2007 Charles Smith Wines Kung Fu Girl Riesling

So when I pulled this bottle out of my wine rack (OK, to be fair, my “wine rack” is two cardboard boxes in my bedroom closet) my first thought was, where can I get a tripod and timer? Because, obviously, the only possible picture to accompany this review is of me breaking a board with my forehead.

Alas, after several “practice runs” karate-chopping household items (easiest: reduced-fat Triscuits; most difficult: slate-top coffee table) I decided that “Kung-Fu Girl” was not a nickname I’d be earning anytime soon. Maybe I could illustrate the post with pictures of my bruised hand.

So, with preliminaries completed, I unscrewed the bottle and took a long pull.

What follows is a transcript of my thoughts:

• “Hmmmmm.”
• “Huh?”
• “Oooooh.”
• “Ahhhh.”

Kung Fu Girl is most aptly described as “refreshing,” I think. I don’t know what other people taste, but in general, I find riesling to be very apple cidery. In fact, if you put this next to a glass of Spire and blindfolded me, I’d probably not be able to tell that they weren’t from the same family of beverages.

Which isn’t to say that it is an oversimplified flavor. KFG can be quite complex and tangy. It has hints of vinegar (not in a bad way, mind you), lime and pear.

When pitted against a dinner of grilled sweet onion and bleu cheese on a bed of mixed greens, it held up surprisingly well. (Far, far better than those Triscuits held up against my fists of fury.)

PRICE:$12
DRINKABILITY: I don’t even know why I include this category. For the right kind of person, everything is drinkable. I’d drink straight Windex if it came in a glass with three olives and an umbrella.
SNOB VALUE: Check out the ratings. Charles Smith can do no wrong.
WHERE TO FIND IT: K Vintners and any grocery store in eastern Washington state.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: In Chinese, “Kung Fu” refers to one's expertise in any skill, not necessarily martial arts. Time and again, regardless of the label, Charles Smith has Kung Fu-ed his way through the grapes of eastern Washington. Hieeeeee-yah!

Taking off my 'lecture hat'

I had to take a little break from drinking wine for the blog. I would say it was for financial reasons, but really, it had more to do with being a little on the moody side for the past couple of weeks. Nobody wants to read tasting notes that read like a cry for help.

I was simultaneously very occupied and very restless. I wanted to drink for non-educational reasons. Thus I found myself “tasting” pitchers of Bud Light over games of ping-pong. (From my notes: “Wait, there was beer in this cup? I could have sworn this one was the urine sample.”)

I did drink some wine since the last post, of course. It can’t be helped. I had a nice 2005 Syrah from L’Ecole. I had two quite decent Napa wines and one undrinkable Australian in a blind tasting with friends. I downed half a bottle of real champagne one eventful Friday night.

None of this taught me anything. Nothing I can say about it will enlighten you. Maybe you’ll come away from this post wondering what exactly I’m getting at.

So I’ll tell you. As I read back through these posts, they seem more and more pretentious. So I’m trying to get back to my roots. Take my word for it: I don’t know any more about wine now than I did six months ago.

Also in the category of things I don’t know much about:
• African colonization in the 18th century.
• String theory.
• Milan Kundera.
• Internal combustion engines.
• Men.

This is my pledge to you, dearest reader: July will be a month of hilarious, lighthearted posts. No more wallowing around in the interior wasteland of my personal life.

Less thinking, more drinking. I promise.

Exceptional wines under $150? Who is he kidding?

"Great Wine Bargains" in Slate

Mike Steinberger drives me crazy. Slate’s wine critic almost always looks eastward for his “bargain” picks—and by eastward, I mean Europe. In his previous column, which showed off great wines going for a tenth of the price of today’s picks, he didn’t pick a single Washington wine. Oregon was as close as he got.

In today’s column, there is (I kid you not) only one American wine. And it’s from California. That kind of thinking is so 15 years ago, Mike. Napa has sold out, people. California wine is The Man’s wine now. You’ve got to come to the Northwest to have an authentic, down-home, small-grower experience these days.

