripe grapes. In Champagne, the cold and the rain can make crops unpredictable and unwieldy. Additionally, it will pair with whatever’s on the menu. “All sparkling wine is pretty food friendly, but all cava is good for the everyday,” Hardy says. “You can buy a good $15 bottle to go with any dinner and it’ll be great.”
There’s only one master sommelier in Richmond, and that man believes you should think beyond the bubbly. “Variety is the spice of life, so why drink the same thing all the time?” says Robert Jones, a national accounts manager at wine importer Kysela Pere et Fils. “You’re gonna spend five hours at somebody’s house. Do you really want to drink the same thing for five hours?” Take a cue from this Court member and begin with something refreshing, bright and acidic, like a spritz, then progress to another light drink, like a highball. From there you could step to craft beer, beginning with something like a gose and building up to an IPA or porter or stout, and then switch to wine. (Always have one white and one red, he adds.) At midnight, you must serve quality sparkling wine, but if you’ve been partying a long time, don’t break out your best; prosecco and cava are perfectly acceptable, he says. After Champagne, tend to your guests: Serve something low-alcohol such as chartreuse in a high-quality hot cocoa — along with water and tea as the evening winds down. “Put ample thought and planning into your party,” Jones says. “Don’t just say, ‘People are getting together, I can get chips and hummus and beer.’ These are your friends! Plan a good time for them. Let them see you put a lot of effort into thinking ’What’s the order of service?’ and that everything was chosen for a reason.”
