Some people love spicy-hot food. To me, it's like eating a perfectly good meal while being slapped in the face. On the other hand, some people have that reaction to bubbles in wine, while I adore them.

I could (and often do) drink sparkling wine every day. Lately, it's been crémant, what they call French bubbly that's not from Champagne.

While the whole country makes it, my favorites come from Alsace and the Loire Valley. Alsace is that area nestled into Germany's armpit, a stone's throw across the Rhine, where exquisite riesling and gewrztraminer are made. The region's crémant, from pinot blanc grapes mostly, is delicate and aromatic.

The Loire, famous for Sancerre, Muscadet and Vouvray, is France's biggest bubble producer outside Champagne. Its crémant contains chardonnay, chenin blanc and cabernet franc grapes, and like the Alsatian version is made in the same labor-intensive process as real Champagne, but at about a quarter of the price.

But if hot peppers and effervescence often register pain, why do we like them? Psychologist Paul Rozin claims we do it in the same spirit we ride roller coasters; i.e., for the shot of excitement our brains and bodies get from pain and fear.

But carbonation also alters the taste and feel of a drink by physically lightening it. Flat soda pop seems thicker and sweeter without bubbles to keep the liquid from lying too long on your tongue. The same principle holds with whipped cream, where thousands of tiny air bubbles physically lift the fattiness off your tongue, for a lighter and less cloying experience.

Mountaineers have long complained that Champagne tastes like flat dishwater on the slope. Why should that be? It ain't the altitude. The higher you go, the lower the outside air pressure, and the freer bubbles are to express their exuberance. That's why it's hard to uncork Champagne in the Mile High City without releasing a geyser. So what's up on the mountain?

It has to do with the fact that bubbles are more than just physical snap, crackle and pop. There's also the chemical experience of CO2 converting to carbonic acid on your tongue. The reaction requires a catalyst called anhydrase. In a recent study, subjects drank carbonated water after half their tongue had been painted with anhydrase. Participants could detect bubbles only on the untreated side. It turns out there's a mountain-sickness medication very popular among elite climbers called Diamox, and because it contains a potent anhydrase inhibitor, it keeps them from getting their fizz.

Although I don't really get the point of burdening your Sherpa with Champagne, the mountain is about the only place I wouldn't bring it. But it's still saddled with the reputation of being a party wine. Which is kind of weird, considering we drink Mountain Dew and Pellegrino on weekdays. It's not like we hold bubbles in reverence. True, Champagne was once the only available sparkler and quite expensive. But now, with a slew of alternatives from America and Australia, Spain and Italy, that's no longer the case. A hundred years ago, lobster was cheap and chicken was a luxury, but we haven't made a subsequent fetish of poultry.

However, the moment for sparkling wine has finally arrived. It didn't happen when rappers took to Cristal, or when Paris Hilton sucked Pommery through a straw. Or even when Francis Coppola released his Sophia cuvée in cans. But today the omen arrived in the form of a sample bottle of a new sparkling wine by, get this, Yellow Tail. A soft semillon blend with a flowery nose, it's a nice, easy, everyday sort of fizz.

"No moment," says the press release, "is too ordinary to enjoy Yellow Tail sparkling wine." The perfect quaff, I think, to accompany pencil sharpening, toenail clipping and separating whites from colors.

In case you've been on Jupiter, Yellow Tail is the poster child of viral marketing, an Australian brand that rocketed to the position of our largest import ever, with no ads and while retaining the impression of being a quirky little secret no one but you and your friends had caught on to yet. Considering their Midas-like finger on the public pulse, if Yellow Tail is doing everyday sparkling wine, it's a sure bet you'll soon see everyone drinking it, all the time, everywhere. Except, perhaps, on the mountain.

Recommended

• Yellow Tail Sparkling White Wine $11

• Monmousseau Brut Etoile NV $12

• Bouvet Brut Saumur $13

• Champalou Vouvray Brut $16

• Langlois Cremant de Loire Rosé Brut $25

Crémant d'Alsace:

• Calixte Crémant d'Alsace Brut $15

• Lucien Albrecht Crémant d'Alsace Brut Rosé $18

• Albert Mann Brut Crémant d'Alsace $19

• Abarbanel Crémant d'Alsace Brut $20

Jester@corkjester.com