I’m not some kind of tree-hugging antiglobalization wacko, but I do find it hard to believe that only one American wine was good enough to make the list. If there’s one thing that writing this blog has taught me, it’s that there are really fantastic local wines in Walla Walla—and 98 percent of them fall into the (huge!) category of costing between $15 and $150 retail.

For example, I had a glass of Walla Voila chenin blanc with dinner on Friday. It was, in a word, transcendent. I don’t dare tell you what the bottle costs or where to get it, though, lest Marty should run out of it and ruin my summer.

So keep tasting locally, friends. We can prove Mr. Steinberger’s eurocentric picks to be myopic—one bottle at a time.

Boomtown (Dusted Valley) Syrah 2005

So I sat down to watch Sideways for the first time with my trusty bottle in hand. (Yes, I am four years behind. This is why I am the charlatan and you are not.)

And actually I had a glass. And not just a glass. An actual piece of stemware! Thank you, Crystal, for ending my "champagne from a paper cup" days.

So, in that newly acquired glass was Dusted Valley Boomtown Syrah 2005. Next to it was a pile of whole-wheat flatbread, dried apricots, a surprisingly good Spanish olive oil and a cheap balsamic vinegar.

I point out the vinegar because having it really helped with mellowing the drink (or deadening my palate—you choose). So did the copious amount of parmesan cheese I plopped on each of those warm, chewy bread triangles.

God, I love food.

So, talk of food and slow indie movie making you sleepy? Just put a little Boomtown under your tongue. The burn will bring you back down to earth.

PRICE: $15 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: Quaffable, but... uh... far from transcendent.
SNOB VALUE: Ninety points and top 100 value wines of 2008 in Wine & Spirits magazine
WHERE TO FIND IT: Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: I'll let Paul Giamatti take this one.

NY Times neglects to interview the charlatan

Carly sent over a link—from the online edition of the NY Times—to an article I wish I’d written. It discusses some fairly high-profile studies (blind taste-tests really) that seemed to show that wine snobbery is all in our heads. But as the Times aptly points out, the people who preferred the Two-Buck Chuck were not necessarily “experts.” They were just average charlatans like yours truly.

One favorite (and quite telling) passage:
“…But assuming for the moment that it’s true that most drinkers prefer the cheap stuff, why does anyone bother buying $55 cabernet? One answer is provided by a second experiment, in which presumably sober researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the Stanford Business School demonstrated that the more expensive consumers think a wine is, the more pleasure they are apt to take in it.”

And while that’s a good point—certainly there is a placebo effect to swilling a bottle so expensive that it makes me late on my rent—I think that pricing isn’t entirely an effect of the winemaker’s ego. Something the Times article doesn’t really touch upon: There are higher production costs for better grapes.

But the writer does hint in that direction, invoking context as being an important (and perhaps the most important) part of enjoying a bottle.

What can context do? A wimpy Rose that I would normally scoff at becomes really quite drinkable with the addition of quick-witted company and an artsy period drama. A $10 Italian table red drunk with the accompaniment of s’mores is almost transcendent. Champagne bought in gallon jugs became an indulgence when it poured from a rented fountain at my best friend’s wedding.

So, my darlings, please try not to drink alone in dank basements. Find a sunny spot in the yard or lay in your truck bed looking at the stars. Wine is only as good as the place where it’s consumed.

No animals were harmed.

Having him around is so much cooler than having a ferret.

Sleight of Hand "The Magician" Gewürztraminer 2006

• The waistband of my jeans is above my navel.
• I love reruns of Law & Order.
• I have to wax the bridge of my nose.

And now, for the final indignity, I'm drinking Gewürztraminer.

It's just as I always feared—I'm turning into my mother.

