1. Not to be the master of the obvious here, but there are some truly excellent Rieslings made in the Finger Lakes. This was my first chance to taste so many Finger Lakes Rieslings at a single go, and it was great to try so many successful — and distinctive — interpretations of this variety. A lot of these wines also represent terrific value, which isn’t something that you can always say about Alsatian or German Rieslings.

2. It’s hard for me not to make comparisons to Long Island, the New York wine region I’m most familiar with, and in many ways, the Finger Lakes come off favorably. Some Long Island wineries succumb to the pressures of the nearby New York City marketplace, issuing luxury cuvées in ostentatious bottles when they’d be better off sticking to the basics of making good wines. I saw little of this during my time in the down-to-earth Finger Lakes. Compare some of the vanity Bordeaux-style bottlings of Long Island to one of the priciest wines I tasted in the Finger Lakes, a $75 bottle of late-harvest wine made from the deeply unfashionable (and in this case, deeply delicious) Vignoles variety – hardly a wine for the status-seeker.

3. A few producers I spoke to mentioned experimenting with different white varieties like Petit Manseng and Gruner Veltliner. I look forward to seeing how these grapes will progress in the Finger Lakes. I’m less excited, frankly, about the future of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Pinot Noir in the Finger Lakes, I get. Cabernet Franc too. This weekend, and in previous tastings, I’ve had some good, expressive examples of these varieties, which do well in cooler climes. But none of the Syrahs or Cabernet Sauvignons (and granted, there are only a few) I had this weekend have me convinced that these grapes have a particularly bright future in the Finger Lakes. I could be wrong — it wouldn’t be the first time — but I just don’t see it.

4. Like any other wine region, the Finger Lakes has its share of characters. My favorite character of the weekend by far was Sam Argetsinger. More on Sam, and all of the above, in the days ahead. (FYI, the picture here is a view of Seneca Lake from the Argetsinger Vineyard.)

Well, as with so much in life, it all depends on one’s mother. Is she warm, fuzzy, and ebullient? A fan of chintz, cabbage roses and Joy perfume? Then I’d go for a Moscato d’Asti. These wines are easy to love. They hail from the Piedmont, in northwest Italy, and are  lightly fizzy and sweet, with aromas of honeysuckle, apricots, and peaches. They’re also low in alcohol, just north of 5%, making them an ideal drink for a Mother’s Day brunch. They go beautifully with fruit, cookies, or cheese. They’re also terrific values, usually coming in under $20. For more on one particular bottle I like, as well as some comic footage of our dog, check out this video on Moscato d’Asti on Food52, where I’m a contributor.

If your mom is on the earthier, intense side — the kind of woman who runs marathons, rescues abandoned dogs, and can still rock a strapless evening gown — then I’d recommend the 2000 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon. (I paid $40 for this wine at the Brooklyn Wine Exchange a few months ago, which looks to have been a major steal. You can purchase directly from the Corison Web site, or else check some of these retailers for the 2000 Corison Cabernet Sauvignon.)

Winemaker Cathy Corison (bonus Mother’s Day points for choosing a female winemaker) is a bit of a magician, creating a wine that’s somehow elegant and powerful at the same time. Napa Cabernets aren’t known for their subtlety, so her less-is-more approach truly stands out. There are no hard edges here. The oak and tannins are fully integrated into the wine, and there’s a sophisticated combination of plum, spice, earth and cassis in the glass. Like many of my favorite Cabernet-based wines, the Corison reminds me of Grether’s Blackcurrant Pastilles, which my mom always had in her purse when I was a kid. Corison also makes a single-vineyard Cabernet from Kronos Vineyard, which is supposed to be exceptional. The 2005 vintage of the Kronos comes in at $98, which means I’ll need to save up a little before this splurge. (Mom would want me to be responsible, after all.)

