Cold seafood. On a scale of importance from 1 to 10, quality and freshness of the seafood is 10, type of seafood is 1.
Lobster is what the Mainer would obviously say, but not unless you’re with a few miles of the Atlantic coast; even kept alive in tanks they go downhill. Huge fresh shrimp. Scallops. Mussels. Freshwater trout.
Don’t gussy anything up. Plain seafood, great Champagne.
Rick, I dunno about pairings but I do know one thing: man, I miss seeing you. The photo of you, Shelly, Jim Mack and @Alan_Rath doing one of our Copain tastings with Wells, that photo is framed and still hangs on my wall even today. Good memories there, and have a great NYE.
Beat me to it. I host a champagne party every year. Serve steamed prawns that I’ve let cool naturally and then chilled down and served on a plate of ice. Serve with truffled mayo and krug and you’ll be very popular.
Fried chicken
I’d do it differently and serve up a ‘crudo’ — the capers and lemon add more depth than a normal sashimi serving. If you base it on tuna or salmon, you can bring the most picky fish eaters onboard. Then, you can even place a portion on smaller plates or make a big plate to share.
Some strong recs here. When our Riesling group went rogue and did sparkling, we did it with Korean fried chicken.
The cold shellfish, smoked fish and caviar also appeal. If you do one, or all, I strongly suggest blini instead of unsalted potato chips. The blini really help all the flavors pop. Blini are easy to make if you have a couple of hours. I mean, how hard is it to make pancakes?
Here is my go-to blini recipe that I’m making tomorrow:
Agree about the blinis. I just use the recipe off the back of Bob’s (RIP) Red Mill organic buckwheat flour, which is a 100% buckwheat version, so gluten-free in case that matters to a guest. Delicious.
Korean Fried Chicken or Tete de Moine cheese. Paired these two at Christmas with extra brut bubbles and everyone devoured within 30 minutes.
Aww…you’re the best, Frank. We miss seeing you and the crew a ton…that tasting trip with Wells and the gang were some of the best wine memories ever. I can still recall vividly the '98 Rousseau Chambertin that Mr. Mack opened up and shared with us. Those feel like the “good old days.”
I actually bought a bag of these yesterday, so have some of these chips on deck, along with a couple of different caviars, some creme fraiche, store-bought blinis, chives/dill and lemon zest for garnish.
You read our mind…this was my wife’s immediate suggestion and something we’ve done several times before and what we ended up going with (along with chips and caviar).
So many great suggestions here by so many…thank you ALL, and I wish each and every one of you the happiest of New Year celebrations.
Sushi
I wish they made a party size 
The ham ones are also very good
That notion will come as a surprise to those who answer every thread of the form “What wine should I pair with X food” with “Champagne.” 
Gougeres work very well.
Gougeres… fonduta… yum!
Due to illness and geography I ended up postponing our little NYE celebration until today. While making the blini I checked my Bob’s buckwheat flour bag, and it has no blini recipe in it. Checking the website the recipe there is about 60/40 gluten free baking flour to buckwheat flour, so not 100% buckwheat. It’s not too dissimilar from the recipe I posted above, gluten free notwithstanding.
Ah, you just use the pancake recipe (after all, they are just pancakes!) There is a separate blini recipe on their website.
I make small pancakes. 
I think I skipped the molasses the last time, and they turned out fine. I like the straight buckwheat flavour, but some might prefer it milder.
