New Year’s Eve is the perfect time for a party and a few drinks.

Twelve of us headed up to Maine for a night of skiing and hanging out in a rented condo for the night. We packed our cars full of ski equipment, board games, food and drinks. (And cake balls, of course!)

After a few hours of “skiing” (I like to put quotation marks around it because, as a first-timer, what I was doing on skis was anything but skiing), we headed back in for the night.

My drink of choice for the night was sangria. I’ve been LOVING sangria lately. A couple friends of mine always seem to have it ready at their house, so now I’m hooked. I recently bought them a bottle of wine so I didn’t feel like a mooch, and they brought it to the party to share.

It wasn’t just any old wine off the shelf. It was local wine, from LaBelle Winery in Amherst. I had remembered seeing a recipe for sangria on its Web site, so we used LaBelle’s own dry apple wine in the mix.

So not only was there a pitcher of red sangria, we had a pitcher of white. And I really liked the white sangria! It was just as fruity as red. I definitely plan on picking up more of this in the future!

I thought I would celebrate the ball drop with my glass of sangria, but then we remembered that I brought champagne! Not only did I bring a bottle of Barefoot’s Extra Dry bubbly, a friend had brought the exact same thing. We turned on the TV to watch Dick Clark’s “Rockin’ New Year’s Eve,” and we were ready for the countdown.

As “2009″ flickered across the screen, we all clinked our glasses together in celebration. A cup of Barefoot was the perfect way to do so.

Let’s hear about what you were drinking!