LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Champagne may be the ultimate celebration wine and an enduring top choice for New Year’s Eve, but a bottle of bubbly doesn’t have to be a one-night love affair.

Jeff Eichelberger, senior wine manager at Wynn and Encore, sees champagne as a versatile drink to get the night started, to enjoy with friends at the bar or to explore for its complexity. He calls it the “little black dress of the wine world.”

“You can celebrate the most glorious moments of your life, or your family’s life, and champagne would fit right in,” Eichelberger said. “You can really enjoy it in any setting, and people should.” Champagne even goes great with potato chips, he said, adding that no one should be judged for how they choose to enjoy it.

Wynn Resorts, among the top names for luxury in Las Vegas, will sell plenty of champagne on New Year’s Eve — none more than Perrier-Jouët Grand Brut, the most popular variety with Wynn’s customers. Eichelberger describes it as “medium-bodied, very pleasurable, very clean, refreshing, intricacy and layers.”

Champagne is among the most difficult wines to make.

“It’s the most challenging and probably the most intricate wine to produce because you have a couple of different fermentations involved in making just one wine,” Eichelberger said.

“It takes several years generally to put a bottle on the table in front of you because the yeast needs that extra time to layer in complexity and delicacy or power, depending on the particular champagne,” he said.

True champagne is from the Champagne region of France — the rest is technically just sparkling wine. But even if you’ve only ever bought Cook’s or Korbel from the corner drugstore, the message from an expert like Eichelberger is just encouragement to try something new. That’s the only way to discover what you really enjoy.

That doesn’t mean you need to pop for a magnum of Dom Pérignon.

Trends

Those big names of the champagne world — Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Nicolas Feuillatte, Laurent-Perrier, Taittinger — have inspired a new generation of winemakers who are turning some heads with new products.

Eichelberger describes the trend: “Maybe a small grower who used to sell his fruit to one of those larger champagne houses, but has decided that they really want to make their own wines.”

He said more and more small houses are popping up — especially in the last 15-20 years.

“While it’s still champagne, I think you get a much different experience because it’s somebody who literally has both the time, the energy and the focus to touch pretty much every bottle. And so you get a very unique, almost an artisinal experience from those wines. I think people are very interested in that,” he said.

Other trends that might be evident this New Year’s Eve include the growing popularity of rosé champagnes. Eichelberger said rosé varieties are full-bodied, richer — and more powerful, which appeals to American consumers.

There’s also a change in thought about the best glassware. Traditional flutes could be shifting toward something more along the lines of a traditional wine glass.

But there’s one constant: drink it cold.

Always drink champagne cold, Eichelberger said. “As the wine warms up the carbonation is released quicker, and a lot of what you’re paying for when you buy a wonderful bottle of champagne are those bubbles.”

He said champagne is made with the idea it’s going to be consumed cold. And it’s safer to open a chilled bottle because there won’t be as much force behind the cork.

Prices

The price of champagne is up 11% this year, according to Luxury Tribune. That’s due mostly to inflation.

Champagne’s place in the market — firmly in the luxury category — make it less sensitive to price variations because of constant demand.

Higher prices will naturally drive some consumers to sparkling wines including prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine. Sales of prosecco increased by 20% a year ago, according to an analysis published on Yahoo! Finance.

An average bottle of champagne from the big brands this year is around $50 to $60. Growers champagnes are averaging around $40. And prosecco comes in around a third of that — about $13.

The sky-high prices you’ll find on the internet are likely investment-grade vintage champagnes.