There are those who love champagne, who order it and buy it all year round, who always have a bottle chilled and ready. Then, there are wine lovers who will take a glass of bubbly when offered, and are happy to see it, but are really just waiting for the red wine to be served. Lastly -- and if you are like us, you cannot relate -- some folks don't like the stuff. Maybe they just don't know what the fuss is about, or perhaps they have a bad track record with it.

Most of the wine writers this week focused on the happy parts of celebrating, but N.Y. Times style scribe Alex Witchel writes a wonderful anti-bubbly screed. No matter how much you love good champagne -- or even the $3 variety we were so foolishly fond of in our very early 20s -- you'll enjoy Witchel's stinging perspective. "Bubbles and sugar aside," she writes, "it’s the lie of this drink, its unspoken dark side, that provides the real headache, isn’t it?" Read her "Feed Me" column, which about halfway through becomes an in-praise-of-champagne-vinegar article, to hear more.

The Washington Post wine writers go completely nutty with their suggestion to serve champagne all night long on New Year's Eve, providing a different kind for each course you serve guests. Nice in theory, but no one we know loves bubbly quite this much. That said, it's a useful article because it contains specific suggestions for good bottles, and it has an explainer component: The bottom of the article has a guide to champagne's sweetness classifications. So now you can know the difference between "brut" and "dry."

For this next one, you'll need to get your brain on. You know about the whole capital "C" versus small "c" thing regarding champagne, we assume. Some people are very fussy about this kind of stuff. "But as global demand for Champagne soars, pressure is mounting to expand Champagne country," reports the N.Y. Times. "Farmers and landowners who are not on Champagne-designated land hope to join the exclusive club of insiders." The French government may add 40 land areas to the 319 communes that already have the designation Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (A.O.C.).

Let's move on to red wine: The Dallas Morning News recommends reviews a splurge-worthy ($89) wine, Amarone della Valpolicella from the Tedeschi vineyard, with "opulent, concentrated fruit flavors with a touch of balsamic sweetness." Rebecca Murphy reviews, in the same paper, an affordable claret from Washington state's Columbia Valley. And S. Irene Virbila, writing in the L.A. Times, gives us a mid-priced red to try from Italy's Amalfi Coast: Furore riserva, a blend of two local grapes, Piedirosso and Aglianico. It is "dark in tone, with a firm structure and a taste of ripe plums, it is reminiscent of Zinfandel but has an unexpected elegance."

Love a good, flavorful white wine? Give pinot gris a try, says Eric Asimov in the N.Y. Times. It isn't well understood by the public, which is one reason he's writing about it. "Pinot gris is a grape, and a wine, with an identity crisis," Asimov writes. "Pinot gris and pinot grigio are the same grape, pinot gris being the French name and pinot grigio the Italian." He explains how the wines are very different, despite coming from the same grape. We are all about winter white over here, so we'll be searching for good deals on this in 2008.

Wine workhorses Dottie and John of The Wall Street Journal do a year-end roundup of the 15 best wines they tasted in 2007. It is an exciting article; the range of prices goes from $14 up to $525. Their column zones in on the factors that make them love a wine enough to rank it in their highest category. It's actually sort of mind-boggling to read their criteria. One of the requirements: "It should have a sense of place; tasting it, we should be able to imagine it growing in the vineyards of Tuscany or the Barossa Valley." They also go into why the best wines can be expensive: "Good land, small yields, good oak, personal attention -- things like that cost money." Check out their list. Anyone here tasted any of them? It does say in the fine print that these wines can be pretty tough to find.

The meatiest wine news article this week was in The Washington Post. We could have guessed this, but: "Americans are drinking more and better wine and love a dependable bargain bottle, which is increasingly easier to find." And the authorities in this realm are predicting even more wine consumption in the coming years. Yes, apparently, we ugly Americans love the stuff! What we seem to love most is "approachable" wine, especially with animals on the labels. Chardonnay is our favorite, which may surprise you. Lastly, how 'bout this, ladies: "Women continue to buy more wine than men. When a younger guy "is with a woman he drinks wine, because wine is considered less rowdy." Is that so, gents?

Before Hot Plates can be done, we have to show that we are also paying attention to the world of spirits. The L.A. Times this week wrote about the "shaken or stirred" debate regarding martinis. Very bizarre, if you ask us, but we don't do martinis. Some think shaking "bruises the gin." Yes, "stir-ophiles clearly feel that shaking does some kind of harm to the drink." Does shaking dilute the strength of the beverage? We know folks who'd be concerned about that. The cloudiness factor is also mentioned. Hmm.

It has been an interesting year for food and wine in America. What fun it is to watch the trends roll in and out; Hot Plates has a great job. We especially salute the newspaper writers who crank out copy week after week, holiday or not, surely in sickness and health. Hopefully you have enjoyed having all of those articles pulled together in a package a few times a week; we have enjoyed doing it. Enjoy your New Year's Eve, with bubbly or without. We will raise our flute to you!