Although I’m all for the cheer and generosity of the holiday season, I feel compelled to point out the obvi ous: Your friends will happily, even gleefully, drink your expensive wines with nary a qualm, let alone a pause. In fact, they consider it a public service, like pushing a stick through a clogged street grate “Let the wine flow!” they exclaim

People will pillage your cellar if you let them. There’s the famous story of the English wine writer who, while visiting one of the great Bordeaux chateaux, was asked what wine he might like to try during lunch. “Well, I haven’t had the 1899,” he suggested. The host, who’d met his sort before said simply, “It’s not a luncheon wine, dear boy.”

All of which is to suggest that you not get too carried away by holiday expansiveness. You don’t want to later suffer wine lover’s remorse, which is seeing your lovingly and carefully cellared bot tles of special wines, sequestered like prize witnesses in an important trial, slurped down like so much grog.

Besides, really great wines ac tually are brain-strainers. They take all the spontaneity out of a friendly holiday dinner, like some one announcing, “Now, listen up everybody, I’ve got something important to say.”

Consider the following as sea sonal treats that will publicly de light everyone and, more secretly,save your cellar from impulse giving.

HERE’S THE (HOLIDAY) DEAL

GRUET BLANC DE NOIRS NON-VINTAGE

It’s like a story from a 1960s art-house movie In 1983 the Gruet family, who grow grapes in France’s Champagne region, were jaunting through New Mexico on a family vacation They met a group of European winemakers who had planted vineyards in Engle, about 170 miles south of Albuquerque.

The following year, family patriarch Gilbert Gruet decided to plant an experimental vine yard, exclusively for pinot noir and chardon nay. Subsequently, his children, Laurent and Nathalie, planted themselves in New Mexico to grow a new sparkling wine business.

I know what you’re saying: sparkling wine in New Mexico? How good could it be? All can say in response is,”Trust me.This stuff is amazingly good.” The reason is elevation Gruet’s vineyards are at 4,300 feet in eleva tion.There can’t be many vineyards anywhere in America at a higher elevation than that.

Of course you remember the “normal lapse rate”: for every 1,000 feet in elevation the temperature drops three and one-half degrees. For a grapevine, that’s huge. In New Mexico, no matter how hot it gets during the day, at 4,300 feet the temperature plunges at night.

All of which explains both the plausibility and fruit-intensive goodness of Gruet’s pale salmon-hued Blanc de Noir sparkling wine made mostly from pinot noir and aged on the lees or sediment for two years. The result is really lovely bubbly, with a note of raspber ries and a rich, creamy texture. Really, this is terrific sparkling wine that even French Champagne snobs will appreciate with (surprised) respect.

Now for the best part:You can pick up Gruet Blanc de Noir non-vintage for $10.99 a bottle Upon hearing that price I can hear you say again,”How good can it be?”And I can only repeat, with pleasure, “Trust me. This stuff is amazingly good.” Widely available at Astor Wines, PJ Wines, and Zachys, among others.

DOLCETTO D’ALBA 2004, LUIGI PIRA One of Italy’s most pleasing red wines comes from the dolcetto grape variety that is grown almost exclusively in the Piedmont region of north west Italy.

Back in the 1980s, dolcetto was the red wine darling of the Italian wine set. Then growers got greedy and high prices persuad ed these fans to move on to other wines such as barbera.

However, a good dolcetto is like no other red: soft, lush, accommodating to anything from chili con carne to prime rib, and offering a berry scent accented with a faint whiff of bit ter almond. It’s a luscious, inviting red that neither needs nor deserves any more aging than the time it takes to bring it home from the store and pull the cork.

The trick, as always, is finding a really good one at a better-than-usual price. This brand new bottling from the producer Luigi Pira is the ticket. A small grower in the Serralunga d’Alba section of the Barolo zone (read:choice real estate), young Giampaolo Pira assumed command of the winemaking for his family’s 20 acres of vines, while his father and brother work the vineyards.Pira’s wines are now in creasingly sought-after, as quality has noticeably improved.

This 2004 Dolcetto d’Alba shows why. It’s textbook-perfect: intense yet balanced, brimming with ripe, juicy dolcetto goodness yet possessed of surprising elegance and flavor delineation. It’s a stunner.And the price is very right in today’s inflated dolcetto market: $15 a bottle.Look for a street price as low as $11.50 PJ Wine). This is worth seeking out.