Because this is my mom's favorite varietal, I have always thought of it as a flabby, maternal wine. I've scorned it over the years: "Guh-worst-thing-I-ever-tasted" was probably my most-used epithet. And I meant it. I pointed to Mom's love of this grape as a clear sign that she'd destroyed her palate with years of drinking teacher's lounge coffee.

So, for me, the combination of the whole "my mom likes it" thing with the oh-so-German name and the fact that it's a white meant one thing and one thing only: Gewürztraminer was the unsexiest wine of all time.

I wouldn't have taken Gewürztraminer on a date even if it were dipped in chocolate and bathed in pheromones.

But after I tasted The Magician, I decided to go on a mission to change the frumpy image of this cute little white. In Hollywood terms, it needed to let its hair down and start wearing contacts instead of Coke-bottle glasses.

And I think we all know how I made that happen—I gave it some of my sweet, sweet lovin'.


And so did Topper.

OK, so now that we slipped it a little tongue, let's talk about the actual taste. I drank The Magician while eating a Hawaiian calzone from Sweet Basil Pizzeria. Why? Because you can't get decent Chinese food anywhere in greater Walla Walla.

With the pineapple and ham as enhancements, this little white showed surprising depth. While it's quite a bit drier than the average Gewürztraminer, it has a green apple tartness and a scent not unlike hard cider. When you add the pineapple, there's a strong grapefruit twist. It is worth ordering the pizza just for that.

PRICE: ONLY $16 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: It's like they say, you'll be fighting over the last drops.
SNOB VALUE: Hard to judge. It's cheap, and yet it's fairly hard to find. Kind of like your mom. Ha.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: I hope the viognier never sees the rest of the photos.

Conserve water; drink wine.

Environmental fanaticism: The act of eating condensed tomato soup directly from the can in order to save water.

Environmental responsibility: The act of hiring a consultant to tell you how to maximize the fungal load in your soil without using dangerous chemical compounds.

I got the most recent “School News” (the newsletter from L’Ecole No. 41) over the weekend, and I gotta tell you, the cover story is actually pretty interesting. The complete text is available on the website, but the short version is this: During the past couple years, they’ve gradually been conditioning a near-sterile former wheat field into grape-worthy soil. And they’ve been doing it the “natural” way—plowing decaying grasses, manure and minerals into the topsoil to encourage (potentially delicious?) microbes to make their homes on the windy slopes. Just one more reason to love Marty, folks.

More great news from L'Ecole: They just released the 2007 Walla Voila—a white wine that the charlatan considers to be nothing short of a close personal friend.

Explanation/apology

Sorry for the long silence. Fact is, my sense of taste is currently out of commission. And if I can't taste, I can't taste...you know?

Once I beat the bird flu, or consumption, or cholera, or diphtheria or whatever this nastiness is that has dulled my sense of taste (But sharpened my other senses? Let's hope...), I'll be back.

P.S.: I Love You

I had the pleasure of finishing off another bottle of Stephenson Viognier this weekend at the Whoopemup.

It was a little bit like the infamous diner scene in When Harry Met Sally...

Just sayin'. If you haven't tried it yet, do it now.

DaMa Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

It takes a bold wine to wash out the taste of point-blank rejection.

And in my opinion, whiskey is faster.

That said, I only had wine in my apartment tonight, so I went with wine.

DaMa cab 2004 reminds me of my vanilla cigarillo phase—somehow, Dawn and Mary managed to take a dark, smoky wine and infuse a guardrail of vanilla that can only be accessed by driving drunk on pistachio highway.

What happened was, I've been having this series of strange, desperate nonrelationships with strange, desperate men. To solace myself, I've been eating pistachios and writing long, weepy e-mails. Well, tonight I remembered that it has been a while since I said anything about wine. Maybe that'll cheer me up, I thought.

