TRYING TO MAKE

smart purchases in the luxury market these days can be a little confusing. That's because the lines between high-end and midlevel retailers continue to blur, with designers like Giorgio Armani now offering everything from $795 entry-level suits (Emporio Armani) to its $60,000 made-to-order jobs. On the other end of the spectrum, middlebrow mall retailer J. Crew has announced a new "couture-quality" line, with coats selling for an eye-popping $1,300.

For our fourth annual "Best of Everything" story, we've tried to make sense out of all this brand confusion, with a rigorous look at top-end products. With labels like Gucci putting their marque on everything from yoga mats to playing cards, it's clear that savvy shoppers can no longer buy on name alone. So to sort the quality goods from the marketing hype, we've placed our emphasis squarely on connoisseurship. Of course, anyone's picks for the "best" are subjective, but we've consulted the pros, tested the products and, in one case, plied a newsroom full of reporters with mail-order grass-fed beef.

The Best of Mail-Order Beef

John Fraser, chef of New York's Dovetail restaurant, bites into a juicy slice of grass-fed Uruguayan beef. He closes his eyes and chews. "Now, that's a beautiful piece of meat," he says, then pauses to chew a bit more. "It's so...beefy."

We've invited Fraser to cook and eat high-end, mail-order beef. And not just any beef, but grass- and grain-fed, organic and natural-style cuts the hottest and fastest-growing niches in a market that, until the past few years, didn't have niches. Making up less than 1% of the billion-dollar beef market, specialty beef has seen huge growth of late: The amount of grass-fed cow meat alone sent to market has more than doubled since 2005. Prized for its earthy flavor, low fat content and antibiotic- and hormone-free profile, it offers steak lovers unadulterated beef taste.

But order with care; the smaller quantities produced by these ranchers can lead to inconsistent flavor. And grass-fed beef, for many the sine qua non of red meat, has a nutty, even gamey, flavor that some may not be used to. That said, our favorite, Niman Ranch's USDA Prime Filet ($63 a pound), was absolutely ravishing on the palate. "Your saliva goes wild," Fraser moans.

The Best of Plasma TVs

When you can identify individual blades of grass on a major league baseball field, it's no wonder that high-definition sets are gaining serious market traction. Experts have long given the nod to plasma displays, which allow viewing from wider angles, offer sharper contrast, and boast more and better colors.

Our winner? The Panasonic TH-50PZ75OU ($3,499).

At 50 inches, the size we tested, there are certain features we think will sweeten your picture. For eye-popping image and sound, make sure your set has the Ferrari-speed cable connection. (It's called HDMI.) And for the sharpest resolution, you'll want to pack in the pixels. While 720p (720 vertical rows of pixels) has long been the industry standard, the most recent advancement is 1080p.

The 1080s tend to cost more, but we think they're worth the splurge. On our winner, the elegantly housed Panasonic TH-50PZ750U ($3,499), image quality was so vibrant and sharp that we couldn't turn away from a stinker like "The Legend of Zorro"; at 1080p, the fiery train explosion at the movie's climax practically had us checking our smoke detector. And while its technical specs can be hard to fathom who can differentiate between 68.7 billion colors, anyway? Panasonic lets you easily adjust the picture with a few simple presets. Which leaves you more time to find a better movie than we did.

The Best of Winter Adventures

As more travelers look to scratch their snow itch beyond the limits of a typical ski-resort vacation, it's no wonder the $25 billion adventure-tourism industry has seen a surge in its winter-sports niche. But these days, adventure often comes with a little more luxury. At the Resort at Paws Up in Greenough, Mont., campers can "rough it" in tents complete with heated bathroom floors, while the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, Colo., has a ski concierge and ski nanny on call. Of course, at $3,500 or more, prices for today's winter-travel extravaganzas can trigger serious brain freeze.

For more Best of Everything picks, from cashmere to road bikes, pick up the December issue of SmartMoney magazine.

For that kind of money, why opt for a trip that locks you in to a single activity when you can choose one that lets you try it all? That's the logic behind our pick: a weeklong, $4,480 (per couple) stay in the Adirondacks at Lake Placid Lodge's coveted Owl's Head cabin, which boasts a private porch with lake and mountain views, a stone fireplace and enormous soaking tub. And for $10 to $525 (per couple) per outing, the Lodge will arrange anything from dogsled rides and professionally guided ice-climbing to ice fishing, cross-country skiing or snowshoe explorations. Cap it all off with an in-cabin spa treatment. After all, you are on vacation.

The Best of Champagne

It's a little before 10 a.m., and we've just popped open our first bottle of Champagne and clinked glasses with our new drinking buddy, Aldo Sohm, wine

Salon Le Mesnil 1996 ($350) was our top pick.

director of New York's famed Le Bernardin and the American Sommelier Association's reigning Best Sommelier in America. Champagne, of course, is a favorite of everyone from moguls to rappers, with sales up for the fifth consecutive year. But with top-shelf bottles surpassing the $500 mark, we needed professional taste buds. Sohm fits the bill, explaining that most Champagnes are nonvintage (made with a blend of grapes from various years), while the most sought-after and priciest are created from a single vintage and aged at least three years.

What really wows us? The sole Champagne of the prestigious but little-known House of Salon. Salon Le Mesnil 1996 ($350) is a blanc de blancs, meaning it's made entirely from chardonnay (most also include pinot noir). Sohm admires how it manages to be both bold and creamy, with flavor that "literally explodes on the palate."

With additional reporting by Ken Bensinger, Ren e DeFranco and Barry Petchesky