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.