For once, I picked the right wine. While DaMa recommends The Alienist or White Lights, I'm going with Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. It makes me feel better about my life. You know, at least I'm not a drug-addicted drifter. At least I don't spend my free time after work watching Mennonites take showers. At least I don't go on acid trips in the library in downtown Seattle. Take that, world. This is real-life success.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Back to the wine. At first all I could taste was deliciously acrid, smoky, burnt-cherry darkness (dark as the souls of desperate townies, dear reader), but once I ate a handful of pistachios, I was floating on a river. A river with vanilla trees and vanilla skies. If somebody calls you, you should answer quite slowly—it's a wine charlatan with kaleidescope eyes.

PRICE: $25 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: This is probably too intense for everyday sipping, but it'd be great with buffalo wings or anything involving Louisiana hot sauce. However, in retrospect, I've downed half a bottle myself in the past two hours, so I'm going to rate the drinkability as "high."
SNOB VALUE: Also high. People who like wine appreciate those of their comrades who possess muscular palates.
WHERE TO FIND IT: DaMa Wines, Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you?!

Problem solved?

Shipping News

My parents live in Pennsylvania, a state with liquor laws that make Pittsburgh look like Pyongyang. Will I finally be able to order wine for them online, or will I continue to purchase, pack and mail it by hand?

I shudder to think that Amazon's "clout" is the only thing working in my favor.

Then again, these are the same people who are selling me DRM-free MP3s.

DaMa Riesling 2006

This Riesling is everything a good Riesling should set out to be. True to the varietal, it's sugary sweet. But it has more to offer than your garden-variety grocery store Riesling. Like a newborn kitten that's been frolicking in a bakery, it's soft and fuzzy with hints of ginger and honey.

If you like sweet white wine, or if you're making scallops in cream sauce with red bell pepper for dinner tonight, you need a bottle. You need a bottle right this minute.

PRICE: $16 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: Everything you love about the Grape Nehi, but without all the baggage. I am woman, hear me roar.
SNOB VALUE: A great conversation piece for your next Oprah's Book Club meeting—wines made by women, for women. Now that's highbrow.
WHERE TO FIND IT: DaMa Wines, Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Take a bottle—shake it up! Break the bubble—break it up! Pour some sugar on me...

Stephenson Cellars Viognier 2006

If I met this wine at a party and it asked me to go home with it that night, you can bet I'd be making its breakfast the next day.

It's that smooth.

This wine was so good, I didn't take tasting notes. I just sat there in a state of borderline mouthgasm, unable to speak, think or write. To quote Homer Simpson, "This must be what angels taste like."

Floral, but with a green apple tartness; musty, but somehow sweet; this wine just kept giving. And as I quivered in my chair and tried to keep it together, I realized something profound: I finally knew what it meant to be in love.

PRICE: $20 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: You know how every time you pass a wine on the street you sort of casually ask yourself, "Would I drink that?" Well, I'm here to tell you I would drink this Viognier all night long and still come back for more. It would beg for mercy, but I wouldn't stop until I'd gotten every last drop.
SNOB VALUE: A truly good wine, no matter the price, will always draw the right kind of attention.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Stephenson Cellars, Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Mrs. Viognier...? Yeah, I like the sound of that.

Tertulia Cellars Table Red 2005

The flavor of this wine had all the subtle sophistication of children's Robitussin—with none of the decongestant benefits. And that's coming from the least sophisticated person in the room.

Of course, a wine like this has its place—dark, smoky bars; holy communion; wedding dinners in church gymnasiums; sno-cone stands...

Alright, enough bashing. Here's the thing. Say you have some family back east. Your grandma, for instance. And maybe she's never really had a taste for wine. This is the bottle to send her for Christmas. Why? Because it's candy in a bottle. If Jolly Ranchers came in "red wine" flavor, this is what they'd taste like. It's short, it's fruity, it's tart and it won't offend anyone.

Mark my words: Your grandma will love this wine.

PRICE: $22 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: The more you have, the easier it gets. Actually, pretty much everything gets easier the more you have.
SNOB VALUE: Here's my shout-out for the Tertulia label. That's one sharp design those kids have come up with. The bottle looks dark and mysterious, like it belongs in some kind of film noir about a nursery school. Or maybe something by M. Night Shyamalan.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Tertulia Cellars, Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: "Please put your sweater back on, Grandma. You're scaring the dog."

