It’s time to uncork a little fun this holiday season. Ring in the new year with five fabulous sparkling wines, recommended by local wine connoisseurs and tested by our MyNorth Media and Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine team.

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The MyNorth editors—along with a couple of Traverse City wine mavens—are ready to share their picks for delicious sparkling wines to toast the holidays and beyond. Pour these beautiful Northern Michigan bottlings at your Christmas Day brunch or New Year’s Eve bash, or simply stash to brighten a winter night. (Hint: Chill one in a snowbank by the front porch for a refreshing après-shoveling celebration.)

Helping with our selects are wine connoisseur and manager Catherine Cavender, of the storied Blue Goat in Traverse City, and Tallula Morrison, in her seventh holiday season at the Burritt’s Fresh Market wine cellar in downtown TC. A few must-sips of the season:

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Finding the best local sparkling wine for you to pop this NYE sure is hard work 😉 Head to MyNorth.com for our final verdict! 🥂🍾✨ ♬ B.O.T.A. (Baddest Of Them All) - Eliza Rose & Interplanetary Criminal

CRISP, 2 Lads

Blue Goat wine buyer Catherine Cavender credits her college job in the tasting room at Old Mission Peninsula’s 2 Lads Winery with stoking her passion for the wine industry. “They hold such a great, high benchmark for high-quality wines in Michigan.” CRISP is a not-too-splurgy, off-dry sparkling blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir. Cavender calls it “bright and refreshing,” offering “nice fine bubbles with little citrus.” The winemakers say CRISP loves smoked whitefish spread, antipasto, fried calamari, kettle chips, and lemon shortbread cookies. Sounds like the makings of a perfect NoMi NYE menu, doesn’t it?

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Grace, Mawby

This brut rosé is bottle fermented in the labor-intensive méthode champenoise, yielding a balanced, soft pink sipper with both ripe fresh fruit and yeast flavors and aromas. “Grace has a really pretty pastry quality” with notes of “cherry and strawberry shortcake,” shares Tallula Morrison of Burritt’s Fresh Market. It’s an elegant sparkling for NYE toasts … truly, if we could choose a word to set a tone for the new year, “Grace” would be right up there.

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo by Allison Jarrell

C-3 Pinot, bigLITTLE

This fun-loving sparkling brut—whose name is a nod to a debonair droid from an iconic film series—consists of three Pinot varieties grown on bigLITTLE’s Lake Leelanau vineyard. “You are getting to explore the entire family of grape flavors,” says Morrison, noting that the blend is “bright, crisp and aromatic, with great structure and great minerality.” She says, “I describe minerality up here as walking along the beach and picking up a rock and—we’re all rock-lickers, right?” she says laughing. She adds that even if you don’t taste your beach finds, “Minerality tastes like breathing in that air.” For serving: C-3 Pinot’s gentle acidity had us editors craving a rich bite … a classic cheese fondue, or perhaps buttered popcorn and a snowed-in Star Wars marathon?

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Grüner Veltliner, Glen Arbor Wines

A Leelanau County vintner crafts this green, herbaceous and refreshing sparkling from 100 percent Grüner Veltliner. Its creamy, slightly peppery, highly-quaffable quality left our editors wanting another sip. Bonus: Grüner Veltliner’s distinctive herbal note is known for being extra food friendly, even with vegetables such as artichokes and asparagus, which means it can be your brunch darling this season. We’re dreaming of a dilly, feta-filled spanakopita or an asparagus-goat cheese tart with tarragon.

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Méthode Agricole, Bos Wine

Both Cavender and Morrison get starry-eyed for this wholly unique Northern Michigan sparkling. “I love coming back to Dave Bos’s wines,” says Morrison, “because I think they’re really great representations of where our area is headed … where he is in his headspace, in his farming, in his ethos, in his heart. What he wants to do with the land and how he wants to really heal it and give it its best potential is phenomenal.”

She adds that Méthode Agricole is made from the winter-hardy Valvin Muscat grape, “actually grown in Interlochen, which not many people think of as a wine-growing region up here … yet.” She describes the wine as having a “little more salinity, a bright sharpness, and a yeasty cracker quality. It’s so very floral and aromatic—but not sweet—like walking through a floral or herb garden. I love this one.”

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo by Allison Jarrell

Photo(s) by Allison Jarrell