Happy Mother’s Day, all!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting one of these very good people, Chris Phelps, the winemaker at Swanson Vineyards in the Napa Valley. (Oakville, to be precise.) Despite some pretty fancy names on his resumé — Chris studied at the University of Bordeaux, worked the remarkable 1982 vintage in St-Emilion, trained at Château Pétrus, and served as the winemaker at Dominus and Caymus — he is as unassuming and low-key as they come. Over dinner in Tribeca, Chris and I had the chance to talk about his work, French Tupperware parties, and what happens when you microwave wine. (Full disclosure: Chris provided the wines mentioned below for free. He is also good friends with my brother-in-law, the very talented designer Daniel Hale. Finally, he is the the mastermind behind the insanely good tri-tip I had at the Boy Scout picnic when I was out in St. Helena last October, which predisposed me to like the guy before I had even laid eyes on him.)

A few things to know about Chris, in no particular order:

1. He has terrific timing. After finishing his winemaking studies at UC Davis, he worked the 1982 harvest in Bordeaux, which is kind of like beginning your professional baseball career with the 1998 New York Yankees. The exceptionally warm vintage led to exceptionally rich wines, which set a new standard for Bordeaux. Lucky, lucky guy.

2. He’s a Cabernet and Merlot man. From his time in Bordeaux at Château Pétrus, source of arguably the world’s finest Merlot-based wine, and his work in Napa, he knows his way around these two varieties. He also knows how to make them work together nicely. Alexis, the seductive, iron-fist-in-a-velvet glove Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine that Swanson is best known for, benefits from the addition of a little Merlot. “It’s like sandpaper, smoothing out the edges of the Cabernet Sauvignon,” says Chris. “It really enables the blend to work.”

3. He’s not afraid to take an unpopular position. He knows that Merlot gets a bad rap–and rises to its defense. At tastings, when participants turn up their noses at Swanson’s well-made Merlot in favor of Alexis, Chris jokes that he has to “give himself a time out” so that he won’t get too agitated. It can be tough sometimes to make Merlot in this post-Sideways world.

4. He loves a good party. While Chris was working in Bordeaux, the elderly woman who lived next door invited him over for dinner one night. Chris showed up — and so did every woman in the village. Turns out she had invited him to a French Tupperware party. The evening’s highlight was her vin de noix, an apéritif based on walnuts. The drink stuck with him so much, he now makes his own for fun (not for sale, sadly).

5. He’s microwaved wine. One of his buddies in Bordeaux swore by this trick: nuke a bottle of wine for a few seconds to artificially “age” the wine. Chris isn’t a believer, but I love that he gave it a try.

Q. How would you compare your 2008 Riesling to your other Rieslings?

A. That’s like asking me which kid I like the best! It’s hard for me to say at  this early age, it really takes three to four years before we get a real sense of the vintage. Our Rieslings will age 15 to 20 years – that’s assuming a good vintage and good storage of course. They improve and pay back your patience.

Q. How would you define the style of your Rieslings in general?

A. Well, I like to say that nobody makes a better Smith-Madrone Riesling than we do! I think of our wines as a 60-40 split between Alsatian and German.  I think the Germans finish a little too sweet, and the Alsatians finish a little too dry and specific. We like a softer finish – that’s kind of the way I’ve backed into our style. Our Riesling is fermented and aged in stainless steel, never in wood. There’s no malolactic fermentation, no aging sur lees, which means you’re getting the pure essence of the grape itself.

Q. How have you seen consumers’ attitude toward Riesling change over the years?

A. Frankly, I think my entire adult life I’ve felt like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill [trying to get people interested in Riesling.]What changed was young people! They’ve come to Riesling with fresh eyes and without prejudice. In the past there were so many nasty Rieslings made in America, it has taken a long time to get rid of the generation who only knew those wines. Now the younger generation has come along and they’re not prejudiced at all about Riesling.

Q. What other Rieslings do you like – and what do you like to pair with Riesling?

A. Trefethen makes a nice one. Eroica, that’s a pretty doggone good one, too. There are a couple of good wines that come out of the Finger Lakes. I think Riesling goes well with almost everything, although I do draw the line at beef. I have too many reds to drink with cow. Any fish, especially real saltwater fish and true stream fish. Asian fusion food and Indian food too.

