Spend more time with friends and family in the New Year by entertaining more often and more easily.

Don’t focus on a formal event that takes time to plan and costs a lot of money. Think casual, and simply set aside 2 hours a month to catch up with people you don’t see often enough, or with those you’ve met but haven’t had the chance to see again.

Make it a regular event and set aside the second Friday evening or third Sunday afternoon of the month, for example. Invite 4 to 8 people over for a mini-tasting:

Try different teas, mineral waters, Spanish cheeses, single-origin chocolate bars—whatever you’d like to learn more about.

The group will enjoy mixing and discovering new specialty foods; small groups are easier and less expensive to manage and guests mix more easily.

Spend an evening with sparkling wines and
triple-crême cheeses (here, Brie and
Champagne). Photo courtesy Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

• Buying cheese for tonight? Double-crême and triple-crême cheeses like Brillat-Savarin, Brie, Camembert, Explorateur and Saint-André are the way to go with sparkling wines. Learn more in our Cheese Glossary.

Krug Champagne, our favorite. We toast
every new year with it.

Here are our Champagne and sparkling wine recommendations from a few years ago. We’re tasting them all tonight to update the article.

• Krug is still our favorite (but pricey).
• In addition to tête de cuvee bottle in the article, we also love the vintage or nonvintage Pol Roger and Bollinger Champagnes, which have a higher concentration of Pinot Noir and are more robust.
• If you like your bubbly on the more delicate side, Taittinger, a blanc de blanc (only Chardonnay grapes, instead of a combination of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir), is a perennial favorite, too.
• For great taste on a budget, we’re fans of [yellow tail] sparkling wine, called [yellow tail] Bubbles, and the [yellow tail] Bubbles Rosé, a beautiful rose color as well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at THE NIBBLE. We’ll be nibbling hard for you in 2010.

Most people bring a bottle of Champagne as a gift to New Year’s Eve parties. Add a book about Champagne, and your gift will be remembered long after the bubbles are gone.

See one of our favorite books on Champagne.

Photo courtesy Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties.