A Festive Bubbly at Every Price Point

IT'S A NEAR-INVIOLATE rule that sparkling wine of some sort must be served on New Year's Eve. The exact sort depends upon several factors.

How big is the celebration you are attending or hosting? How much or how little do you want to spend? Will those in attendance be serious wine lovers or just casual imbibers? Is the wine meant for midnight toasting, or will it be served along with a meal? If the latter, what's on the menu? With such questions in mind, I came up with the following sparkling options in five different price ranges. Whether at the budget end of the vinous spectrum or more of a splurge, each bottle is worthy of a raised glass (or perhaps two) and will go a long way toward assuring that 2025 gets off to a pleasurable start. As always in this column, the prices listed are what I actually paid for each wine; the numbers might be higher or lower in other stores and states.

$10-$20 Bohigas Brut Reserva Cava $14 Maybe you're hosting a New Year's party and need enough reasonably priced bottles to please a sizable crowd. Often as not, under these circumstances, I'll look for a good Cava. The price-quality ratio for these Spanish sparkling wines can be quite good.

One of my favorite affordable options, the Bohigas Brut Reserva Cava, is bright, lively and quite crisp. (Think: green apple and pear.) Produced from native varieties such as Xarello just outside the Penedès region of Spain via the traditional (aka Champagne) method, this wine undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle and is aged at least 18 months in the cellar before release.

In other words, a fair amount of time and work goes into making this very reasonably priced wine. The Casanovas family has been producing cava for nearly 100 years; Maria Casanovas Giró, the great-granddaughter of winery founder Josep Maria Bohigas, oversees both the winemaking and the estate.