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.