K Vintners Motor City Kitty Syrah

"Does anybody else like smelling that stuff you spit out?" This, the first question of the night, with the first wine of the night, is where my wine-appreciating companions lost me. Because 1) A lewd and unprintable reply immediately popped into my head, and 2) Why would anyone voluntarily spit out an alcoholic beverage?

Whenever undigested (or semidigested) alcohol has come out of my mouth, it has been in a particular form—the smelling of which is not conducive to learning anything except the acid content of my stomach.

But then someone says something intelligent about enzymes and I have to admit that there may be some noncomedic merit to the question. I watch as the other five people at the table sip, gargle, spit, swish and swirl the contents of their glasses. They are using words like "nose" (not the thing on your face) and being appreciative of the color, texture and technical attributes of the Syrah.

My complete tasting notes, taken on company letterhead from my real job, are as follows:
• Strong alcoholic scent.
• Saliva-inducing.
• More red, less purple.
• Borderline spicy.
• A little bit of ick at the end.

That last one was the real surprise of the evening. I really liked the MCK until I stopped drinking it. Then there was a certain aftertaste in the back of my throat that I really didn't care for. Luckily, I had three more wines to go that night, so the pain was short-lived.

PRICE: $40 at Walla Walla Wine Cellar
DRINKABILITY: Pretty easygoing, especially for a Syrah. I'm impressed.
SNOB VALUE: I suppose this hinges on whether your audience has met Charles personally.
WHERE TO FIND IT: K Vintners, Walla Walla Wine Cellar
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Cat got your tongue? Lucky you.

Cayuse Flying Pig 2002, Buty "Beast" Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, and Cayuse Bionic Frog 2003

It makes my wine-loving friends a little sick to know I had this bottle of Cayuse Flying Pig just lying around. It makes them sicker when I tell them I have five more bottles of Cayuse (all different) in a cardboard box in my closet.

Anyway, I took the Pig to a birthday party at CreekTown this weekend. And, as luck would have it, another of my friends brought the Bionic Frog. A third friend brought the Beast.

One thing that even a charlatan understands is the difference between good and great. It's hard to articulate, but there was something about the Pig that made the Beast (a really nice wine when it's fighting in its own weight class) seem run-of-the-mill and the Frog seem self-obsessed.

The Pig has this amazing, mouth-filling quality that's hard to describe. It's like you take this little sip, and it's just so smooth and cool and, Ok, I'll say it—perfect—that you don't need any more. The depth and complexity means that even I, a notorious drunk, wanted to take the time to savor the whole glass and consider what I was tasting.

I know I'm gushing. I can't help it. It was like a fairy tale.

Once upon a time a pig met a well-dressed beast at a fancy dinner party.

"Wow, pig, I had heard about you in town, but no one knew where to find you," the aggressively handsome beast said. "They say I can learn a lot from the way you do things."

"Oh, you," the pig blushed. "I'm nothing special, I'm just a mix."

Just then a frog hopped by. "Look at me, look at me!" he hooted.

"That frog and I grew up together," the pig said with a shrug of his delicious, bacony shoulders. "He's sharp, but sometimes he's just too much."

"I totally agree," said the beast, who had gotten down on all fours and was attempting to curl his bushy tail into a delicate ringlet. "Tell me, why do you make yourself so hard to find? Everybody who knows you says you're the best. If I were you, I'd be bouncing around talking about myself like that frog."

The pig snorted a little laugh. "I bet you would. But tell me, Beast, why bounce around with the little guys when you can fly?"