Q. What are some of the biggest winemaking challenges you face at Smith-Madrone and on Spring Mountain in general?

A. Farming on the mountain, that’s just hard. We have 38 acres. Down on the valley floor, you could harvest that in a day. Up in the mountains, that takes 2-3 days, then another day or two fixing the equipment because of the rocks. [The rocks and rocky soil are tough on farm equipment.] When you’re in the mountains, you are your own suppliers of everything that people take for granted, like water. We have our own pumps and pipes. It’s a great deal of work.

Q. What do you think makes Spring Mountain wines so special?

It’s really hard to say what makes the difference. [Here we break so that he can lovingly chastise his Springer spaniel Curly for stealing something from his daughter’s room.] Upland soil is very different from soil on the valley floor. It’s less fertile, it’s better drained, and it’s rockier. The weather is different, it’s cooler. The berries are smaller, there are fewer grapes, there’s a greater leaf to cluster ratio, and the vines do struggle just to grow.

Q. I really loved the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. How would you define the style of your Cabernet Sauvignon? It seems like you have a more restrained style than a lot of other California Cabernet Sauvignons.

I like the 2004. It’s unfined, unfiltered and done with American oak.  I believe there are four hallmarks of wine quality. The first obligation of wine is to give pleasure. After that, wine should have varietal character. [Meaning it should represent the typical qualities of the variety or varieties it’s made from.] Third, a wine should have balance. The fourth one, which is so hard to get hold of, that’s what Charlie [brother and winemaking partner Charlie Smith] and I call “sense of place.” There should be something that’s interesting and different about the wine. That’s what we call a sense of place. It’s also our goal get the vintage into the glass. Whatever that vintage is imparting, we want that in the glass.

There are two styles of California Cabernet Sauvignon I don’t like: first is the low acid style. They’re impossible to drink. I simply can’t drink them. The second is what I call the high maturity, Parker wine. Those wines can be very seductive. But once you hone in on the singularity of the wine, you realize there’s no complexity, there’s just a prune or raisin flavor. Once you home in on that, that’s all you can taste.

I think there’s more bad wine being made today that ever before in California. There’s a lack of education for some of these winemakers who are self-taught. They don’t understand the basics of winemaking, the importance of clarity and consistency.

But I do think what goes on here on Spring Mountain is a wonderful thing. Many, if not most, of us are small and family-operated. People are very passionate about what they do. It takes a certain kind of person who would want to go into the mountains and put up with the heartache and the hard work that we do. But there’s nothing that’s quite as much fun.

Anyway, enough excuses. Last Monday I had the chance to attend an intriguing wine/cheese tasting courtesy of Artisanal, New York’s temple of all things cheese, and V. Sattui Winery, a family-owned producer based in the Napa Valley. (I know, poor me, right? Seriously, I have no right to complain. Ever.) I feel the same way about cheese that other folks feel about, say, chocolate or bacon, so  this promised a lovely way to while away a few hours.

In many ways, it was. The wines from V. Sattui were well-made and enjoyable. The Vittorio’s Vineyard 2008 Sauvignon Blanc was intensely aromatic, reminding me of grilled pineapple drizzled with lime. (I know, awfully specific — but that’s a fan favorite of ours in the summer, and the taste is a familiar one to me.) Sadly, they’re getting rid of Sauvignon Blanc in this vineyard to plant the more economically rewarding Zinfandel. The 2007 Napa Syrah was good enough, but the high alcohol seemed a tad out of balance. I liked the 2006 Preston Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, but it lacked the intrigue and intensity that I associate with the finest examples of this variety. I loved the idea of the Moscato, a lightly fizzy and sweet sparkling wine, but because the wine was poured long before we sat down to the tasting, it had already lost its delicate fizz.

The 7 cheeses were wonderful — not surprisingly — but there were just too damn many of them. My favorites were a creamy, tangy Robiola from northern Italy, and a salty/sweet aged Gouda resplendent with little crystallized nuggets of cheesy goodness. But after a certain point, everything started to run together. The point of the evening was to try every possible combination and permutation of cheese and wine and rate them from a scale of -2 (the worst combo imaginable) to +2 (a match made in heaven). There’s value in understanding how wine and cheese work together, and seeing how they can bring out the best and worst in each other, but the sheer number of cheeses on offer made it almost impossible to draw any valuable conclusions. Just look at the picture I posted of my illegible score sheet. Blame the fact that I’m overwhelmed right now (see the first paragraph of this post), but sometimes too much is just too much. The experience would have been much more enjoyable had we focused on only a handful of cheeses.

