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.

06 Domaine de la Pepiere, Vin de Pays de Jardin du la France Marches de Bretagne Cuvee Granit

This wine tastes like a dirty joke, an old sponge or loofah. Maybe that's why it reminds me of the Paris subways--I can't tell if it's me or them, but either way I'll need a shower when I get back to the hostel. The Pepiere Muscadet is a profound country red common to the south of France, which makes it all the more interesting coming from so far north. Yes, I said Muscadet, the designation that winemaker Marc Ollivier can't get onto this bottle. I know. You're thinking tart, summery white wine. And instead, here we have a meaty, musky blend of cabernet franc, merlot, and malbec. It should be Bordeaux. It is, really. With all the gnarly, gristly flavors that make us love red wine. It makes you wonder why so many other wines have to cost so much, have to take so much effort to produce--when this is all we really need.

02 The Eyrie Vineyards, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Reserve

The math is complicated. But if you want to make a wine that shows the greatness of Oregon, it must taste like something only Burgundy could make... in Oregon. At a time, still, when the Old World is being defined by its redefinition of New World wines--adding more modern oak, more modern concentration, and even more modern price tags--the 02 Eyrie dares to go retro--pink pumps, bleached jeans, and all. And as the wine warms from cellar temp up, you feel like you could be riding your fixed-gear vintage Peugeot through the French countryside north from seasoned Pommard through the black angel of Vosne-Romanee and finally into the rotting corpse of Gevrey-Chambertin, all the while kids and grandmeres handing off Solo cups of local pinot noir. That is the voyage this wine takes you on--at once the most expressive and subtle Eyrie wines of the decade. It's a pinot everyone should aspire to make if they wanted to stop selling wine and start drinking their glut instead. Because, like the great 98 Tall Poppy, this is a wine you will love to hate. But its tart red cherries morph into pitless black cherry flesh, its funk into a mid-fall walk through the woods, its mouthwatering acidity into early-picked strawberries and sweet tarragon tea, its peppery finish into the fruit of Turkish tobacco. I don't know whether to be apologetic or thankful. Am I sinning, or is this redemption?

06 Grochau Cellars, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir "Toute de Suite"

Here is where Grochau belongs, making wines you guzzle instead of sip. Everyone should want to drink this--an unpretentious wine so purely fruity, even the sangria lovers out there would love it. It tastes full of cherry (Tylenol) with a mossy framboise finish and this herbal undercurrent of grilled lamb and thyme. Thyme tumbleweeds to be precise. Falling into a lake of fermenting kriek. Here is where Grochau belongs, not messing with syrah. Be Mayweather, Trinidad. You don't have to be Tyson to be a contender. It satisfies whatever that urge is inside of you to buy hot-vintage Spanish garnacha. Eat some fried mushroom risotto balls at a bar--on a bar--one pocked with wine stains and sardine oil. It's that kind of wine. The kind you drink al fresco. For God's sake keep the crispy pizza coming. Just leave that tray of Arbequina olives on the bar. And a round of grape popsicles and anise biscotti on me. Yes, more wine. More wine. More food. Toute de suite.

05 Foundry Vineyards, Walla Walla Red Wine

I finally get to say it: This is the best red wine you're not drinking. I haven't felt this good about a table wine since Lot 1 of the 2002 Magnificent Wine Company House Wine (well before it became the jug juice you know today, which is still quite good). That 02 wasn't Charlie Smith's best bottling of the House Wine, but it was a beacon that signaled something new was coming onto the radar. I think when I get a chance to look back on the Foundry wines a few years from now, I'll remember this 2005 the same way. It's hands-down the best Washington cab blend I've had this year, and unless something great happens with my Owen Roe wines, I don't see that changing. For all its smoky, brambly blackberry fruit, all its bacon-chocolate essence, and its almost peaty, whisky-like finish, there's a prettiness to this wine that you'll only see in Walla. I don't even think about the cabernet and merlot varieties that make up this wine. To me, it's much more about a style, a sensibility clear to good Walla producers--and great ones like Foundry. A mission to mix heady fruit with a clean finish that reminds you more of what you're eating (preferably peppery prime rib) than what you're drinking. Which makes this wine a segue into your next bite, which is a segue into your next sip. And so on. And so on. For as long as humanly possible.

