00 Mile de Noyers, Chablis Premier Cru Les Lys Vineyard

Maybe it's true that nothing good lasts forever, but I'd always assumed chardonnay was the exception. At its best, it goes from powerfully tart, food-friendly fruit flavors (apple, apple skins, pear, and raw quince) to an unceasing, arm-chilling nuttiness that I believe might actually resemble the outer limits of the universe (this tasting note has proven difficult to test). But at its worst, it actually tastes like chardonnay. And there's the big risk that Chablis runs. Save for the hot (weather and business) run in 1990, common Chablis--almost by rule (but not)--judiciously, if not parsimoniously, uses new oak. The point is, they're never slipping one past us. This isn't overpriced Cali chardonnay. It's not over-delicious Meursault. It's just the grape. Chardonnay. Which tastes like apples. No secrets. And, if you believe, sometimes the earth. Terroir. Whatever. I still believe there's a secret vial of chalk butter roux that the Chablisienne slip into their aged barrels. Or maybe all Chablis is made by student teachers and hall monitors after third-period French lit, dusting the erasers clean. Regardless, nine years in, the fruit's dead in this Noyers single vineyard bottling, which means it's all over. There's no creamy spiced oak coming out, no dank woody perfume. Just some apple--no better or worse than a fall lunch in the park--with the slightest finish of butter, and a fatigued sense of "who cares anyway?" More like an old albarino than Chablis. Shocking, maybe, or short-sighted of me, considering the provenance--a vintage that the brilliant wine writer Andrew Jefford rated as one of the greatest Chablis of all time, on par with the historic 1990. Perhaps ages and ages hence, I'll turn up another dusty bottle and find to everyone's great surprise all the complex flavors I was looking for were there, just hiding in the woodwork. Or maybe in Chablis there is no such place to hide.

09, Crisis at The Eyrie Vineyards

A close friend and former colleague today tipped me to some heartbreaking news. And while it's not my place to be involved in matters personal or business, this one impacts anyone who enjoys reading this blog. Because one of the very dear inspirations for my work--as much as I'd like to pretend I have no biases--is The Eyrie Vineyards, whose wines I like well enough, but whose culture, I adore. Without the late David Lett, his son Jason, and their noble cadre of winemakers, vineyard hands, and sales staff, there might be no Oregon pinot noir. And I don't think it's much a stretch to say that I'd be drinking the same cabernets as everyone else, desperately trying to communicate the significance of "95+ points." Sure, we still would have had Ponzi, Adelsheim, Erath, and many others, but I'm not so sure we'd call it "Oregon pinot" as much as "pinot noir from Oregon." The Eyrie branded what's grown to be one of the most significant landscapes--physically and emotionally--for wine anywhere in the world. And now one of its most vital organs is under siege. Guadalupe Hernandez, wife of The Eyrie cellarmaster Julio Hernandez, has suffered renal failure and needs a kidney transplant. The generous family at The Eyrie is doing its best to help, but as any American knows, the costs of critical healthcare in this country are astronomical. In response, The Eyrie has produced two wines--a chardonnay and a pinot noir--under the La Luz label, with proceeds going to fund Mrs. Hernandez's fight. I haven't reviewed them and never will, but I will make my first official "Buy" recommendation. Buy these wines. A total of only 300 cases exist. And if you purchase them now from Storyteller Wine Company, that old friend and colleague of mine will personally donate $5 for every bottle you buy. Hell, I'll even give them 95+ points. >>

94 Foreau, Vouvray Sec

People have lost their jobs for less, but I'm self-employed on 750 mL, so I can say this: you must try this wine exactly once in your life... But in the meantime, here are my years-old notes on the dry 2002, for which this 94 is a telling omen, and the sweeter 1995 Moelleux. They're proof that I'm getting old, and that nothing could be better.

06 Belle Pente, Pinot Noir Belle Pente Vineyard

I would have had this wine sooner, but I was looking for my good corkscrew. The one I've had since I was 21. A compass to gauge perfect center on the cork closure. Christmas lights. I had to put on my mood ring. Maybe more than any other producer, Belle Pente captures Oregon pinot noir. Relax. Don't get up in arms at me about The Eyrie. Or Ponzi. Or any other boy up north. Let me clarify myself. I'm talking about Yamhill-Carlton. Not the oh Oregon can make Burgundy wines. Not the see I told you they can'ts. The ones that say what exactly are you talking about and who gave you permission to write about it. Let me see your yellowjacket scars. I'm talking about the kind of wine Soter makes before I even look at the bottle or remember that Soter's Mineral Springs is from the same place. Sometimes, terroir is so fucking obvious. So much so, that I couldn't care less if you knew this was from Yamhill, or even Oregon. The point is, it's completely unique, but it still reminds you of something. So what could that mean? What does it mean if that happens, but what you're reminded of is a late spring afternoon on a beach in Normandy with your dad's credit card (he still doesn't know). Or the first evening your fiancee turned the tables and made you dinner--the best fucking dinner you've ever had, yeah, sorry Mr. Kahan. That's what we're talking about when we say terroir, when we say "sense of place." It's more than soil or tradition, it's about having your bearings. Getting the fluids in your ear level. (In Yamhill's case, distinctively plush, low-acid fluids.) Absurdly smooth, rich, and spicy, when I think "Oregon," this is exactly the kind of wine I think of. That doesn't mean it's good or bad. Or that great winemakers doing something different should give half a care. But it does mean that in all the years I've been drinking Oregon pinot, a few styles have stood out to me. Styles that make me want to replace the French word "terroir" with an American word: pride. Black cherries, fennel, maduro pipe tobacco, espresso, and sweet San Daniele proscuitto fat? Yeah, those are the flavors we make. No, we didn't figure that out drinking Gevrey-Chambertin. This is our beautiful slope. Our beautiful slope.

06 Bouchard Pere et Fils, Bourgogne Monthelie Les Duresses

I might as well have been holding the oracle of Delphi, because everyone was transfixed and no one would dare question me while this was on the table. At L2O, Chef Laurent Gras' seafood capital of the world... most statements begin and end there. Yeah, I was at L2O, and it was amazing, but it was also a bit of a landmark for this wine. Because at the end of the night, tempura lobster, Osetra, even foie gras "snow" aside, it was this pinot noir that stole the show. I consider myself lucky. While paging through what might have been a 100-page wine list, I came across this bottle. But how could I have the answer? Obviously, there's a better wine in here for my meal. So I asked, I'd love this Monthelie, but I'd be up for your recommendations. "No, that's pretty much it." But even she was amazed. In its youth, this wine from the south-facing neighbor of Volnay is all the sensuous, silky pinot that one man in a committed relationship can possibly take. Pulled from Les Duresses, the region's best vineyard, it magnifies flavors of raspberry, ginger, and pepper. But the flavors don't matter. They'll be different depending on whether you're having it with sushi-grade tuna, flash-frozen foie dust, roasted vegetables, steak, or on its own. What won't be is how you feel afterwards, which is rejuvenated, slightly incredulous, raw, but handled well. Question my taste, ask me what you will, but this is the answer.

To Chicken Mamou with Brix

You look surprised. I thought you expected me. As some of your may have noticed, 750 mL recently introduced Paire, a personalized wine pairing service that we'll be running for the next week. The idea's simple. Post your meal plans and we'll send you a one-on-one email with our ideas for wine pairings. Nothing is off limits. But key to this is that your email address works. So to Chicken Mamou, who wrote me earlier this morning, I've got ideas ranging from the Brooks Amycas to, yes, even beaujolais nouveau. Unfortunately, your AOL email box is full, so you'll never know what else I have to offer. Write me back at 750mL.blogspot@gmail.com when you're ready, though. To everyone else, click here to start using Paire.