Sometimes I wonder if I should take this same approach to wine. What would happen if I spent six months drinking only Alsatian Riesling and Oregon Pinot Noir? I don’t think I’d be bored. On the contrary, I think it would be incredibly rewarding to focus on these regions and varieties and learn all of their nuances. (It would also do some serious damage to my checking account.) Too often we let our appetite for novelty take over. We’re living in the golden age of wine — never has so much good wine, from so many regions, been accessible to so many of us — but we do pay a price for that choice. We risk being dilettantes, flitting from an Argentine Malbec one night to a Washington State Merlot the next, enjoying them well enough but never really understanding them.

For those of you who already know a little about wine and feel confident in your choices, I’d encourage you to try settling on a variety or a region and try to learn a little more about it. Buy a case of those targeted wines and work your way through them, attend a focused tasting  (if you’re in New York and want to home in on Spanish wine, the Cervantes Institute has some excellent classes) — or drop me a line and ask me for some guidance.

It was really a delight to taste these wines. Smith-Madrone is up on Spring Mountain, in Napa. As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of the most beautiful places you’ll find in the region. It’s a little corner of iconoclastic winemaking and old-school California ruggedness that’s a great contrast to the faux-rustic, Tuscan lite feel that permeates some of Napa’s more touristy areas on the valley floor. The altitude makes for a big temperature drop in the evenings, and this night-time coolness helps ensure that the grapes ripen more slowly, giving them time to develop more complex flavors. The lower temperatures also mean that these wines have good levels of acidity, which gives the wines a freshness that’s sometime lacking from Napa wines.

See below for my tasting notes. My next installment will be  a Q&A with Stu Smith. Chatting with winemakers is really one of my favorite things in the world and is a terrific learning experience. If you ever have the chance to do so — when visiting a small winery, attending a tasting or winemaker dinner — take full advantage, and don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions, even if you think they’re dumb.

All the prices below, aside from the Riesling, are retail direct from the winery.

2008 Riesling (they’re sold out at the winery, but an online search turns up pricing in the $25-$27 range)

The wine has medium intensity aromas of white flowers, honeysuckle, candied grapefruit rind, and a slight perfumed talcum powder scent. There’s some zippy acidity, and just a hint of sweetness. The floral and soft mineral characteristics really come out on the palate, and there’s a hint of guava, too. The wine has a lovely, long finish with a slightly (and pleasantly) bitter/metallic note.  I’d hang on to this guy for a few years to see how it develops. A friend to spicy pork loin, lighter Asian-inflected dishes…or lovely on its own.

2007 Chardonnay ($30)

Medium intensity aromas of preserved lemons, pineapple, lemon curd, Golden Delicious apple. Definitely some oak. (The wine spent 11 months in oak.) richness and freshness at the same time. Again with the citrus and the tropical notes on the palate, a tad too much oak for me, and the alcohol (14.3%) seems a bit high. Long finish. A well-made, luscious wine, just not my bag. [Note: I revisited this guy a few days later with some leftover roasted chicken, and enjoyed it more.]

2004 Cabernet Sauvignon ($45)

Love the deep, ruby color and the intense aromas of black currants, cedar, blackberries and fresh bay leaves. The palate has some cool leather, almost meaty flavors, and the tannins are really well-integrated into the wine. Lots of intensity and concentration of flavor + great balance, something you don’t find everyday. Somehow rugged and approachable at the same time — a very California combination. Given the quality of this wine, and overall crazy pricing you find in Napa, can’t believe it’s only $45. Pan sear a beautiful piece of steak or lamb and dream of summer grilling.