04 Francis-Tannahill, Jack White

When I first had this wine, I saw it as prophecy. Now that prophecy has come true. This Oregon white wine is one of my favorite Rhone reds. But unlike the truly esoteric bottling I tried at Small Batch, deep down inside this one actually knows what it is. What I have to tell you here is not how strange this wine is. Not that it is rust colored and tannic. Not that it smells like a mix between apricots and exhaust. Or tastes like olives and orange marmalade. No, because you'll just see experience all that for yourself--somewhere between your first sip and the moment your brain collapses in on itself. What you must know is, after hours of sitting open, this wine has a moment of actualization, like the crosslegged yogi who sees her blue pearl of light. The machine becomes human, spits out an infinity of Pi. I might be dying and smell like carignane, but I am chardonnay. Chardonnay makes up about a third of this wine (the rest is pinot blanc and pinot gris), but it's all that remains if you take it for its full 750 mL. Not the ones you have with dinner; the ones you have with friends, when in your weakest hour you reach way back in the Eurocave for that bottle you've been saving. Since you were married. Until your kid is 21. And you open it, regretfully, but not really. Your kid will never know. It might just taste like wood chips and Barbasol right now, but damn it it's fantastic. Treat this like those wines. If you do, then the end will be great chardonnay. Only the great survives. It's like the densities settle. What's on top goes well with fish, fennel, maybe even asparagus. And suddenly, you notice the wine has changed, but you don't know how. Not until you get to Burgundy, which, on a map, is located in the final two ounces of a glass of Jack White. At last, I understand you, Jackass. I know who you really are.

06 Domaine de la Pepiere, Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine Sur Lie Clos des Briords Cuvee Vieilles Vignes

I want to wrap prosciutto around the rim of the glass, fingerpaint the label with swaths of lard. It's clear this comes from something very lovely. Nowhere else could honeydew melon taste so sensual, but in a bottle of wine. Is it just because the grape is called melon de Bourgogne that I'm saying that? If you were writing this note, I would say so. But I snagged this bottle out of the fridge on my way out the door and opened it with dinner before looking. I had no idea what I was drinking, just that it was something I needed more of fast. Ripe and musky with an afterthought of full fat cream and tangerine, you'd think it were sweet if not for the bracing minerality and quince-like acidity that take over, make you think this is perhaps from somewhere just south and east of here, in another region known for its glut of dull white wines from which a few always emerge stoned but alive.

05 Cayuse Vineyards, Walla Walla Cailloux Vineyard Syrah

There's nothing American about it. From the winery, to the vineyard, to the varietal, to the winemaker's own name. Christophe Baron. The Baron of Walla Walla. The feudal vassal tending to his land. Our noble Lord. And yet, he might be the most American thing we've got going when it comes to wine. From one word for rocks (Cayuse) to the next (Cailloux), it's clear what this syrah's intentions are--to send vines scampering, deep into some semblance of soil, for whatever cysts of water they can find. Beneath each stone, another stone. None but the toughest would survive, and no one knew who would live to tell their story. A story of pride, really. This is the first wine I've had that I can say actually tastes like hubris. It's concentrated to the point of being sticky, and you can see the grapes smiling maddeningly in your face, gritting their teeth, give me one last shot, your best, right in the jaw. It's not like Mitolo or Glaetzer--not rich in the way shiraz has defined the grape for you. There's no milk chocolate or vanilla sundae. It's not smooth. All the concentration that shows here shows from the grapes. This is what wine would taste like if Ferran Adria were a vintner, bringing to life fruit filled with only the essence of the fruit itself. It's wild French country weeds beside the freshly blacktopped thoroughfare, lavendar and violet on one side, a half-masticated hog on the other, its ass crisping in the sun. You take a sip of water from your saddle leather canteen. Is it raining black pepper? Out in front of you is the ocean, Canada to the north, and a juke box turned to rock and roll.

06 Siduri, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

There are pinots that kill you with their economy. Pint-sized and "nuanced" like the roses (ro-zays) that they really are, you find yourself loving them, the way you tell people how much you love reading "War and Peace." Yeah, you really connect to Dada, too. There's something in nothing, 'cause nothing is everything. Man. Then you run to the bathroom with a bottle of Siduri, and come back with streaks of pork fat glistening from your chin. Wines like this tremendous Siduri seem to pride themselves on the grape. Oh, holy altar of pinot noir, you are more than just a conduit for dirt and dogma. Oak and oligarchy. This is the rare freedom that pinot offers--a taste of seasons changing, sweet cherry blossom spring turning to composting leaves, marigolds in the window. There's such a steady force to this wine, controlled, but still full of peppery cherry, mulberry, and watermelon flavors. I'm going on. Truth is, you might not like this wine. It's bright, acidic, and seething with raunchy yeast. It feels like it should be bubbling. Which actually seems quite right, locked in a bathroom with the faucet running. Paul Simon leaking through the speakers. The grass is high, the fields are ripe. It's the springtime of my life.