05 Betz Family Winery, Columbia Valley Besoleil

I swear I recognize your face. I always feel that way with grenache--whether the juicy, dusty red is from Spain, Australia, southern France, or here in Columbia Valley, where I now have suspicion to believe the ground is made of marrow bones and the spirit of some ancient, possibly Aztec, god of cocoa beans. I'm not so sure we're at a place yet to say what Washington wine means--not so much as Oregon might be pinot noir, Germany riesling--and if the retail shops had their way, we'd probably peg it closest to rich, fruity cab. And we wouldn't be wrong. Some of Washington's truly best wines, including Bob Betz's own, are Bordeaux by any other name. If you searched a little harder, had enough geeky friends, you'd quickly be convinced from Charlie Smith, Christophe Baron, and, again, Bob Betz, really the whole point is syrah. Which is maybe why the Betz family has devoted almost its entire portfolio to Rhone-styled wines. But the 2005 Besoleil--young yet still easily the most beautifully aged grenache I've ever had (often the humble varietal goes flat, too grapey, rotten, or overwhelmed by creamy oak)--starts to make the case that Washington is made for grenache. I don't say that lightly, or without knowing what it is to drink cab and merlot from Dubrul, syrah from Cailloux. Instead, it's the terroir that Betz uses to power this fruit, grenache sourced largely from Horse Heaven Hills, Washington's largest and maybe most indicative AVA, that leaves me so convinced. The Besoleil, more than 80% grenache supported by mourvedre and syrah, has the dark, brambly, inspiring raspberry and blackberry fruit that makes me lust after this region. You'll know it well if you've ever been to a great restaurant. It smells like a Michelin kitchen, complex but focused. There's nothing in here we didn't mean. Yes, you smell coal and rosemary. It's because we roast our chickens underground and feed our ducks plums. All I can think of is Alinea. Of course, if you're from Columbia Valley, you just figure I'm some haughty, over-metaphorical writer who's clearly coming close to finishing the bottle already. Because to you, it doesn't smell like Alinea, Tru, or the back table by the service line at Bar Tartine. You probably smell the river, see the view looking out to Oregon. You hear the sweaty echo in the valley and whisper in the cool, stemmy nights through shin-sharpened grass. Haunting, familiar yet you can't seem to place it. But it's in us. Whatever the memory. High-end dinners, first kisses in France's lavendar countryside, the light purple taffy and royal icing you used to eat on your birthday. Whatever that memory, that's what Bob Betz has captured. That's what Washington wine stands for.

06 L'Ecole No. 41, Columbia Valley Merlot

I believe in the goodness of others because of this wine, by far the best of America's Bordeaux-style bottles. Yes, class is in session. There are fuller bodied wines. Fruitier. Sweeter. Earthier. Better with roast beef. But none so evocative. The label is just semantics--a merlot, sure, but calling it one is like calling chicken soup chicken. Yes it's the most important component and drives a powerful punch of silky blueberry and black cherry flavors. But it wouldn't be a meal without the carrots, noodles, and matzo ball. Fortunately, the carrot here is 3% cabernet sauvignon, the noodles 5% petit verdot, and the giant matzo a generous tenth or so of cabernet franc so tremendous that New York should just stop. A lot of things are perfect about this wine from the seizure-enducing cinnamon and leather sole aroma to the elegant balance of fruit and terroir. But what will ruin you for any other merlot is the finish. If you've loved Bordeaux, this will instantly place you in Lalande de Pomerol before you realize that what's happening here--a study in dark cocoa powder, carob, and the enterprising affection of espresso if you insist on knowing the ending--isn't about comparing terroir or having a wine review site. It's about happiness, nothing corny or sentimental, just real downright happiness. That's the lesson. Wash your ears, change your underwear, remember to eat, and try, if you can, to be happy.

09, Wine and Spirits Top 100

While I often question the purpose of these lists, the truth is, they're very necessary. And maybe for me the problem's never been that they exist, but instead why. When I first started in the wine business, I was greener than some of the chardonnays I would come to love, and so blanketed myself in that cold alleyway of wine knowledge with reams of wine mags. At the time, this blog was loosely called a zine. And, even knowing nothing, I knew some things could never make sense. I had famous blunders myself--once loudly proclaiming in a crowd of real live people that no Champagne in the world could challenge the world's best, um, beer. You had to give it to me. The little kid had heart. You don't teach heart. But you could, apparently, teach damp, moldy soullessness, then known as "Perfection in Piedmont," the November 30, 2003 issue of Wine Spectator magazine. The accessible, wildly perfumed vintage may very well have been perfection, but it was that all-or-nothing attitude that I took issue with. And though Mr. James Suckling knew an awful lot more about wine than I did, the two of us had the same fatal flaw. We would stop at nothing to, in the words of Dave Chappelle, just keep it real. But wine is a university of passionate ideas, tangential tracks united by the major that each one, though fallible, is worth pursuing for at least a few years. So I come to hate these haughty, often self-righteous lists for starting to suggest that maybe everything's not worth trying. Here are your 90-point wines, make pot roast with the rest. But we ultimately need some direction, provided our egos would exercise discretion. You don't want to buy every wine. And my accountant won't let me. It's why wine blogs, for all their failings, have done so well these past few years. Why even books polemically against the canonized rating systems themselves guide readers into purchasing specific bottles. So the that is just fine with me. We're not going to ever get around writing about wines. If a great bottle of wine should come with one accessory, it is not a corkscrew or VacuVin; it's a pencil, or maybe one dusty teletype as a nod to the modern age. And so naturally we'll rate them. But why we're doing this has to go past looking for headlines or trying to fill that void inside of us that looks for just one thing in this ridiculous world to be completely perfect. It's why I like almost the sheer surprise with which Wine and Spirits approaches its blind ratings, and the subtle gesture it makes by acknowledging not just the world's best wines, but the world's best wineries. Watching publisher Joshua Greene drink Cristal, a Champagne I've lauded beyond its PR successes as one of the greatest things in this universe (better, even, than beer), I couldn't help but notice how little he could talk about the wine and how much he and Gary Vaynerchuck talked about other things--rating systems among them. Unlike other tastings in the segment, the Cristal was a conduit for conversation--so good (Mr. Greene declaring the 2002 one of the four "perfect" wines he's ever had) it actually fell into the pastoral. As normally as there was a camera in front of them and a wall behind, these two men were drinking Cristal. And, oh yeah, it's perfect. And still Mr. Greene couldn't bring himself to call it the "best." Instead, he concluded, "this is the best--not the best--the most elegant and energetic wine that they make." What a tremendous reason to fall in love. This isn't how you talk about a wine; this was how you talked about Sophia Loren. It took a couple days of reading this to myself, but that may very well be my point. How can we look for wines to wow us with their 100-point personalities when the truly great wines of this world hardly ever speak so loud? Instead, they blend themselves into our surroundings--amaze us, no doubt, but in the way the final stroke of a brush completes a painting, the final reverb chord a score. And back to one. Wine and Spirits' list this year includes many of my favorite wineries, including L'Ecole No. 41, Krug, Ogier, Movia, Bruno Paillard, J.J. Prum, and Andrew Will. The issue hits stands October 13, and I intend to spend that fall night completely wrapped up in it.

05 Nicolas Joly, Savennieres Les Clos Sacres

As common and noticed is the tide, I've drank this wine. It's been constant in my glass--a wine I've never bought retail, mind you, but something like my fat, love-starved cat that just keeps showing up under my arm. I would pet you if I could. So why never write about it, and why write about it now, when I don't even have a glass in front of me... More to come.

...a great coincidence, looks like Eric Asimov at the New York Times was thinking the same thing. Uncanny: "Several times I’ve opened one of his bottles and thought it was corked, only to find after a little while that it decidedly was not." Almost everyone I know would affirm I've said that every time I've opened a bottle of Savennieres. While I collect all my notes on this Joly, please check out Eric's post on The Pour here.

07 La Cantina Pizzolato, Veneto IGT Prosecco

I don't ever mean to make sourdough. I love to cook, but I hate baking bread. And by the time the dough's proofed, I've already turned off the stove, made biscuits, eaten, drank wine, and played a couple games of Madden. For that much time, I'd rather drop the $4 to buy some genius' wood-fired loaf instead. So, I always end up with sourdough--a Kitchen Aid mixing bowl of unbleached flour, yeast, water, and a bubbling lack of ambition. Owing to my profound talent for laze and decomposition, I don't even remember to mix the damn stuff. Which means, really, what I have is hardly anything close to the embryo of carbs you crave beside a pot of moules marinieres, and more a thin scum of autolytic yeast drowned in a kiddie pool of what amounts to moonshine. That's how you learn the taste of great prosecco. Yeasty, but clean and tart with hardly any recognizable fruit to anyone but the most ardent of crabapple tree farmers, this organically grown vintage Venetian froth is all the sparkling wine most people will ever need. It has nothing in common with my favorite wines, but it's so lovely in its crisp, dry, steely, and autumnal simplicity that it could be four minutes and 33 seconds of silence--our tongues open to the air around it instead of the bubbles inside. Which means that everyone, save that fetishist at your table who takes his wine sweet and really deserves a Sprite with a side of Cheetos for dinner, will love this--and love it unknowingly, grab for it at the center of the table between breaths the way we might reach for the salt or a loaf of bread to fortify our meals, comfort us, and disappear.

