Cava!

Bubble yum

noshing & sipping

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If the goal of a quality alcoholic beverage is to slide down nice and easy, then cava is dangerously effective. In fact, we hardly knew it was going down at all. The light Catalonian sparkling wine, experts tell us, is the hot new alternative to Champagne. They also tried to convince us that it's pretty different from the fancy French bubbly.

"Cava's not quite as serious as Champagne," says Shane Lessard at Central Square's Central Kitchen, which sells cava by the flute for $6. Rauxa, in Somerville's Union Square, calls itself a cava bar, and offers several types of cava for those who disagree with Shane's assessment that "one cava's good enough."

Swilling the subtle drink the other night, we found it thin, citrusy, and oddly similar to flavored sparkling water. That is, until we fuzzily realized the subtlety was a decoy. By that point, we really believed Shane when he said, "The bottom line of cava is, it's fun."

Central Kitchen, 567 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 491-5599. Rauxa, 70 Union Square, Somerville, (617) 623-9939.

-- Nina Willdorf

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