One of the best wine tasters I’ve ever met is from the Philippines. One the face of it, that doesn’t seem like a particularly interesting statement.

But think about it for a second.

Even if you’ve never been to the Philippines, you could probably guess what kind of fruits and vegetables grow there. Coconut, pineapple, banana, mango, squash, taro, bamboo shoots, okra…the usual tropical suspects. And the Philippines being an archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you might imagine it would be tough and expensive to import fruits and vegetable that don’t grow there. So if you’re living in the Philippines, most of what you eat probably comes from the Philippines.

So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some recent Daily Wine Picks from The Wine Spectator:

ZENATO Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2005 (90 points, $70) Pretty aromas of boysenberry and sliced plum lead to a full body, with unctuous ripe fruit. Round and ready.

SANTA BARBARA Chardonnay Santa Barbara County 2008 (87 points, $17) Clean, fresh, ripe and pure. Medium-bodied, with a mix of lemon and citrus-laced green apple, spice and floral scents.

Boysenberry. Probably not a lot of berry cultivation in the tropics. Ditto for plums and apples. None of these fruits are likely to be in heavy rotation (if at all) in the average Philippine diet. The “floral scents” my friend likely grew up with–ylang-ylang, hibiscus, jasmine, etc. –are worlds apart from the rose/honeysuckle/violet aromas that I (and, I’d venture to say, the author of this tasting note) know well.

Not surprisingly, my friend found tasting in the U.S. really hard at first. She had no idea what a boysenberry tasted like. When she moved here, she spent hours training herself on what boysenberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, red apples, yellow apples and green apples tasted like in fresh/cooked/preserved form. She tested herself constantly, and was eventually able to recognize and talk about these aromas and flavors in wine with impressive accuracy and eloquence.

So why am I telling you this? To call attention to the Eurocentrism of wine tasting notes? Hardly. I’m sharing this for two reasons. First, as a reminder that every person’s palate is different, due to biology, culture and experience. If your wine-savvy friend is waxing rhapsodic about the aroma of green papaya emanating from her glass of Chardonnay and you can’t smell it, don’t freak out. Maybe she backpacked around Thailand when she was 22 and dined on green papaya salad every night. There’s probably  something you’ll be able to spot that she never would have noticed.

And second, I want to assure you that it’s possible to train your palate. Cook with a new spice or fruit or vegetable. Eat at that Ethiopian/Nepalese/Honduran place down the block you’ve always wanted to try. And don’t just do it once. Come back to these different aromas and flavors repeatedly, talk about them with your dining companions, take notes on them, whatever it takes to get them fixed in your mind. You’ll accumulate a store of sensory experiences you can refer to when you’re tasting wine. You’ll find that some of these new aromas, particularly the ones you really love (or really hate), are easy to suss out, while others will elude you. That’s OK. Keep at it. Be patient, don’t be too hard on yourself–and remember that building a great palate is just as important (if not more so) than building a great cellar.

Accompanied by his canine helpmates Shiloh and Buddy, Argetsinger walked us through the vineyard, which is a pretty fortuitous site for grape-growing. The lake helps moderate the cold temperatures, helping to ensure that grapes achieve ripeness–not a given in frigid upstate New York. (Did I mention that it snowed the morning we left? This is in mid-May, people.) Older vines often produce better wines, and some of the Argetsinger Riesling vines are 40+ years old. He also favors organic growing methods, such as planting cover crops between vine rows. Shiloh and Buddy seem to approve.

The proof, however, is in the drinking. The vast majority of Argetsinger’s fruit goes into wines made by Morten Hallgren at Ravines Wine Cellars.  Hallgren makes a single vineyard Argetsinger Riesling and after our tour, he was on hand to pour some of the 2007 for us TasteCampers. We sipped it out of tiny paper cups and devoured slices of sublime breakfast quiche courtesy of Morten’s wife, Lisa. The wine, made in a dry style, had a steeliness, minerality, and finesse that set it apart from the other local Rieslings I sampled over the weekend, and it was one of my favorites of the entire trip.

Sadly, the 2007 is sold out, but the 2008 is available on the Ravines Web site (and, at $25, is very well priced.) Fans of not too-serious, slightly sweet wines should also check out the Keuka Village White, a casual summer wine for $12. I’d also like to try the Chardonnay that Hallgren produces from Argetsinger fruit. They partially dry the Chardonnay grapes, which concentrates the sugar and compensates for the cool weather. (Again, did I mention the snow?) And I’m going to check back with these guys in a few years to see what happens with the Petit Manseng Argetsinger is about to put in, at Hallgren’s behest. An aromatic white from southwestern France, it make beautiful dessert wines. Hallgren’s cautiously optimistic, admitting he’s not sure how the grape will fare in the cold. Given the successful track record of these two, I’m excited to see how it will turn out.

My first foray into the subject is Charles Smith Wines. Based in Walla Walla, Washington, Charles Smith makes Syrah, Riesling, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The wines are big, bold and in your face — in case you couldn’t tell from the label pictured here. In fact, that’s what I love about these labels: they do a great job of describing what’s in the bottle. For example, his Kung Fu Girl, an off-dry Riesling that I’ve served at several tastings, would indeed be great with Asian food:

And the Boom Boom! Syrah (my favorite wine of his, and a good deal for about $15) is just as explosive as advertised. Some of his wines are a little over the top for me (the Eve Chardonnay is too much alcohol, too much oak, too much everything), but I respect that he’s not afraid to go big. I love the graphic, black-and-white design that stands out among the soft curlicues and muted colors that characterize so many other wine labels. The mastermind here is Danish designer Rikke Korff, who used to the design director of Levi-Strauss. As she says:

“My style of design has always been and is always rooted in the pure perspective of functionality, timelessness & simplicity. I blend that well with the guts & raw directness of rock n’ roll to create future icons and cult brands.”

Rock on.

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.

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.