08 Pepperwood Grove, Valle Central Pinot Noir

It tasted like a science experiment, so I thought I'd run my own tests. This is the taste that made me hate wine when I first tried it thousands of gallons ago. Sharp, acidic, alcoholic--it tastes so damn adult, like something they brought out at the big table over Thanksgiving. We weren't supposed to touch it, but the truth is, nor was anyone else. They took it in out of ritual, a little like communion wine. Or placenta. Problem wasn't the wine, though--it was that horrible air of respect. That defensive notion that we should revere what we don't understand, respect it, and, well, swallow. But you could've felt the same way about gin before mixing it with an olive, vermouth, and ice. Or green coffee beans before roasting them and steeping them in water. This isn't a wine, it's an important part of wine, and in that way closer to grape must than what we know as pinot noir. So it's incomplete, which I guess means buying it is like taking your son to Pizza Hut for getting a C in gym. Well, I found the strength shoes that make junk pinot noir a rose by any other name: grenadine (which, of course, you have on hand to make Heineken Monacos on weekends), a drop of which transforms this cheap, acetic pinot noir into nothing short of Oregon terroir. I've gone too far. But the next time you end up with a pinot this disappointing, add a little grenadine, which immediately adds the oily raspberry and pomegranate flavor you usually pay another $20 for. Seems unfair. I'm sure I could throw a little free-trade vanilla extract to this and end up with Sea Smoke. But what's amazing about the grenadine is that it doesn't sit on top. It fills in all the gaps, instead, even adding enough body and aroma to make you double-take on the bottle. Your takeaway isn't this discovery though, as handy as the tip may be. Instead, I want you to leave thinking what would drive me to do something like this. Dissect the meaning of "bad wine." Is it worse to be so bad you dump it down the drain, or feel so much pity that you find a need to fix it? My stomach's happy. Stupid tongue doesn't know any better. But, my do I feel so sad. This post is over. It's time to call my mother. See if she needs anything. Maybe I should come over this weekend.

07 Arcane Cellars, Willamette Valley Pinot Gris Reserve

Fitting that I'd drink this after Eyrie, who planted the country's first pinot gris. Funny how so little has changed. Maybe, I'll admit, this isn't a varietal much suited to change, but the plush sweet tart candy profile is starting to wear thin. In every way Arcane's wine is doing nothing wrong. And while I'll usually commend some Basque whites and albarino for that trait alone, Alsace and Italy have proven that pinot gris shows itself on a wide spectrum of flavors fat to lean. Spritey, summery, and just the slightest bit milky (or maybe egg white-y), it's the perfect profile for lemon meringue. And if you try hard enough, lime zest and something I can only describe as smoked loose leaf paper comes through. It's great fruit. And I guess that's the surprise. No stoniness--OK here it comes: no terroir. It doesn't have to have that. I'd gladly guzzle this wine. But then what exactly are we "reserve"-ing this for, and what really have we done with this grape for all these years?

02 The Eyrie Vineyards, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Reserve

Love is an iterative process. It changes you, you change the one you love, and it takes a little editing, fidgeting maybe, to get it all to work out in the end. I know wine changes. Usually, it goes bad. I know I change. Quickly get sick of the wine I might've drank all summer long last year. But rarely do we both change right enough to know each other better. One year after my first, the 02 Eyrie Reserve pinot--one of son Jason's final wines under the tutelage of Papa Pinot David Lett--is a complete masterpiece. It hates me, tastes odd, and leaves me wanting more. This is in fact the way I hope to age, mature, but still robust and full of life. The wine has somehow picked up intensity and is currently a cliffhanging invitation to drink again next year, the year after, and every year until David returns. I like David's wines because they always seemed more "Burgundian" than Burgundian wine. People love to throw that word around. It's come to mean light or elegant, as if anything that arouses so much passion and lust could ever be those two things. I read "Burgundian" a little differently; it means committed. It means we believe in this soil, or we'll push through and try to harvest through the rain; we'll drink what we want with what we want to eat, and sometimes whatever's in the garden will do just fine. When I first tried David's 2002 pinot last May, I could tell it had some legs. It was plush, at times sweet, and really little like the image of Eyrie I had in my head. But I could hear him, or my impersonation of a man I regret never having met, sweet, raspy, and tart, saying this is what the wine is, this is what it was when the oldest Oregon pinot vines were planted in 1966, I love you, and shut up.

00 Jean Milan, Champagne Oger Grand Cru "Terres de Noel" Blanc de Blancs Brut

It's an honor to drink Champagne from a winemaker whose house style is apparently "perfection." That's the flavor profile of the 2000 Terres de Noel, Jean Milan's tete de cuvee bottling, one of the best vintage Champagnes of the new millennium. Seen from any side, it's the height of chardonnay, whose 65-year-old grand cru vines make up 100% of this single-vineyard wine. It's no coincidence that most of the vines face southeast here, much like Burgundy's Cote d'Or, soaking up the sun, but otherwise kept lean by the sporadic chill. It's both richer at nine years than the brilliant 1995 was at 11--lush with the frothy flavors of golden delicious apples, inch-thick San Francisco sourdough, and Snakebite cocktail--and more mature, with the nutty biscuity aroma that, basically, I live for. I want you to run to this wine. Buy extra glasses, as you'll drop several in astonishment, and pay whatever taxes, shipping, or antiquated restaurant markups necessary. Pour it. Drink it straight from the bottle. Or Christen your newborn child with it. I don't care what you do. But the way you'd at least look at the Eiffel Tower if you visited Paris, or the pyramids in Egypt, you must try Milan's Champagne if you consider yourself a resident of great wine. It's a landmark of the region that either reminds us where we are or how much farther we must go.

05 Soter Vineyards, Pinot Noir Yamhill-Carlton District Mineral Springs Vineyard

I remember my first Italian beef sandwich. Not because it had anything to do with culture or the aura of Chicago street food. It was the first thing I ever bought myself, with a few weeks worth of the pocket change and gum wrappers immigrant parents called an allowance in the 80s. I'd never forget the taste, but really it was the royal power I felt--8-year-old kid pressed back in the formica booth, hot, salty, and dripping jus. Everybody eats Italian beef, but I felt like I'd discovered something that would one day be named after me. So maybe Tony Soter will one day rename himself 750 mL. Or, I'll name my firstborn Mineral Springs. I felt like standing on my tiptoes while I drank this wine. Shifting my voice down an octave. Sinking my head down so you can't see the youth in my eyes. This is Oregon pinot noir all grown up. Or maybe it's Richebourg. The most wonderful incarnation--lush and loving with sweet black cherry fruit that made the hair on my arms stand up; a round, sappy texture; and a bouquet that smells something like a mix between pomegranate sweet tea, carnations, white roses, and a marriage proposal. I bought this for myself. With money I saved. And that means no one can take it from me. And I don't have to wipe the drippings from my chin or the ones sliding down to my elbow. At least not until I get home and mom asks, what's that smell?

06 Mark West, Central Coast Chardonnay

I hate grad students. Not you, but most of them. Not all of them. Certainly not the ones pursuing some vocation or scientific research that four years of college just couldn't contain. But, well, you know the ones. The ones who are going to change something--usually everything--with the gentle wave of a 27-page paper. I don't hate them for their ambition or ideals; neither their passion nor their half-knowledge of all Eastern European languages. I don't even mind their blazers or their taste in ironic music. But I do hate them deeply. I hate them because every last one insists on drinking wine and ending up at the same parties I go to endlessly talking about "legs"--as if the whole MFA thing doesn't work out, they could be experts in Beyonce and Betty Grable. It was the one thing that almost kept me from even trying wine. A whole bunch of assholes admiring the oily streaks of alcohol that unbalanced wines leave on the side of the glass like a long lost love. So, assholes, this wine is for you. This is a base wine just bad enough to make people think it's interesting--and she's got great legs. Plus, a nice aroma of golden delicious apples, but the lean, green chlorophyll backbone really dominates. I guess if you swallow fast enough, it tastes pretty good. But all I find myself enjoying are those listless legs, lumbering back and forth, I get it--hot body, invisible mind.

07 Ana Vineyards, Dundee Hills ANA Vineyard Riesling

I'm putting on weight. That's not an observation (I've actually lost 20 pounds over the past year--hurrah), it's a pledge. Because I'm eating an entire sea bass with this wine, and I don't see how I can go another day without saying that again. This is riesling for the chardonnay drinker who hates his friends' chardonnays. A surprisingly lean, austere white from the otherwise Chinese massage parlor hands of Lynn Penner-Ash (whose wines are typically soothing and comforting at first, but tend to tickle you beneath the towel once you close your eyes), it fits more easily onto a shelf of warm-vintage Kabinett (slightly underripe by American standards) from Mosel Germany than anything from the New World. It has just the slightest bit of residual sugar--enough to make the racy lemon egg drop soup and warm-ammonia-inflected stone palate drinkable--but far, far less than what most people expect out of riesling nowadays. Let me be clear--this is in no way whatsoever a sweet wine. The tinge of sugar is more a Mendelian shout out to centuries of rootstock than a flavor itself. The fresh peach notes that take over the finish come to define summer for me, and the wine nerds will also quickly pick up on a whiff of minerally, tarpit aroma that smells half like diesel and half like an open canyon roasted by the August sun. Or maybe a handful of crumbly volcanic soil just damp from the Pacific mist that connects this half of the world to the other.