PRICE: I didn't buy anything I drank this weekend, but I know these are spendy boutique wines.
DRINKABILITY: Better than water.
SNOB VALUE: Astronomical. When I set that bottle on the table, I was somebody.
WHERE TO FIND THEM: You can't buy Cayuse at all—you have to buy futures. I understand there's a huge waiting list. But don't feel bad, the Beast is easier to get. All you have to do is drive over to the Buty Winery.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: So a pig, a frog and a beast walk into a wine bar, and the bartender says, "I have drinks named after you guys!" The three look at each other for a moment. The pig says, "Really? Then I'll have a Christophe and my buddies will have a round of Calebs."

Cougar Crest Viognier 2005

6:30 p.m.
I may be a charlatan when it comes to wine, but I'm an authority when it comes to beer. And this, my friends, is the Rolling Rock of white wine.

Inoffensive, endlessly drinkable and totally boring, so far CCV 2005 isn't doing much for my wine-drinking education. Which is not to say I don't like it. I'm just waiting for something to happen. I guess I expected that awesome alcoholic tingle on my tongue, and there's just nothing. It's like I'm drinking milk, but it's made out of grapes.

7 p.m.
So now I'm having dinner. I made some store-brand mac 'n' cheese (you know, so the blandness of dinner could complement the blandness of the wine). But I think I was wrong about the CCV. I'm kind of digging it now. It's all fruity and complex, but subtle. How did I not see this before? Those people at Cougar Crest are on to something. Bottom line, if macaroni and cheese counts as pasta, then I recommend drinking CCV with pasta.

8:04 p.m.
So now that I've finished my second frosty mug, I gotta tell you: Best. Wine. Ever. Oh my God, the tingle has finally set in. Except it's not just my tongue—it's my whole face. Sweet, man. Sweet. I'm floating on a cloud of awesomeness, and that awesomeness is called Cougar Crest Viognier 2005.

8:26 p.m.
Is it hot in here? Yeah. It's hot in here.

PRICE: $20-ish
DRINKABILITY: Who am I kidding? This isn't even a question.
SNOB VALUE: So I met this guy, Chris, and he said some nice things about the Cougar Crest. So it must be pretty awesome, right? Cuz he'd know, right?
WHERE TO FIND IT: Cougar Crest Winery
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Rrrrraawwwwrrrrrr!!! (Just don't forget your packet of powdered cheese.)

Tamarack Cellars Firehouse Red 2005

Never trust a wine you can buy in the grocery store. This is what my elitist friends say time and again. And I say it depends on the grocery store.

I grabbed a bottle off the shelf and dropped it into my basket between a block of organic extra-firm tofu and a sixpack of Miller Highlife tallboys. Life is about finding a balance.

To me, a big part of any wine experience is the sensation of being much more sophisticated than I actually am. So before I uncork this baby, I flip on All Things Considered. Then I pour a nice tumbler-full (did I mention I don't own any stemware?) and consider the color. This wine is reddish-brown. So far, no surprises. It smells the way that wine smells. I mean, it's a scent that doesn't exactly scream "drink me!" But it doesn't say "I am poison" either, so, gingerly gripping the lip of the tumbler to avoid warming the contents, I take a dainty sip.

This is the part of the show where my lack of wine vocabulary is going to slow me down. I can tell you that the label uses phrases like "smooth," "full-bodied," "surprising depth" and "fruit-filled." To me, these words conjure up Matt, who discovered during the course of our relationship that he was gay.

I actually drink this stuff all the time, both at restaurants and at parties thrown by good-looking, educated friends of mine. The name is easy to remember and I know I like it. And it's good with everything—steak, pasta, french fries, chocolate cake, PBJ, Ritz crackers, pistachios, seven-layer bean dip...

PRICE: I paid less than $20 for the bottle.
DRINKABILITY: I should be buying it by the case. It's practically a food group.
SNOB VALUE: Some. Aside from the grocery store provenance, it's actually a pretty swell table red. And it's wine, right? It's already a step or two up from what I usually drink.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Tamarack Cellars
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Who needs a heterosexual boyfriend when you have a bottle of Firehouse Red and a stack of trashy romance novels?