OK, on to business.  A few weeks ago I got an offer via Twitter (I’m @spinthebottleny, if you’re so inclined) for free samples of Bordeaux from the region’s trade promotion council. I’m still new enough to this game to be thrilled by an offer of free wine, so I signed up. And as a PR/communications professional by day, I was curious to see how Bordeaux is marketing itself these days. Believe it or not, these guys are actually in a lot of trouble. Once you get beyond the famous names that sell for stratospheric prices — Lafite-Rothschild, Château Margaux, Château d’Yquem — there’s a lot of undistinguished plonk coming out of Bordeaux and many small producers are totally unequipped to compete in the global wine marketplace. (Michael Steinberger goes into great detail on this in his book on the demise of French cuisine, Au Revoir to All That.) Wine is poetry, wine is transcendent…but wine is also a business, and a hard one at that, filled with people who struggle to make a decent living.

That’s why I died a little inside when I tore into the “Life Goes Better with Bordeaux” FedEx package they sent me. Not to look gift wine in the mouth, but I was beyond bummed to see the marketing materials they had enclosed. First there was a dial indicating what type of Bordeaux you should drink based on your other wine preferences, pictured above. Eg, if you like Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, you have to try white Bordeaux Supérieur (Sauvignon Blanc is the primary component of dry white Bordeaux). The whole thing had a chintzy Designer Imposters “if you like Giorgio, you’ll love…” feel to it. Plus there’s something a little desperate about offering up Bordeaux, the historical nexus of the wine universe, as playing second fiddle to the rest of the world’s wine regions. Then there were the food matching notes. The overall message of this campaign is clearly to make Bordeaux more accessible. But with pairings like Glazed Grilled Duck Breast for the Larose-Trintaudon and Maccheroncini with Lobster & Cauliflower Sauce for the Clarendelle, they totally missed the mark. I don’t know many people who cook like that regularly, and the ones who do already know plenty about Bordeaux. What’s wrong with steak for the red? Or a lobster roll for the white? Both would be fine matches. The final tragic piece of the puzzle was a huge, slightly psychadelic poster that follows that same aesthetic of the promotion campaign’s Web site.

Still not sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Hang it above my bed? I don’t see how any of this is supposed to revive the mid-priced segment of the Bordeaux wine industry.

The white wine they sent, the 2006 Clarendelle, is a blend of 44% Sauvignon Blanc, 46% Sémillon, and 10% Muscadelle. The nose was interesting enough, with herbal, citrus rind, toasted almond and Golden Delicious apple aromas.  I’m not in love with oaked Sauvignon Blanc — to me, treating this fresh and sprightly variety with heavy oak is like drowning a beautiful piece of grilled fish in a heavy cream sauce — and I ran into some of that problem here. The wine is fine, although it occupies an uncomfortable place: somewhere in the gray area between fresh, bright, aromatic (unoaked Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or Grüner Veltiner) and round and unctuous wines (Chardonnay, Viognier). You can see why this wine would be hard to market. With a suggested retail price of $19.95, I don’t see it as a great value, either. (To be fair, I saw it online for as little as $14.99, which sounds more like it.)

The 2004 Larose-Trintaudon, while still pretty basic, offers a little glimpse of what can make Bordeaux great. A blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, and aged entirely in French (of course) oak, it has that lovely gentlemen’s club library smell of cedar, spice, leather and pleasant mustiness that makes me feel like I’m paging through a fragile old book. All the more ironic that  I spilled it on my laptop:

There’s fruit here, too — blackberries and a little raspberry — as well as some dark chocolate. Suggested retail is $17.99 but I saw it online for as little as $10.99. For $11, you could a lot worse–but for $18, you could do much, much better.

1. Pick your poison. Decide what your one weakness is and stick to it. A graphic design geek? Feel free to pick up a bottle just because you like the font. Have a green thumb? Stick to labels with pretty flowers. As you can see, my deal is dogs. If I see a label with a dog on it (and I’ve had an annoying day at work, and it’s a blustery late fall evening, and I’m stressed about Christmas shopping), I find it hard to resist. Fancy script and pretty colors don’t move me. I know what my Achilles heel is and I accept it.

2. Set your ceiling. I won’t pay more than $18 for a “love the label” wine. Figure out what your price cap is and stick to it.

