The Versace Of Champagnes

Every year at this time I am importuned by friends about which champagne to buy. This activates my humbug gene turning holiday cheer into holiday jeer.

Champagne, you see, is all about marketing. Can you think of another wine where producers pay for the privilege of having their wines poured over athlete's heads? Or another wine whose names are so brazenly emblazoned on hot-air balloons and race cars, and expensively inserted into James Bond movies? Can you imagine what would happen if you broke, say, a bottle of La Tâche over the prow of a ship? You'd be arrested — and rightly. But for champagne it's de rigueur

In short, champagne is no more a "real wine" than President Clinton is a real saxo phone player. Both noodle at the game, but their real ambitions profitably lie elsewhere With champagne it's all about big bucks — yours especially.

The glossy super-luxury champagnes selling for between $200 and $600 are meant for those who believe that air pumped into your tires by a liveried footman gives your car a better ride This is why it was news when the hip-hop artist Jay-Z announced a personal boycott of Louis Roederer Cristal champagne, the bubble bling of choice in his world.

That said, there are champagnes that get very close to being "real wine." And yes, some of them do cost some serious money. But that's between you and your bank balance. Just don't believe that you absolutely have to spend a lot of money to get the real cham pagne thing.

HERE'S THE CHAMPAGNE (FASHION) DEAL

Champagne, more than any other wine, might be accurately described as "tailored."

As a result, one's champagne choice is really all about style. Every champagne house has its "fashion sense." Some are Armani; others Versace. Yet others are North Face.

So you choose your champagne, like your clothes, accordingly. Much depends upon the occasion, your intentions (honorable or otherwise), and, of course, your purse.

As with a dress or a suit, the quality of the fabric is still the informing ingredient, so it does matter where the grapes are grown. But there's a lot of work in the winemaking atelier that goes into a sparkling wine: two fermentations (one to make the wine, the other to make the bubbles), often a combination of two or more grape varieties, and usually a blend of multiple vineyards.

All this tailoring is going on with real deftness not just in the traditional Champagne region of France, but in California, Oregon, Washington, and Italy, too.

If You Like Versace… Then you'll love the in-your-palate flamboyance of such French Champagnes as Jean Lallement (rich, toasty, heavy); J. Lasalle (heavy on the pear and apple); Perrier-Jouët (buttery and attractively blowsy), and Pol Roger (lush, full-bodied and frankly pleasurable).

If You Like Bespoke Savile Row… Then you'll want the detailed, tailored, sit-upstraight-and-elbows-off-the-table rigor of Pierre Peters (zesty, crisp chardonnay); Gaston Chiquet (briny, grapefruit, precise); Krug Grande Cuvée (serious, toasty, pinot noir-rich, almost stern; a lot of tailoring here, like a banker's three-piece suit); Argyle Blanc de Blancs (an Oregon chardonnay with uncommon detail), and Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs (another all-chardonnay bubble with superb definition and detail).

If You Like Armani… You'll like the stylized luxuriousness of Gosset (a cashmere champagne, as it were, with pear and toffee scents; weighty yet elegant); Roederer Estate L'Ermitage (rich yet restrained; the best bottling from California's best sparkling wine house); Bruno Paillard (a summer frock of a champagne; elegant with a light touch), and Chartogne-Taillet (austere yet somehow luxurious with green apple and hazelnut notes).

If You Like Valentino… Then you'll like the good-taste opulence of Dom Perignon (complex, weighty yet far from heavy; a champagne with an exquisite "hand," as they say in the fabric trade); Iron Horse Blanc de Blancs LD (the "ld" means late-disgorged; dense, subtle, rich and refined); Mumm de Cramant Blanc de Blancs (subtle, exquisite chardonnay with unusually gentle bubbles; like drinking raw silk); André Clouet (powerfully pinot noir but with elegance and restraint), and Salon (almost painfully intense, minerally chardonnay with a luxurious — think vicuña — texture).

If You Like North Face… Then you'll like the well-constructed, frank goodness of Ferrari Brut (an Italian blend of pinot noir and chardonnay; a steal at $22); Egly-Ouriet (a solid French champagne in every sense, with strong pinot noir notes); René Geoffroy (powerful wines with striking notes of spices, apples, pears and citrus); Schramsberg Brut Rosé (an uncommonly good rosé champagne from mostly pinot noir; it has food dexterity thanks to its flavorfulness and weight); Gruet Blanc de Noirs (don't let the $12.99 price fool you; this traditionally-made, pinot noir-rich bubbly from New Mexico is superb), and Vilmart (an idiosyncratic French champagne that's rich, intense, nut-scented, and meant to accompany meats and cheeses).