For Best Performance, Wear Wool
This important discovery just in from the French: Bubbles in Champagne are excited by bubble-formation hot spots located in hollow cellulose fibers such as those found in cloth and textiles, including wool. These bubble "nucleation" sites are responsible for creating the bubble strains that course up your Champagne flute in animated streams. The more cellulose pockets in a stray fiber, the more animated the bubbly "regime," as the French dubbed it, will be.
This all led Sharon Begley, a WSJ writer who recently reported in on the subject, to recommend that readers leave Champagne flutes out prior to pouring so that stray fibers from guests' clothing can waft into them. The subsequent bubbling "regimes," which can last from seconds to minutes, will be much improved, she reasons, if stoked by the occasional stray fiber or two that may settle into the glass courtesy of your coworker's fuzzy wool cowl neck.
Now, I probably ought to add here that Begley also quite reasonably suggests that the same effect can be achieved with much less waiting around time by toweling off the glasses before your party. However you do it - depositing the fibers in the glasses yourself courtesy of a towel or waiting patiently for your guests' clothing to do the trick - getting some extra fibers in your flutes should definitely improve your bubble watching experience.
The Frenchies, who reported on the topic lately in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, closely examined the bubbling regimes of Champagne from esteemed producers Moet & Pommery (helLO they've got a great job!) before reporting that the magnitude and duration of bubble streams are directly related to the number and size of gas pockets inside the fibers. Basically, the more pockets, the more combinations of bubbles you get: triplets, quads, and so on - up to a whopping 12 bubbles at a time!
Right before the pocket gives up (meaning its gas has been used up by the bubbs), the bubbles settle into a single stream of slowly rising soldiers, which is your cue that the show's over and it's time to knock the good stuff back.
I've got to thank my buddy Rick Dobbs over at 
I'm currently enjoying a pretty wine from Germany's northerly Ahr region (sorry for the silly title; just be glad I didn't go with the pirate thing), where a unique strain of Pinot Noir called Fruhburgunder makes mega light reds that have been compared to light Burgundies. I actually find this one more similar to a Beaujolais Villages, but no matter: it's always a treat to find a wine I've never tried before, and it's even better when it's surprisingly tasty.
Avignon may sound like a sleepy town, but there's actually a very cool sub culture there that I was happy to discover with my tasting companion, 
Word has it that global warming has finally hit the wine scene in a major way. According to a report in respected British wine pub 
I know, you're going to feel really sorry for me. Today when I made a routine visit to my mail box down the street I found - much to my total delight - this absolutely fabulous - no, beyond fabulous (is there a word for super fabulous?) - magnum of vino. Ta da! Guess who's the proud new owner of a magnum of 2004 Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir from the Santa Rita Hills? That's right - a MAGNUM of Sea Smoke! For those who're wondering just what the big deal is, Sea Smoke is consistently rated in the top 100 Wines of the Year by Wine Spectator (the '02 Southing made the list not long ago with a score of 93 pts) and has received countless other insanely high marks and praise from the wine glitterati of the globe. 
And to whom do I owe a big thank you for this super fabulous gift? My buddy Ian Blackburn over at 
It's like the ultimate cure for a shut-in sommelier. Really HOT DAMN good vino, in a large quantity, to be savored and enjoyed slowly, glass by glass, with each glass improving upon the last. Because one thing I can already tell you about this bottle is that it's getting BETTER by the hour. My tasting notes - which I've put down below as they are at this time - keep changing with every glass I have. Basically, it's like my perfect wine. 
This "sea smoke" is the key ingredient, although ideal soil, vineyard exposure and yield maintenance play critical supporting roles in the creation of this delightful wine that's truly a product of great care and attention from people I can only gather must be very intelligent, patient and creative. 
Ok, so perhaps that's a little extreme. But in preparing to tuck into the really serious, crunch-time phase of writing the HIP TASTES book, I've been stocking up on household provisions to such an extent that I actually feel kind of like I'm preparing to go to war or something. I mean, I just spent $312.56 stocking my fridge and pantry with all this stuff. I couldn't quite believe the bill at the cash register at Safeway - truth be told I don't know if I've ever spent HALF this much on groceries! 