07 Grochau Cellars, Columbia Valley "Z" ("L") White

If arugula made a wine, this would be it. Which is to say, it takes all that's light, lovely, and easy about the world, and adds a powerful punch. Fuck you, lettuce. If grass represents the sun, these grapes--either some hardcore stainless steel chardonnay and gewurztraminer or some incredible sauvignon blanc, I'm not sure--are a sunburn cooking on the bottom of your chin as you sleep. It's a pain that creeps on and peels off of you, and despite that splotchy, raw texture, reminds you only of the good times. I completely love this wine in every possible way. Its lean, tart fruit reminds me of peeling green grapes with my front teeth, eating Granny Smith apples through an open sore in my cheek. It's spring and fall, dandelion dust and crabapples, with the same dirty, slightly smoky finish as Bouelvard's seared foie gras. I'm headed to the market right now for chicken livers--pate is in my future. It might pair well with this, but the point really is that I'm looking for something to salt. John's glorious table white inspires me to season things. It's a salt-and-peppered green mango, a note that joyously comes out in the aroma every time I say it. Salt-and-peppered mangoes. It has the lychee fruit of gewurtraminer, the white pepper of gruner veltliner, the suburban apple of underripe-please-make-me-sparkling chardonnay. I don't know how these wines trade hands, but all I can think about is Avec--the best tapas restaurant in Chicago. It fits so perfectly with that open style--communal tables, stemless glassware, one hot freaking oven cooking pork, octopus, pizza, and short ribs. Oh for God's sake, get me there. Meet me there with a case of this wine. Dinner's on me. The wine will probably be as well. Whatever it takes. Let's forget about the great Basque whites. Anything from Spain. We won't need Loire anymore either. And I'm willing to put Champagne up for review, too. There's purity in this wine--a trait I value tenfold over any prestige, pricetag, or progeny. This is where wine comes from--not Grochau or Columbia Valley, but from this base style. It tastes like the beginning. Before you get science involved. Before you start thinking about oak treatments and Parker scores and your ridiculous adjectives. This is where you start with wine and if you need to go any further, you have far too much time on your hands.

07 Stephenson Cellars, Washington State Viognier

The night started with the klink of a glass. No toast, no celebration--just the drop of three ice cubes into my neighbor's chardonnay. Paso Robles on the rocks. To be fair, it probably was pretty hot and, hey, if it tastes good drink it. But here's where I started getting worried. That Paso had nothing on my viognier, whose thick, lead-weight glass was doing everything it could to hold the 14.5% alcohol inside. But this would be warmth without fire. More hot stone massage than soup on the roof of your mouth, the Stephenson viognier is a lusty embrace of a wine--an Edenic catalog of citrus with slick, oily flavors of Grand Marnier, honey-buttered brioche, angel food cake, candied orange peel, tangerine sections, and waffles. It's a hot, heady wine, but all that alcohol actually works well here--much like in a great zinfandel--translating itself into a subtle, prickly white pepper spice that seasons and supports the fruit. It has the power and freshness that most viognier, including those from famed Condrieu, desperately lack. Viognier is a rich, forceful grape--one that has the texture of oaky, creamy chardonnay, without all that, well, oak and cream. And as a testament to that, this Stephenson study actually makes me feel more powerful. Probably just the booze talking, I know, but you really feel like you could break tables with your head after drinking this wine. I guess that's the point. This isn't a great review. It's a tough wine to write about because words aren't what it inspires. It makes you want to do something, anything, all the way.

Vintage Report: 2020 Cali Cab

I write about wine because I can't help it. I have to talk about this, and my voice is just too monotone to hear everyday. Not for you, for me. I can barely stand it. But reading my work lets me channel other voices. Today, in my head, I sound like Barry Gordy. Yesterday, it was the Indian guy from House. That one perk would be enough. But every now and then, I'm fortunate enough to get something even more tangible than that: alcohol. Unlike most wine publications, I don't solicit samples, but I do gladly accept them. And in the interest of objectivity, I either cook with them or stick them in the back of my cellar and pull them months later, once I've forgotten whether or not I paid for them. It's not Pricewaterhouse, but it works for me. So it was with great surprise today that I pulled back the brown paper bag I'd been pouring wine from this morning (oaky Australian grenache, I'd guessed) to reveal my first taste of the new vintage: 2020 Brentwood L.A. AVA California Cabernet. Sent from one of California's most respected cult wineries, this release is part of a new futures series soon hitting stores. "In anticipation of a warm year, plus the high probability of nuclear fallout and a renewed Republican government, we've gone ahead and selected our 2020 grapes. They clock in at more than 26 brix (a high sugar content in today's terms), but I should point out that one brix in the year 2020 represents 10 brix today. This is due to inflation." More to come...

04 Saint-Hilaire, Blanquette de Limoux Brut

Recession: Bring it on. Because the Saint-Hilaire bubbly isn't scared. And it's not just good enough to be an alternative to pricey Champagne, it eliminates the need for at least three popular brands I can think of off the top of my head. I won't say which ones, but these are three your local liquor store will recommend if you ask for a "nice, light Champagne; we're having guests over, maybe some cheese; and mimosas the next day." And they each cost more than twice as much as this wine. Despite what you've heard about some blind monk, truth is sparkling wine started here--yes here--on a high hill in southern France surrounded by, and looking down on, ripe red grapes. Saint-Hilaire is pawn to Queen four, a measured, common, but exciting opening move that makes everything possible. Lean and yeasty, crisp with the texture of tempura, it has all the classic green elements of terroir-driven white wine--lime zest, meyer lemon flesh, raw quince, granny smith apples, wheat grass, smoky chalk, and oyster shells, with moments of tangerine coming out minutes into the finish. This wine feels like a hot shower in October, window open to the mist outside.

05 K Vintners, Columbia Valley Wahluke Slope Sundance Vineyard Syrah "The Deal"

The thing is, Charlie is, in fact, a pretty nice guy. But this wine tastes completely like an asshole. A syrah on steroid demiglace, this single-vineyard bottling comes from the hottest slope in Washington--south-facing, no less, from a vineyard called "Sundance," perhaps as close as we get in the New World to France's Martian Cote-Rotie. It's the kind of wine that will burn the hair off your head and implant it directly into your nipples. Brothy and beefy, smelling slightly of spoiled pork butt roast, it's actually rather reductive. Though I hate to point out technical flaws, the lack of oxygen that causes this taint almost seems to be less because of winemaking and more because how could anything, even air, pass through a wine this dense. After that rotten rubber aroma blows off, though, we're left with a familiar style--one teeming with black peppercorns, blackberries, licorice (the jellybean when you thought you put a red one in your mouth), three-day-old Bordeaux, and permanent marker. You season filets with this. Ah, yes, the classic flavor wheel. OK, maybe not by professional tasting standards, but I get the impression that this is the palate Charlie's usually going for. Big fruit mixed with big whatever-the-fuck-it-takes-to-get-that-fruit. The Deal is a reckless masterpiece, made for those drinkers who thought The Ramones was the greatest pop band of the 80s. Because loud and fast, as any New World wine lover knows, can still be pop. But punk doesn't play on the stereo. It doesn't have t-shirts, and it doesn't have fans. It's in a bottle, in a bin, believing in miracles because it is one.

04 Ash Hollow, Columbia Valley Merlot

In Oregon, they call this Bergstrom. In California, they call this Sea Smoke. In the Rhone, it is Domaine Royer. But what's amazing is that, somehow, in Walla, this can still be called merlot. Because I don't mean it tastes like pinot or syrah or grenache. It's not that. It's more that this wine defies the conventions of its varietal the same way the other three great vintners I mentioned do. At once both heavily extracted and heavily attuned to its DNA, the Ash Hollow is nothing if not all the pomp, circumstance, and bombast of Parker-era New World wine. It does nothing to define terroir. Instead, it spends all its time positioning the hand of its winemaker, which is large, deliberate, and decidedly hairy. By which I mean, let's not kid ourselves. This wine is not abalone sashimi. It's beef Wellington--a perfect cut of filet mignon unnecessarily coated in foie, mushrooms, butter, and motherfucking puff pastry. It's ripe with unctuous flavors of strawberry, blueberry, hints of fennel, and the most complex aroma of white pepper and leather. It's easy to try this wine and think it's just another juicy American merlot. It almost is just that. It almost is too much. Which means it's just right. Just perfectly right. And in so many ways not the kind of wine I've normally championed on this site. I don't taste a bunch of rocks and gravel, nitrogen and UV radiation. I taste a shot in the dark; one that hits right in the heart and keeps aiming in that same direction as I fall. First it hurts. Then I'm filled with rage. Then I'm weak, and see my life, and everything I've loved, and am filled with light, flowers, and the incurable desire to keep going on.

