Know your bubbly

Gruet Brut Rosé sparkling wine ($17.99)

L.R. Hunley, manager of Piazza Discepoli's White Oak location, recommends some bottles for big and small budgets alike:

"This is a sparkling wine from New Mexico. This is their rosé (a wine made from red grapes where the juice has sat in contact with the skins, turning the wine a pink color), of which they only make 5,000 cases a year. The property was founded in 1984 by a group of people that owned a Champagne house. They came over and combed the U.S., the West Coast first, and happened upon some property in New Mexico, and that's where all this comes from.

"If you were drinking it blind, it tastes a lot like Champagne if you didn't know what was in your glass. This time of the year, this having a bit of pink hue to it, it's very celebratory and great for the season."

(BTW: Sparkling wine has a secondary fermentation in it that creates carbon dioxide as a byproduct, which in turn causes the signature bubbles. Champagne, however, refers to sparkling wine that comes from the Champagne region of France.)