04 Domaine des Remizieres, Crozes-Hermitage Cuvee Particuliere

There can be such an ease to drinking Crozes-Hermitage, probably the friendliest of Rhone syrah, that you would never guess the region is basically a patchwork of potholes and puddles injected with the occasional vineyard. Remizieres' Crozes plot sits amongst them, making some of the most flattering everyday wine on the market--a reason, really, to finally pass on the glut of Cotes-du-Rhone in favor of a purer, cleaner example of the just-complex-enough winemaking style that the valley should be famous for. The Cuvee Particuliere might just be the baseline for syrah, the point from which others can spike or dive. The violet and plum flavors would be sweet in a lesser (or higher alcohol) wine, but here they're immediately tempered by an old, peppery finish and dry tannins that cry out for New York strip. Yet, there's a pinot-like poshness that could make Sideways blush--an unexpected elegance amongst the brash, brambly country syrah. This wine is the heart of the dinner table, as the kitchen is the heart of the home. In it, I smell the smoke of crisping lamb leg in the oven, the savory richness of bubbling bolognese, the feral earthiness of pork served slightly pink. There is better. I don't want better. I want this beautiful, beautiful wine.

04 Robert Chevillon, Bourgogne Nuits St Georges

Best to write about this while it's still fresh in my mind--sometimes I fear the memories will be as fleeting as the flavors. This is the thing you don't get elsewhere. I chose the Chevillon last night to follow champagne at Tru (what a ridiculous sentence this is shaping up to be), and it couldn't have been a more perfect pairing... for the champagne. It disappears next to even the simplest of foods--olive-oil-poached salmon, sashimi--this is not your en vogue try-it-with-turkey pinot. I wouldn't even challenge it with stuffing. About the only thing that goes with this wine from the hilly north-Burgundy limestone of Nuits St. Georges is another wine. The acid and fall fruit of blanc de blancs champagne fill the void in this pinot, which is more about its ambrosial aromatics than flavor--smelling like the sweet flour of warm pate a choux. I regretted not getting one of Chevillon's 1er crus instead, like the much-heralded Les Vaucrains. I suspect it has the concentration that this Chevillon is lacking. A tease, really, as it is--round and floral with a rooty sweetness, as though carrots or parsnips could blossom, could groom the ire of this raw, rocky soil.

06 Firesteed, Oregon Pinot Noir

Imagine a wine so good it becomes a part of you. One almost Edenic in its pleasure--soft, luxurious, comforting at times--as pretty as the girl next door. Imagine Mary Ann on the sofa drinking orange juice, Ginger raking leaves in the yard. A little perfume, a little sweat, a little innocence, a little lust. God save the battered beauty. Everything so right in that moment--you making duxelles in the tiny city kitchen, white mushrooms turned to morels, the sweetness of shallots in the air, marjoram in your nose. The hallway clears out in front of you, the duck decanter genuflects, turns into duck. You are great. You import--so Old, some say, so New, some say. You're not like the rest. I like that you... listen to me. The raw earth without the mud--the dark, minerally, wild spring morning. Fruit without seed. Smoke without fire. Wine without the taste of roasted steed. Yeah, that would've been nice.

04 Selciaia, Rosso di Montepulciano Fassati

What a gorgeous and bold winter red. Rich, powerful, robust--all those fat, inky descriptors apply here and, if I were writing this review on paper, I'd press down harder on the pen, maybe right through the paper and onto the coffee table below. This is the fragrant, luscious Tuscan wine that even the old-timers must be proud of. So much so, you laugh a little bit at the D.O.C. regulations--the venerable Vino Nobile uses the same prugnolo (sangiovese) grape burnt by a bit of steaming canaiolo, but receives at least an extra year's worth of oak aging. The six months of French barriques here, though, are plenty--laying down a thick rug of chocolaty tannins for the grapey, dark cherry fruit to sink into. Peppery beef. Fond. Oxtail marrow. Red Tootsie Pops, the glassy candy stuck in my molars, the caramel in my gums. One. Two-hoo. Three. Three.