Cheers!-Down the chimney, down the hatch:

Consider the flavors swirling about a typical holiday meal: tart cranberry, fennel-spiked sausage, creamy casseroles, briny oysters and so on. Choosing wines to highlight each varied element can be a challenge. As with most pairings, there are no hard and fast rules, but success lies in having enough choices—and a few all-purpose winners—to please palates and to help dishes shine. No two holiday menus are the same, but the essential bottle on every table is something bubbly. Champagne, Prosecco, Cava and domestic sparkling wines don’t cower to the traces of peanut oil and salt in fried turkey or the puckery sweetness of jellied cranberry sauce. Local Whole Foods Market Wine Manager Clayton Leavitt recommends the “lush and full-bodied” Tarantas Brut Cava ($12) from Spain, produced from organically grown grapes. For more, click here.