There’s no question that Napa rules when it comes to California — make that New World — wine, especially cabernet. No other region outside of France makes red wine as delicious, famous, and collectible as Napa.
That’s exactly why wine lovers should set themselves a challenge when they’re pondering a shelf or a wine list: Try something not from Napa. It’ll be a trip out of your comfort zone, for sure. But even if that touriga nacional from Portugal (for example) turns out not to be your new favorite, you will be changed. You will get a red with more native flavors, unmasked by heavy-handed oak flavors and proud of its local distinctiveness. I guarantee you’ll save money, too.

I gave myself an especially difficult version of this challenge at a fancy steak house recently. For what I bagged on my safari out of Napa, click here: More

This wine is the perfect pairing for a pulled pork sandwich. For a wine of its kind, it’s unusually dark in the glass — probably due to its hailing from an extra good, warm vintage in its somewhat northerly locale. Blue-black-red color, with aromas of sour cherry suckers, strawberry compote, and tell-tale green pepper. This is not a sipping wine. It is a food wine. Here, as in all great pairings, the food and the wine tease out hidden characteristics in each other and make them sing. First, the wine’s knife-like acidity cuts right through the sweetness of the barbeque sauce. Then, red and black stone fruit come through, with spice, roasted red pepper, and a certain appealing meatiness. Tight as a drum, but with a certain heft once it gets to wash down a bite of sandwich. Best of all, only $7 by the glass.

Email Wine Girl with your guess, or click here for the answer: More

One of my favorite California reds is a blend called Generations. It’s the flagship wine from Charles Krug, better known for making jug wine since the forties and ejecting Robert Mondavi in the sixties after he had a fist fight with his brother and co-owner. (Peter Mondavi, the recipient of the left hook, still runs Charles Krug and recently changed the recipe for the Generations, which is why I don’t buy it anymore, but that’s another story.) In the bad old days, Generations was a cabernet-based wine that tasted as good as some of Napa’s most famous reds — at about a quarter of the price, probably because of the low profile of the Other Mondavi.

Anyway, three generations of my in-laws celebrated father’s day last Sunday, so I brought over a bottle from the 1997 vintage that I’d lovingly cellared for almost a decade. Tasting it made me think: why do people keep wine? Should they at all?

For how I appalled myself with my own answer, click here: More

“A rosé? I’ve never heard of that.”

Okay: we were in West Hollywood, rooftop-poolside at our hotel, so I admit I wasn’t swimming in a deep demographic pool of enophiles. I’d been shocked all weekend, in fact, at how un-wine-savvy the Los Angeles scene is. Even at the popular sushi spot Koi I felt like a big thirsty fish in a little pond stocked with cocktails and sake, but not much in the way of fruits of the vine. All I could devise to drink with my jalapeno hamachi was a California sparkler, one of only two offerings by the glass. Not a riesling or a gewürztraminer in sight.

But to overhear a waiter say that not only did he not have any rosé but he hadn’t any idea what it was — click here to find out what I wanted to do. More

The wine was great — red, white, and sweet Bordeaux from the acclaimed 2005 vintage — but the best part of the evening was hobnobbing with a real blue blood! Yes, that’s me with Stephan von Neipperg, Count of the Holy Roman Empire and managing director at Canon-la-Gaffelière, one of the producers at a giant tasting a few weeks ago. As a happy coincidence, his Saint Emilion landed in my top five.

For my tasting report on the good, the bad, and the infantile of the 2005 Bordeaux, click here for more: More

Just in time for tax season, here’s a list of my ten favorite wines that cost less than, well, a lot of stuff, including a bouquet of flowers, three trips across the Golden Gate Bridge — even Madonna’s new CD. To make it easier to find the wines, I’ve listed the four reds, one rosé, and five whites by type, and then supplied a particular example from a producer I’ve grown to love. So if, say, you’re inspired to cop a highly-recommended cheap thrill off a pinot bianco from Italy, but can’t find my favorite from Terre di Gioia, trust me. Pretty much any pinot bianco in this price range will do the trick. For less than $3 per glass on the average, these wines will also take the edge off that check you’re writing April 15 to the military industrial complex.

For this year’s list of top ten wines less than $15, click here: More

Dear Wine Girl:
I’m going to Bandol, France in July and looking for tips on visiting the friendlier wineries. Also, do all of them offer tastings and is it a walk-up-and-pay setup?
Thank you,
Bound for Bandol

Dear Bound:

Wine tasting in the south of France is one of my favorite life memories. In 2002, we spent three days tasting our way through the great red wines of Bandol, located just about an hour’s drive east of Marseille. Bandol is one of my favorite wines: unique, since it is made from 100 percent mourvedre (without the Provence staples of syrah or grenache); burly, because it is filled with the flavors of blackberry, brambles, earth, and to me, a tell-tale note of diesel; and long-lived, since mourvedre has a special ability to stave off oxidation. Except for the exchange rate on the euro, I’m so jealous of your trip.

Quick answer: there aren’t a lot of friendly, much less friendlier, wineries in Bandol — actually, in all of France. But don’t kill the messenger. Click here for the spots that will bountifully reward your perseverance: More

Oops, I meant The Wine Spectator, the magazine that one of my favorite retailers likes to make fun of by mocking its cultural imperialism over the wine world. In any case, some of you may have heard of the war of words between the folks at the venerable Napa winery Beaulieu Vineyard and The Wine Spectator senior editor James Laube. The conflict broke out in 2002 after Laube accused BV’s wines of showing “high levels” of TCA (the chemical behind cork taint) and suggested that the whole winery might be infested. Beaulieu shot back that Laube was complaining about amounts of the compound that are undetectable to the average palate, and unfairly singling them out for a problem widespread in wine production.

I was prompted to revisit the hostilities by a bottle of 1997 Beaulieu Vineyard Tapestry Reserve. To find out where, after tasting it, Wine Girl stands on the battle lines, click here: More

Setting: Stylish steakhouse in Napa, California.
Occasion: Valentine’s Day
Food: 16-ounce bone-in rib eye, medium
Wine: Shoulda, coulda woulda decanted, since this big young red is brand-spanking new. But we couldn’t wait, and the forward-thinking winemakers behind this wine have made it in a modern style, so we have no trouble guzzling it with our huge hunks of delicious beef. Indeed, this wine seems made for the menu: it’s got a blood-red-purple color; aromas of ripe fruit, cigar box, and cedar; and a viscous, full-bodied consistency. More plushness comes from the prominence of the grape that plays the main part in the so-called “right bank” Bordeaux blends; its supporting cast of varietals lend structure and deep, sweet flavors of blackberries, plum, and black cherry. Distinct chocolate notes, and a nice long finish begs to be the step up to another bite of yummy rib eye. We got almost as much pleasure from its amazingly restrained price tag.

What could this steak-friendly red be? Write me with your guess or click here to find out: More

One of the most contentious and (to many wine lovers) depressing things about wine is how much restaurants mark it up. On the average, restaurants will inflate the retail price of a bottle of wine by 100 percent — to cover, they insist, the cost of acquiring, storing, serving, and absorbing the expense of the occasional spoiled bottle of wine.

Naïfs accept this explanation; cynics, though, believe that because restaurants don’t make as much money as they want by serving food, they compensate with unfair mark ups on wine. Wine drinkers, then, are paying a surcharge to cover the penny-pinching teetotalers at the neighboring table — not to mention the greed of the restaurateur.

The truth lies somewhere between. This was brought home to me, as it were, while I recently abroad. Find out how by clicking here: More