NV Toro Loco, La Tierra de Cordoba Blanco Joven White Wine

There are cooking wines better than this. It's unpalatably pungent, with the nutty oxidation and thin acidity that you'd most closely identify with fino sherry. Great there, gagging here. Clearly marketed as a superyoung-drink-right-now wine (though the lack of vintaging makes me question how committed Toro Loco actually is to making sure I don't grab a wine too old--can't I at least have a freshness date?), it's clear that this bottle is already too old. And, were there vintages, I could at least say to make sure you grab the 07 or 08. But without them, all I can say is that it's a crapshoot. I've never had a white so tortured and sad. I'm not sure if every bottle tastes like Johnny Walker Red Label mixed with Canada Dry or not (though chemistry suggests it has more to do with what's going on in the tanks and barrels than what's going on in the bottle), but the point is that there's no way for you to know either. This is the worst wine I've ever paid for.

06 Lemelson Vineyards, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Thea's Selection

Briary, sappy, round, lush--I could think of no better wine for Valentine's Day. It's a lusty, red, beating heart of a wine, full to the brim with flavors of dried black cherry, framboise, cocoa nibs, almond milk, and thyme. When the pork belly came out last night at Boka, I said, "I want to live in here," right there inside the tender flesh with walls of semolina. And, if I did, I would shower each morning with Thea's Selection. You feel at home when you drink this wine. It's warm, comforting, and familiar. Maybe too warm in the end, though. The 14.5% alcohol is surprisingly calm, but does grow to be pressing by bottle's end. I don't mind making the effort, though, to finish it. The fruit's sweet enough to keep the alcohol from becoming too spicy, the winemaking clean enough to keep the wine from feeling clumsy or laden with glycerine. In that way, the finish almost reminds me of ultra-ripe Chateauneuf du Pape.

07 Cloudline Cellars, Oregon Pinot Noir

I remember the first time I had Cloudline's pinot, I was staring out the window of a boutique wine shop at a dark sky coming in. No, I wasn't doing it for the metaphor. We'd just sold a lot of wine, the Euro was gradually getting stronger, and the sudden craze over American pinot noir left us with almost no bottles of pinot under $20. Actually, almost nothing at all but the most choice selection of single vineyard Oregon pinot you'll ever see in one afternoon. So I turned to my colleague and said, "Well, at least the Cloudline's beautiful," which he immediately took to be a surprisingly poignant, affected, and wholly metrosexual commentary on the state of our vitis vinifera union. But I was talking about my first taste of Cloudline, which, on a wave of strong Oregon vintages against my prurient palate, was lovely in its delicacy. This bottle reminds me of that elegance, that grace, that discomforting indolence. In the face of so many saturated, heady, clumsy pinots on the market today, this lighter style quickly finds its cult following. Racy and clean, it reminds us of that great myth of what pinot noir is supposed to be. And yes, there are a few, like The Eyrie Vineyards, who really, profoundly, mystically nail that style. Cloudline is not one of those wines. It's pinot for pinot's sake--full of bright red cherry and strawberry shortcake flavors, with a tangy finish of anisette, vegetal grappa (Nonino's chardonnay grappa always reminds me of eggplant), mushrooms, and chalky tannins. It's not bad after two days of decanting, but that's no sign of its potential. Instead, that light oxidation helps fill the holes in this wine where ripe fruit should be. I think there are some great grapes that go into this bottle, but also a lot of muck. And the bailout, perhaps, is that Vero Drouhin (winemaker daughter of Burgundy's great Joseph Drouhin) provides the "reference palate," according to the winery, whose throat here may have been thirstier for mineral water than Oregon pinot noir.

06 J. Christopher, Pinot Noir Dundee Hills "Sandra Adele"

I think this is what Stafford Hill meant to do with the great 2002 vintage. I'll never forget that wine because it floored me, completely floored me, with what it did with that glorious vintage. I remember thinking this must be a joke. This isn't 2002 Oregon pinot noir. It's a secret Moldovan pinot from the future. It would take such a pogrom-inflected palate to take something as sweet and balanced as 2002 Oregon pinot noir and turn it into a militia. Either that, or it's an errant Jay Somers bottle with "Pavillon" written in White-Out on the neck. I tried this wine blind today and those seven sentences were the first thing I thought. So maybe it's no surprise that Stafford Hill is the second label for Jay Somers' Holloran label, and that the Le Pavillon vineyard is right smack in the jory (red, sponge-looking and sponge-tasting, sea-inflected loam) soil of Dundee Hills. Either terroir exists or Jay sweats star anise and cumin from his fingertips on the triage. I've caught this wine early, but there's no doubt it's a classic Oregon pinot noir. Unlike his more floral and contained 05, 04, and 02 (for God's sake, will someone please sell me a 2003?), this 06 has all but given up on any idea of elegance. Sure, to a Cahors drinker, this would seem mild, but its Funkberry(TM) and marrow aroma yield to a thin, but strong and medicinal palate completely consumed by licorice. The fruit is there, but it's wild: some raspberries sweet, others touched with a tinge of fox piss. Truth is, I've opened it just a few months early (which is why I have two other bottles). Because with some aeration (take a sip, press your lips together, and suck the air in through your cheeks) this wine reminds me of a high-end Oregon pinot tasting run by some mad, fascist, and entirely inspirational Oregon pinot hound (not that I've ever worked with anyone who fits that description). This glass in a year is the tasting that sold 10 cases in an hour. It has the nuance of Eyrie, the arrow-straight fruit of J. Christopher, the whimsy of Runaway Red, the lust of Sineann and Owen Roe, the candy of Bergstrom, and the unadulterated pleasure of Charmes on a Thursday in November. It's not a great wine, yet. Without some serious thinking and aeration, it completely falls apart. On release, it's the most dull of all the Sandra Adeles I've had, and I'm not sure if the shift is a result of vintages or personality. To be honest, I'd pay to see something like the 2002 happen again. But in these times, the 06 Sandra has a dominant place. There's no doubt Jay has style, one he's stuck with over at least the past five vintages, that--outside of the Ken Wright wines--may most clearly express what it means to be Oregon pinot noir.

05 Paul et Fredrik Filliatreau, Saumur-Champigny La Grande Vignolle

If Goodyear made prunes, they might taste like this. Maybe that's why it smells like new car and a pair of Ballys ankle boots in the middle of April. Stern and stemmy in the nose, oddly fruity, chocolatey, and rubbery on the palate with awkward, chalky, woody tannins, it's wines like this that make me hate traditional wine. In some ways, that's what you get with cabernet franc, especially in the Loire. And I love funky indigenous red wines as much as the next Neal Rosenthal. It's surprising, really, to get a wine this weak and dank from a vineyard site--La Grande Vignolle--with so much promise. I expect a tinge of cherry, maybe even a hint of sweetness, to balance out all this earth, but it's just not there. It's one of the strangest showings I've tried--at once as shutdown as a young wine with great aging potential and as dead as that same wine five years past its prime. Loire reds are known to do that in their first few years in bottle, and my impulse is to say it's going through a funny time. Or maybe it got insulted by the bottles of Pingus and Owen Roe on its shelf. I don't know. But maybe this wine should be labeled with its English name instead--La Grande Vignolle: The Big Flat Bottom.