3. Keep your expectations in check. This Les Compagnons Cabernet Sauvignon was, frankly, not very good, with weird artificial candy flavors that had nothing to do with Cabernet Sauvignon — or any grape, for that matter. At $15.99, it squeaked in under my price limit, and a percentage of proceeds goes to animal charities. Plus the illustration is kinda cute, don’t you think?

They invited us to St. Helena for the annual harvest festival. This being Napa, I was expecting a little wine country glam: Ralph Lauren-bedecked tourists, locals walking their designer dogs around a faux-Italian plaza, tastings of $40 olive oils, and an extravagant wine auction. Instead, it was pure small-town awesomeness. Dan and friends served up smoked tri-tip sandwiches at the Boy Scout booth, while the Girl Scouts countered with Sno-Kones. Entertainment was provided by a local college theater troupe performing the finale of Mamma Mia!, and everyone was relentlessly friendly.

After downing a few sublime tri-tip sandwiches, my brother Matt and I headed out of town up Spring Mountain Road for some tasting. Spring Mountain is home to some of my favorite Napa reds. Because of the altitude, it gets much cooler here at night than it does on the valley floor. That day/night temperature variation means that the grapes mature more slowly, giving them time to develop more complex flavors. The coolness also helps preserve the acidity, which is a nice counterpoint to the richness of the fruit flavors.

The altitude also makes it a pretty spectacular drive. This wasn’t my first time up here – last July, Paul and I visited Pride, one of the flagship producers in the area, but this time was even more beautiful. The weather was cooler, some of the leaves were turning reddish gold, and the pungent smell of fermenting grapes was everywhere.

After an unsuccessful attempt to visit Behrens & Hitchcock (disregarding my own advice, I neglected to call ahead and they were booked up), we pulled into Sherwin Family Vineyards. The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but that was all I knew. A friendly greeting from the vineyard dog, Levi, and the spectacular view was enough to convince me. Even if the wine sucked, we could still while away a very pleasant hour on the terrace, which, with its luxe, oversized patio furniture and towering fireplace had a slight “Real Housewives of Orange County Do Wine Country” feel.

The wines most definitely did not suck. We started out with the whimsically named (and, at $55, non-whimsically priced) Cellar Scraps, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from their 16-acre estate, as well as some Syrah from Dry Creek Valley, in Sonoma. The nose of blackberry, vanilla, coconut, and chocolate was incredibly seductive, and the wine was a rich, mouth-filling crowd-pleaser. The acidity that’s so characteristic of Spring Mountain fruit kept it from veering off into excess.

Next up was the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. Made from 80% Cabernet Sauvignon with the remaining 20% divided between Cabernet Franc and Merlot, it was a bit more suave than the Scraps, but still cut from a similar cloth – think Clive Owen vs. Gerald Butler. It was utterly delicious, with notes of bitter chocolate and earth along with some great black fruit flavors. Again, the acidity pulled it back from the brink of total hedonism.

Only the Syrah disappointed – the alcohol was too high and seemed out of whack. When a wine’s alcohol is too high, it does a few unpleasant things. First, it creates a distinct “hot” sensation in the back of your throat, which distracts from the actual wine. Second, the alcohol cuts off the finish and you don’t get that lovely, shadowy taste of the wine that lingers after you swallow it.

The Cellar Scraps and the Cabernet Sauvignon, though, were hard to resist, and I didn’t – even at $90, I decided I needed to bring the Cabernet Sauvignon home with me. Comparatively, the Scraps seemed like a bargain, and I picked up a bottle of that, too.

I was kicking myself a little bit as we wound our way back down the mountain. $145 is more than I would usually spend on two bottles of wine. Like, a lot more. It also occurred to me that I had broken most, if not all, of my vineyard-visiting advice: we hadn’t called ahead to make an appointment, we were visiting late in the day, I hadn’t done any homework, and I was most definitely not spitting. (Matt, who doesn’t drink very much, was doing the driving. It’s nice to have older brothers.) I was too vulnerable to the easy charms of Spring Mountain and I paid the price. Still, when you look at this scenery – can you blame me?