one e-book from my backlist <\/a>(excluding Brand New Flavor). I\u2019ll draw a name on January 7. And have a safe and Happy New Year!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of my favorite things to drink (and there are many) is Champagne. I actually love almost any sparkling wine, whether it’s the real stuff from France, Spain’s cava, Italy’s prosecco or just sparkling wine from California. So it should come as no surprise that New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite holidays. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":2295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,107],"tags":[368,452,450,367,937,380,922,27,451,178],"class_list":["post-2290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-event","category-giveaway","tag-brand-new-flavor","tag-celebration","tag-champagne","tag-delectable","tag-delectable-december","tag-food","tag-giveaway","tag-holidays","tag-new-years-eve","tag-recipe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/champ.jpg?fit=250%2C202","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pzLgx-AW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"champ\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/champ.jpg?resize=250%2C202\")
One of my favorite things to drink (and there are many) is Champagne. I actually love almost any sparkling wine, whether it’s the real stuff from France, Spain’s cava, Italy’s prosecco or just sparkling wine from California. So it should come as no surprise that New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite holidays. When I was traveling in Europe, I made sure to visit both Moet et Chandon in Epernay, France, where Dom Perignon is made, and Mumm in Rheims, not far away. It was fascinating to learn about the extra steps in the process to make sparkling wine. The first part of the process is just like still wine, then there is a second fermentation in the bottle. Until the French Champagne producers perfected the shape of the bottle, they lost up to 70 percent of every vintage to broken bottles. Maybe that’s why Champagne is so expensive: they’re still trying to recoup those early losses. But it does account for the higher prices: extra labor and time to produce great quality Champagne. Cava from Spain and prosecco from Italy have their second fermentation in the barrel, not the bottle, and the cuts down the cost considerably.<\/p>\n![\"champ](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/champ-ris2.jpg?resize=213%2C236\")
For a really special treat I love to make this Champagne risotto, though you can use any sparkling wine. It’s best when it’s not too sweet since it will get concentrated as it cooks. And one of the fun things is that because you have to open the bottle before midnight, you get the chance to sample the bubbly way before anyone else. Just make sure most of the dinner is cooked before you start this or you might forget something important.<\/p>\n![\"brandnewflavor-200x300\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.emlynley.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/brandnewflavor-200x300.jpg?resize=200%2C300\")
<\/a>Last month the first story in my new Delectable series released, called