NV Andre Clouet, Champagne Bouzy Grand Cru 1911

Bottle 1484 of the 1911-bottle production of cuvee 13 should have a vintage label. Originally a limited blend of the 1996, 1995, and 1997 vintages, past selections have been incalculably amazing. As is this one, which is the freshest and tightest 1911 I've tasted, disgorged just six months ago almost to the date. I wish I'd known that before buying, because it does much better with a year or two of age (or 90 minutes open in the glass). In that sense, Clouet is maybe the only vintner outside of Charles Heidsieck who's managed to produce a non-vintage blend that varies from year to year the way great vintages do, but still expresses a consistent (and bold) house style. And though Champagne only vintages in qualified years, Clouet creates years of its own, all apparently heavily influence by the tart 1996 and, with this bottling, I would suspect the equally loud but suddenly maturing 1999. The smoky, wildly phenolic aroma is too strong at first, then the woody coconut and vanilla gives it away, gives it away, gives it away now. If Clouet's Grand Reserve is the brain of the winery, 1911 is the amygdala, responsible for processing and remembering his emotional reactions. Cold, it's austere. But once it warms to cellar temp, it's hedonistically oily and rich with the longest finish of raspberry sweet tea, pomegranate, Meyer lemon juice, tangelos, floral peaches, porcini powder, and turbinado sugar. I think I had a dish like this at Alinea. Maybe the truest testament to this wine is the note buried on the last page of the booklet that comes with each bottle, where Champagne guru Richard Juhlin writes that the original "perfectly avoids the clumsiness that is often found in blanc de noirs." At first, I thought Clouet included that as a marketing artifact, one that should be either dusted or pulverized now that we're beyond the first cuvee. But what's eminently clear is that I have no fucking idea. And the truth is that Clouet kept this note not as promotion, but as the die cast for everything it ever does. So for that, I thank Andre Clouet, and kneel to Richard Juhlin. This 1911 is not Clouet's greatest wine. I think that will come in the next few years. But it is the greatest wine that Bouzy has ever made. And Burgundy should start taking notes, too.

NV Pierre Peters, Champagne a Le Mesnil sur Oger Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Brut Cuvee de Reserve

I want it to be my birthday right now. This tastes like the sight of fondant, burning candles, and sweet flour--moments before everyone I know gives me something. The non-vintage Pierre Peters is a gift, which is to say, whatever's in the box, I like it because it means that someone took a second to think of me. Pierre Peters thinks of us, letting us in quickly with its innocence, but then holding us there with its button mushroom, vanilla wafer, and apple milk complexity. I would buy empty, sealed bottles of this wine if I could. The liquid's almost a formality. A conduit, really, for the elegant, ethereal, expensive aromatics, which don't come out until the finish. Sure, the tart apple and spicy, woody tastes are good, but they're mesmerizing after you swallow, whisping into a noble finish of baby powder, limeade, rose, cold fennel, smoke, almond milk and, if there were such a thing, crunchy deep-fried Mountain Dew rind. Every day I drink this, I will be born again. And I intend to live forever.

NV Michel Arnould et Fils, Champagne a Verzenay Grand Cru Brut Reserve

The bold, haughty Arnould et Fils is a study in biscuits and gravy. It's a toasty, rich Champagne with pronounced spice, but nothing that anyone would consider exotic. These are down home country flavors, a little black pepper here, maybe even some cayenne, like an apple pie baked in a cast-iron pan your grandma (or I) used the rest of the year for jalapeno cornbread. It's full of the dried apricot and hazelnut flavors that Verzenay is known for, proudly displaying its grand cru status. There's something lean and limey about it. That finish makes this wine easy to understand and enjoy--it cleans up after itself and needs no food--but also leaves it surprisingly simple.

00 Marguet Pere et Fils, Champagne a Ambonnay Grand Cru Brut

In a lovely coincidence, the 2000 Marguet Pere et Fils from the grand cru pinot noir-heavy region of Ambonnay, is almost a perfect combination between the Vesselle and Turgy wines I had earlier this week. It makes me think back to when I first started drinking wine. My first true Champagne was a 1990 Salon. Yeah, so you see how this all began. And from that moment on, I was convinced that pure chardonnay (like Salon) was the whole point of Champagne. Not even Krug, with its healthy dose of pinot meunier could convince me otherwise. But the more I drink and find wines like this, I see how much richness pinot noir brings to Champagne. Perhaps chard is the truest expression. It's a flimsy grape under any circumstance--the boneless, skinless chicken breast of wine--and freely yields to terroir and house style. I suspect there's a lot of it in here, given the house's southeast-facing slopes. But adding a little pinot noir shows the true art of blending Champagne, and Marguet Pere et Fils' 2000 is a hallmark, up front with rustic, classically French flavors of toffee, gianduja, Meyer lemon zest, and caramel-covered apples (with broken sticks from the old Affy Tapple factory off Clark and Touhy in Chicago, to be precise). Almost two hours later, the glass grows fruitier, reminiscent of the Egly-Ouriet wines from this same region, full of tomato broth, honey, plum jam, and purple grape flavors that take me back to being 10-years-old, pretending to play baseball, sucking on a gumfull of Big League Chew. Anyone who likes Veuve Clicquot would love this wine. It is a rich, dynamic, and moving Champagne that holds its own against every single bottle in its price point.

NV Michel Turgy, Champagne a Mesnil sur Oger Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Cuvee Speciale Vieilles Vignes

This old vines Turgy Champagne is a completely different animal than the regular bottling, and that animal may be a dove. While it's up front with flavors of green apple and drawn butter, the joy of this wine is in its grace, which is calming to the point of being religious. What seems first like a flatness in the midpalate is actually a place to put more flavor, as the unsweetened cream, marzipan, mineral water, and bearnaise flavors ultimately have somewhere to go. It tastes rectangular, which is to say, there's nothing three-dimensional about it, but each sip has shape and is recognizable. No one would ever think this wasn't good, but few may consider it great. I need all of half an hour to finish the bottle. The texture and nuance you get is rarely seen even in vintage Champagne. In fact, I haven't commonly found this much balance in anything but a 1990. That vintage is what this non-vintage comes closest to, hanging on to some structure while letting you in on the characteristics that make not just old blanc de blancs Champagne great, but in fact chardonnay in general. That's this wine's most impressive trait. It's first chardonnay, then Champagne, then Mesnil sur Oger. Terroir in reverse, it gets that nothing is more important than the grape, not the man, not even the land.

NV Maurice Vesselle, Champagne a Bouzy Grand Cru Brut Cuvee Reservee

I'm making torrone today because I can't learn how to make apple pie. It's easier than torrone--cutting apples and putting them in a pan with sugar, compared to whipping cream, egg whites, and cooking sugar to exactly 248 degrees Farenheit. But after all the coring and peeling, I inevitably eat half the apples, always a blend of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious. That's exactly where this wine puts me--no, not the common Bouzy taste of baked apple pie, but instead I, specifically, trying to have the patience to make one. I don't expect this much tartness from Bouzy, famous for its 100% grand cru pinot noir. While cold, all you taste are green apples, golden apples, apple apples, apples, and lemon as tart as the greatest of young, blanc de blancs. In a few years, you'd think, it might be rich and custardy. But don't let this wine fool you. What seems like great chardonnay is mostly underripe, cold-feremented pinot noir, and all the boldness you'd expect from Bouzy is lost here. Once warm, it gets more grapey, consistent, fuller bodied, with exotic aromas of smoky hazelnuts, ginger, and cracked coriander. It's a truly amazing smell that anyone who likes wine should commit to memory. Whatever this means, I think the M. Vesselle is too sophisticated to me. Which is to say, I get that it's tart on purpose. I get that its apple flavors show the terroir. And I get that this is better than 90% of the Champagne on the market. It has flavor, structure, and history. But it lacks a bit of grace, maybe the one trait Bouzy gets a pass on, but still. It's hard around the edges. And I want it to go somewhere, from the stray pieces of fresh green apple to the oxidized pieces sitting on the counter. From pie to torrone. Something richer, more hedonistic. Not that all Champagne should be that way, but something in this gorgeous bottle demands it. It wants to change. I would throw you out my window if it meant to set you free, watch you take flight.

03 Caprili, Brunello di Montalcino

It's no wonder that these grapes share the same soil as the Chianina, Tuscany's great synecdoche of cattle--heavy, burly, and powerful, but known for its delicate and fragile disposition. Caprili's brunello is a rippling, throbbing chest with last night's perfume on its neck. "We won't eat these animals. They are for lovemaking," says the great Tuscan butcher in Bill Buford's Heat, which can be taken one of many ways, but maybe best describes this wine. It's the 40-day dry-aged ribeye of wine, powerfully flavorful, wild, yet lovingly tender. That walking, lurching contradiction is my favorite thing about sangiovese's purer cousin brunello, but rarely does it show itself this well this young. The tannins are leathery and earthy, up front with a guiding grip that never dries out the mouth, sweet like game and tallow. The sauvage flavors are spicy, like well-seasoned duck sausage and savory cherry jam. Loud at the right times, quiet when it needs to be, it slowly mists aromatics of violets, pepper, and plum blossoms. This is old school in the very best way.

