Champagne: Bottles to toast a New Year

Since there are few questions more frequently asked than what my favorite Champagnes are, here's a quick-and-dirty guide to the labels I look for. You may not find some of your familiar names here, but at least a few of these should appear on any good wine store's shelves:

 I'm unabashedly a fan of the British taste in Champagne: lots of flavors of toast, pastry, nuts and sherry. The epitome of this style is the beloved Bollinger, with Pol Roger doing admirable duty too.

For a more fruit-driven, precise style, I waver between Charles Heidsieck and Heidsieck Monopole - Charles a bit more flashy, Monopole somewhat stoic but so very fresh in its blue and yellow package. Also notably restrained in its style is Taittinger, which has won its share of fans over time.

For just a bit more flash (but just a bit), the nonvintage wines of Louis Roederer continue to deliver in their subtle, nuanced style with just a hint of yeasty wildness lurking. Of course the vintage wines and, ahem, Cristal follow in that somewhat timeless mold.

Henriot follows a similar path, though with somewhat more focus on Chardonnay. In that style, but with a bit more overt fruit to its nonvintage bottling thanks to about one-third Pinot Meunier, is Deutz.

To me, Jacquesson falls nicely in that on-the-road-to-opulent category too, though almost as a bridge to the grower realm. The Philipponnat label finds just the right balance between lean red-fruit precision and toasty opulence that, when I encounter the Royale Reserve nowadays, makes me always think of a poor man's Krug. There is, of course, Krug, for those with the means.

Now to those indispensable grower folks. If you find a bottle of Egly-Ouriet's Vignes de Vrigny, all from Pinot Meunier, it's a unique wine worth experiencing, showing an austere side of that usually fruity grape.

But there are so many others. Our house Champagne is usually the NV Blanc de Blancs from Franck Bonville, in magnum when we can. (Both are imported through K&L Wine Merchants, and available locally, when in stock.) The Larmandier-Bernier label is exceptional, including its Terre de Vertus bottling, undosed and a stoic expression of terroir from that Cote des Blancs village.

Finally Rosé Champagne. The big discovery this year was Mandois, a small house in Pierry that takes a similar oak-minded approach as Vilmart, the cult grower, though with sometimes different results. Its Brut Rosé Grande Reserve is an extraordinary wine, made from a blend of white Champagne, saignee pink wine and red wine. The irresistible earth notes of Pinot come shining through.