96 Alain Thienot, Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs Cuvee Stanislas

I didn't know if we would make it through the night. Because when the cork finally gave in, after 12 minutes of prying with an 8" vice grip, I was pretty sure I'd shot it straight up my upstairs neighbor's ass. When the smoke settled, there was a vice and cork in my right hand, a bottle of golden elixir in my left, and three cats perched high in the next room. After nine years in bottle (the cork labeled 1999), this hasn't even begun to calm down. And the hints of oxidation you might expect to see in 100% chardonnay sparklers like this one haven't even begun to surface. These grapes must be grown, harvested, fermented, and bottled in a vacuum to produce a wine so incredulous of the natural world. How else to explain the sucking sound in my mouth every time I take a sip? My cheeks caving in against the anti-matter intensity of this Thienot cuvee. It's about as dry as Champagne gets and, like Clouet's Silver Brut, Orval, and Paillard's NPU, that means it tastes like aluminum foil. The salinity is a fetishist, tightening like a tourniquet the austere flavors of salt-caked honeycomb, green apple skin, raw quince, and undercooked baklavah. It's a candidate for decanting, at least worth pouring a few minutes before you actually drink it. In the meantime, it's more phenolic than any bottled wine I've ever had, closest to the 88 Sugot-Feneuil in its youth. If only you could cut smell like an apple. Think about who you are. Do you drink wines like this? And, if so, what other loves of yours are still unrequited? The Stanislas is every girl who didn't take your phone calls, every elfish English teacher who said you couldn't write. It's your mom in the 90s wondering what it is you do on the internet all day. It's a 10:30pm curfew when the community college bars don't even start letting underage kids in until 11. Which is to say, this wine is a resistance to everything in you that craves change. Why change? Why change when your moment, one harvest day in late 96, so perfectly describes who you are? Yeah, the others grow old. They get richer, softer, maybe even a little gray. But we'll stay who we are. We'll never change. And you'll never pry the spirits out from within our bodies. No matter how firm your hold.

07 Cave de Lugny, Macon-Villages Chardonnay

This Macon is proof that Americans are right. There is a brilliant winemaker/Burgundy importer outside of Portland, Oregon who is wondering, now, why he ever wasted his time having lunch with me. I wouldn't blame him. This is pretty blasphemous. But I like to go back to these simple--and they are not always "elegant," they are simple--South Burgundian French chardonnays to remind me what the grape really tastes like. I think the basic, Villages level chards from here are the truest expression of the grape. That's an observation, not a compliment. They aren't roughed up by oak like "everyday" American or Aussie chards, true, but they also aren't macquillaged by the minerally, flinty terroir of places like Chablis. Often, Macon is only chardonnay. Its terroir is itself. And so it's no surprise that this wine is distinctly singular. Sure, a little bit of golden and green apple skins underline every sip. But the dead, dry yeast aroma bores me, and the only reason--besides its refreshing quaffability--that I drink this wine is because of what happens at the end. As ignorant as this wine wants to be, it can't help but reveal the hints of vanilla, fresh cream, and drawn butter inherent to chard. Yeah, maybe the fermentation ran a little hot and a bit of malolactic kicked in. My point's the same though: pure chard like this shows that Americans are right. Right to soak this beloved (but truly gullible) grape in forests of new oak because that vanilla and cream aren't makeup, they're hubris--a pituitary overgrowth of the grape's most wanton characteristics. And when you strip all that away, you're left with authentic, romantic, Burgundian nothing.

05 Dominio de Pingus, Ribera del Duero Flor de Pingus

This is all that's left of last night with the flower of Pingus. A desecrated pitcher, a glass that looks like it's melting in the morning light, and an upturned, deflowered bottle almost floating in the air, as if it might carry the night high into the next day. I'm not sure how the handmade Danish pipe comes into play. How this could be anyone's "second" wine, the wine equivalent of mismatched socks in a bin at TJMaxx, is beyond me, except to conclude that winemaker Peter Sisseck is a truly generous man. Still in its budding youth, this maniacally structured tempranillo is a force of dry blackberry fruit and oaky herbs that come off like a fistful of dried marjoram, dill, tarragon, violets, and rosemary branches. Fruity Turkish tobacco takes over after the fruit, finishing with the homecooked savory tastes of clove, specks of cumin, Gauloises tobacco, and beedi cigarettes. Yes, the operative word is dry, because while the fruit is rich, the tannins come to dominate this wine as they would in a young Bordeaux or tannat. And, yes, that dryness and most of these flavors are all wood. Yet, even at this developmental age, things are starting to come together. What's most impressive is that, even with so much oak, the wine is never creamy or "luxurious" the way an Aussie shiraz or cult Cali wine might be. You'll argue with me, but this is indeed a reverentially Old World wine with some of the most gnarly Spanish fruit you'll ever try. The wood's giving it life right now, while the fruit learns how to live. For the open-minded, there's great nuance and balance. It's what your historic, cellared vintage wines taste like before anyone realizes they're great. Which is why the rest of my bottles are now under lock and key. And I'm throwing away the key.

03 Rousset, Crozes-Hermitage

Then there's the rest of Crozes-Hermitage. Maybe it's because I always hated the black jellybean. I hated it even more when I'd have a handful of delicious red ones and one black one snuck in to ruin it all. Rousset's syrah is austere, like a good cru Burgundy opened a few years too early. The tannins are so stern, they spear the air--a Trojan horse on the otherwise floral bouquet--with that feeling of soapy water up my nose. There's great depth here beyond the taste of bitter licorice, rose thorns, oven cleaner, and watered-down liquid Tylenol. And I bet when the tannins die down, this wine will be relatively luxurious. Well, that is, if you could freeze the rest of the wine in time. But the truth is that, by the time the hard edge on Rousset's syrah calms down, the fruit just won't be there anymore. Maybe some smokiness could come out. Maybe even a bit of bacon fat, which is the thing this wine is missing most. It makes bacon sad that the 2003 Rousset Crozes-Hermitage doesn't taste like bacon. It says something, though, that I only think of what this wine might be, not what it is today. I don't doubt that there's a lot of heart here. Every bit of violet and sweet raspberry that pokes through carries with it that great Old World punch that so many anti-Parkerites would swoon over. Ideology isn't enough reason to love a wine, though. And while I don't think a vintner should ever pander to a critic's taste, he should also be careful not to forget his drinker. Who is me. Sitting here. Painfully, wantonly wanting more. Not because of points, or greed, or being American. Because my heart beats hard.

06 Domaine Faury, Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes Syrah

If I could create a new wine appellation, I'd call it Grand Crozes. It would encompass all the best, most creative off-label wines in northern Rhone. And each year we'd honor the best one with an award. One named after Philippe Faury, who makes this the model for all such wine. The key to knowing this wine is reading the label and seeing that it's "recoltant" in Chavanay. Which should mean nothing to you, but is this wine's sweetest truth. In other words, Philippe picks these grapes with his own two hands (well, and maybe those of some voluble ex-pat imports) somewhere near the town of Chavanay, France, in the heart of the great St. Joseph/Condrieu straddle where some of the world's greatest reds share schist with some of the world's greatest whites. Easy to call it "vin de pays," country wine, when this is your vin and this is your pays. And like the ambiguously attractive teen actress who removes her glasses and shakes her hair to reveal the object of every great football player's desire, this Faury syrah is a score. Its juicy red fruit flavors are romantic, first of strawberries and raspberry sorbet, then cherries, red plums, dried apricots, white peaches, and kumquats. It tastes like a blend of new and old--its tannins as smooth, soft, and powdery as a 10-year-old Cornas, its fruit as fresh as the sweet grapes off the vine and as clean as iced sangria. Which gets me back to Crozes, Crozes-Hermitage, so often home to "everyday" wines like this that achieve such great balance and sensuality (unlike the more popular Cotes-du-Rhones) in their youth. That's where the inspiration for this Faury comes from, despite his roots maybe 50 kilometers north of there. Wines where you finish the glass, then the bottle, asking why you'd ever need to age anything. Maybe because some day, your Faury well will run dry, and you'll need the reserves in the cellar to turn to. So why should we ever grow old?

07 Bouke, North Fork White Table Wine

There is so much intelligence in this wine. I've been drinking it for two days, and it's battled me with every sip. Any sauvignon blanc drinker would love it, but they're pretty easy to please. Most sauv blanc is the light lager of wine--as long as you make it clean, it's going to taste just fine. And Bouke does. It does taste just fine. But I needed to sit with it for a bit. Does it know what it's really made of--the chardonnay, pinot gris, and gewurztraminer? After the tart sauv blanc dies down (why is this grape always so terrified of air?), there's a surge of Fuji and Golden Delicious apples from the chardonnay, an incredible backbone of white pepper creme anglaise, lychee, and ramps from the Alsatian-style pinot gris and gewurz; and I know winemakers Lisa Donneson and Gilles Martin don't age this in oak, but I wonder if a field of wild orange blossoms ever comes into play. You can smell the petals and the pollen almost honey-like in this wine. Ultimately, it stakes an important claim for Long Island, which has put so much effort into red Bordeaux varietals that often end up rubbery and dank. Bouke suggests that maybe it's not the grapes we need to focus on--maybe it's the inspiration.

01 Domaine Andre Francois, Cote-Rotie

Please, listen to me. It's not bacon, it's pancetta. That's what everyone who talks about Cote-Rotie, the French Rhone valley's most powerful expression of the syrah grape, is missing. Smoky, yes, but great Cote-Rotie isn't like the bold syrah of California or Washington. It's so much more delicate. Maple wood over hickory. Black pepper over smoked paprika. I know; we want to use words like "tar" and "blacktop" as tasting notes, but that's why I'm infatuated with this Andre Francois. It's the difference between going to a strip club and a burlesque bar--yeah, it's still slutty, but at least it's not going to make you cheat on your wife. There's an art to it that no one else would understand. You could almost call it dance. And your friends will just think you're selfish (which you are), and you'll go on laughing, throwing singles in the general direction of this bottle on the floor. Raspberry and grape jam and quince, violets and baked Nicoise olives, with a visceral, umami backnote that makes it both tasty and spiritual. The spirit, by the way, is the viognier, which is blended up to 20% with syrah. That's why "roasted slope" is such an overstatement, and good producers know this. Its balance tempers the meaty syrah, while its citrus and vanilla open my eyes to something new. One molecule less, and it's a basic Cotes du Rhone. One woodchip more, and it's a haughty U.S. or Spanish wine for $100/bottle.

06 Bodegas Arzuaga, Ribera del Duero La Planta

They should make bars out of sponge and copper, so you could go to Barcelona, pull up a leather stool, open up a 150-Euro tin of smoked mussels, and ring four ounces of this stuff into your glass. The six months of vanilla-laden French and American oak in this wine brings more than body and structure--it gives purpose to this wine the way a good suit can make you stand taller. Sure, some might just call it the macquillage, but what's a pretty face without any makeup or a chiseled face without chiseled hair? Arzuaga's La Planta, fittingly named after the winery's own game preserve, wears its wealth well. It's a cobbler of blueberries and Nicoise olives cancered with extra skin--roundly fruity, barely tannic, and with a smoky, leathery finish that seems slightly diseased. This could be on a shelf next to Washington merlot and Napa cabernet--it's that kind of New World, everything-friendly wine. But still it manages to stand out on its own. Take me somewhere, however briefly, like a broadband connection could. I guess I'm saying it's distant, but fast-approaching; advanced, but accessible; quiet, but full of communication.

06 La Posta, Malbec Pizzella Family Vineyard

This is the kind of wine that could move a plot along. If only Jack had slipped Miles a bottle of this in Sideways--he could've become a Sartre scholar instead of just a miserably lonely drunk (OK, maybe that's not that big a difference). "I am not drinking any fucking merlot!" "...got any malbec?" Odds are some of the merlots he so fuckingly detested had a dose malbec, anyway. The La Posta reds do start to run together--the bonarda's just as spicy and heavy-handed--but this malbec has gobs of glycerine-coated blueberry and blackberry fruit behind the tobacco, alcohol, and smoky, briary tannins. The subtle sandalwood-like French oak (mostly old) is loud, but balanced, adding texture without creaming out the juicy fruit. Barbacoa beef seemed fitting, both as a pairing and as a tasting note. Burgers and barbecue, spit-roasted whole buffalo, God kill something. Sometimes I wonder if Argentina is just a killing floor. If you come out at night beneath the stars in Mendoza, so peaceful, can you hear the squeal in the distance? Maybe Sideways isn't the right reference. The more I drink this wine, the more I think of Apocalypse Now.

06 Owen Roe, Sinister Hand

After blending some of this country's best syrah, grenache, and mourvedre, winemaker David O'Reilly siphons this wine into an old radiator, covers it in heather, and buries it deep inside a hill in Cote-Rotie. At least, that's how I see it. And if, in fact, this international radiator-maturation is not the way wine is really made, I'm content thinking that it is. I don't know how else you get so much smoke, tar, marjoram, and tobacco into a wine that still tastes natural and fruity. What's most surprising is how good this actually is. The dark wild blackberry, violets, and grape stem are an entree to earthier flavors. It's an Edenic crock pot, the dank floral turn of summer into fall, a well-seasoned forest floor. It's dessert with a nightcap--Swedish raspberry-jam tartlets with a Caol Ila neat. The finish is bitter, almost medicinal, and nearly numbing the sides and back of my tongue. It's not for everyone. It's not even really for me. But what's impressive is that the deep character David brings to his high-end Owen Roe wines, he delivers here in spades. Old, rusty spades. Spiked into freshly-fertilized soil.

05 Alain Chabanon, Coteaux du Languedoc Campredon Vendanges Manuelles

This wine should be served at every French bistro, tapas restaurant, steak house, rib joint, pulled pork stand, and chef's bathroom in the world. I'm used to good, unclassified wine from the south of France, especially near coastal Montpelier and slightly inland Nimes (where I assume the soil is made of olive pits spit over the sea from Corsica). But when they have this much texture, they reach a new level, one that reminds me of the fruity Crozes-Hermitages you drink while your other syrahs age. There's meat and herbs covered with black raspberry compote. Some unholy marriage of new life and old, dry-aged death. It's a mistake for wine like this to be bottled. To me, this is the oyster of the chicken, the shank, the tete de veaux--some either hidden or grisly secret that everyone else would just as soon throw away. Watch them eat their dinners. Oh they love their prime cuts, their perfectly aged wines, their napkins that we wash again and again. Give me the waste, the roll of paper towels, and not the hydroponic fruit, but that one giant berry pressed up against the wire fence beside the power plant. No entry. Authorized to shoot on site. That's fine. I'm not crossing the line. I just wanted to get my heart pumping.

04 Lillian, California Syrah

There should be a two-drink minimum to get into this syrah. A red rope and curtain beneath the cork. A flashing sign of neon raspberry, lavender, and violet jam. Scorpions stay away. That's how expressive this Maggie Harrison, nee Sine Qua Non, syrah is. It's a Parker wine in every sense of the word--migraine concentration and a silken slip of body that slides off onto your tongue given the right Central Coast breeze. Still, it manages to stay natural and floral, with great purity of fruit, acidity, and maybe even a little elegance that constantly balances the tiding scale. Rich beside the rich. The elephant and the baobab tree. I have seen that without which there is nothing. I, too, have promised to keep us moving.

04 Tamellini, Soave

I spent last week in Portland and Vail, sucking in sweet air and soaking up some really religious sun. Whether up in the vineyards of Gaston or ducking beneath waterfalls of melting Colorado snow, every morning tasted like lemondrops. Maybe that's still stuck on my tongue, or maybe I've just learned anew what purity means. It has a flavor, one that spindles a golden thread of honeydew melon, lemon zest, and mandarin oranges backed with savory pepper and nutmeg spice. The wine itself's not creamy, but it brings the butter out of any food, making me crave things like sherbert or butter-roasted chanterelles, shrimp, ricotta, and squash blossoms. Maybe it's the Adige, seasoned with rich Alpine water near Verona (if you think I'm crazy, try a bottle of Evian with this), that makes that happen. The 50-year-old gravel-battered garganega vines. The sun, the same sun, that warms us all.

NV Brut Dargent, Brut Blanc de Blancs

This is a construction wine. A bubbly, sprightly reason to build things--roof decks, patios, an ark to captain through a lake of this wine--anything to uncork the thirst that this Champagne-style sparkler from Jura lives to satisfy. Clean and cidery with hints of Lemonheads and Mountain Dew, it's a bolder alternative to "table sparklers" like Cava. It's hair of the dog for Champagne lovers who have been on a years-long, credit-destroying bender with similar toasty brioche smokiness, grapefruit rind and golden apple flavors, and a dry, steely finish. Truth be told, though, that steeliness really starts to wear on me, and before I know it I feel like someone's switched my glass with Andre. Or, worse, that I'm surrounded by 20-somethings at a dinner party talking French politics and the fundamentals of grad school applications. It's my own little hell. I hate where I am, and yet there's no one I would rather be. Even on a hot summer's day with the AC busted, I'd want to drip with sweat, fume with fatigue, climb the rickety scaffolding onto whatever I've created, and drench myself with this bottle.