Normally the words “emerging wine region” should merit a wine lover’s attention. With demand (and prices) rising for well-known labels, emerging wine regions are often the source of easy-to-find, easy-on-your-wallet palate pleasers. Such is the case, for example, with South Africa or Languedoc-Roussillon in the south of France.

Unfortunately, the term can also refer to an area that is, on the whole, still struggling to get around some of the climate and soil issues that prevented it from being a prestige wine region in the first place. Such is the case, I’d argue after a recent visit, to the Sierra Foothills in California.

Also known as Gold Country because of the famous gold strike near Sutter’s Mill in 1848, the region lies mostly in Amador and Calaveras counties, about halfway between Sacramento and Yosemite. Many wild-wild-West remnants of the great rush remain, but these days in the Sierra Foothills it’s safe to say that red, white, and rosé is the new gold.

Not in the 14-karat sense, though. For my terrifying encounter with a junk-yard dog of a chard, click here: 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

Because it’s one of San Francisco’s greatest restaurants with a wine list full of trophies, we made reservations at Michael Mina to celebrate a big promotion. Five hours and more than four bottles of fine wine later, the four of us were feeling fully lubricated and nearly insolvent.

My notes for your vicarious pleasure: More

I’m a little late on the uptake, but I’ve discovered the most delicious California sparkler. It’s so good, so versatile, and so well-priced ($15.99 at Trader Joe’s), it’s toppled my previous house bubbly, Gloria Ferrer’s Brut, right off my top shelf in fridge.

Why? Because Schramsberg’s new brut sparkling wine, a nonvintage blend called Mirabelle, has the biggest, most vivid fruit flavors I have tasted over many a Christmas Past. For me, the fruit was unmistakeably tropical, so much so that I took a sip and blurted out: “Pineapple! Mango! Coconut … like a piña colada mated with a Champagne!”

Consistent with Schramsberg’s style, though, the Mirabelle also has some Frenchified affects, like a distinctly dry, ever so slightly tart finish — plus a great yeasty aroma and a tiny bit of cream mid-palate.

Schramsberg is one of California’s first sparkling wine producers; Tricky Dick made it famous when he brought it to Beijing as a gift to the Chinese, a move perhaps more revolutionary than Nixon’s going to China in the first place, since the strictly standard diplomatic ice breaker at the time was French Champagne. Since Chinese laborers hand-dug Schramsberg’s cellars in the nineteenth century — now there’s a enological full circle! — the winery has been aiming for a bubbly the power of a California wine, balanced with the finesse of a vintage French Champagne.

Fait accompli!

This week, the first official week of summer, has also been a week of sparkling rosé discoveries. First there was the Bugey-Cerdon, the off-dry, pink bubbly from the Savoie in France. Then, another pink came out of the blue the other night. The sommelier recommended it with this pistachio, mascarpone, and cherry sorbet construction I ordered, and not thinking it was going to be fizzy and not white I said, sure. Then out it came: a little glass of dark carmine wine called Brachetto d’Acqui, with bubbles somewhere between the full liveliness of a champers and the slight frothiness of a frizzante. Unlike the Bugey-Cerdon, the Brachetto fully embraced its sweetness, and its residual sugars, along with its fresh cherry and raspberry flavors, made it a perfect match with my dessert. (At only 5.5% alcohol, it didn’t make me sleepy during the opera afterward, either.) It turns out to come from Piedmont in Italy; the winemaker is Giacomo Bologna, and this particular bottling called “Braida” from the 2005 vintage retails for about $23.

But a dry, full-bodied, red, served cold — with bubbles? For my reaction to this unusual suspect, click here: More

One of the many reasons I love wine is that I’ll be going about my day, secretly confident that I’ve tasted or at least read about every type of wine there is, and then bam. A bus will come roaring down the boulevard of wine experience and take my complacent ass out.

This happened to me yesterday as I was snacking at a gourmet food court in a mall (only in San Francisco). I spotted on the wine list a sparkler I’d never heard of before, and to hide my ignorance and impress my smart friends I made a joke: “Look, they’ve got Certain Botox on the wine list.”

Really, the list said “Bottex Cerdon, $8/glass.” Discover, as we did, one of the world’s most amusing unknown wines by reading more here: More

These are my five keys to loving Italian wine, distilled from my five-class course with Luca of Zigzando wines:

1. Eat, Drink, and be Maria

Italian wines are food wines. They are made to be enjoyed during a meal. That’s why they tend to be light to medium bodied in weight, so their flavors can complement rather than overwhelm the food. For the same reason, Italian wines — both red and white — tend to show a pleasing, refreshing acidity. I know that may sound icky. But at the right levels, it’s the acid in Italian wine that allows it to be so literally mouthwatering. A good Italian wine should feel like it’s washing through your mouth, clearing it, and readying it for your next bite.

So, don’t serve your lovely Italian vintage as stand-alone substitute for a cocktail. Serve it with food. The only exception might be prosecco, the delightful bubbly from the northwest of Italy, which is ideal as an aperitif. Still, a good dry prosecco is so light and lively I like to bring it down to earth with a handful of baked parmesan crisps.

Only four more steps to Italian wine perfection, so click here: More

[For the intro to this story and another model resolution, click here.]

Model Resolutions, continued:
#2 Eat More Foie Gras

This is my personal New Year’s resolution for 2007, actually. And it has something of a dark back story. You see, my former neighbor used to run an intimate, tasty restaurant in Sonoma called Sonoma Saveurs, known in part for its inventive preparations of foie gras, a rich, butter-textured, expensive delicacy made from the artificially-fattened livers of ducks and geese. (Foie gras means “fatty liver” in French.) He was also a part owner of one of the three foie gras farms in the U.S., Sonoma Foie Gras (pictured above). But after radical animal rights activists vandalized his restaurant, threatened his family, and burglarized his farm, he shuttered his bistro and was forced to sell his house.

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(Part three of my South African wine and travel report; click here for part two, and here for part one.)

The consensus among South African vintners is that the future of wine in South Africa depends on how gracefully it can ditch its past – and by past they mean not only the vestiges of apartheid but, ironically, ZA’s indiginous grape, pinotage. This odd little red variety was invented by a professor at Stellenbosch in 1925 by crossing pinot noir, the noble grape behind France’s great red Burgundies, with cinsaut, the fertile vine responsible for oceans of plonk washing forth from the south of France and Algeria at the time. Presumably, the hope was to capture the delicate flavors of the former variety and the disease-resistant adaptability of the latter.

The frankenvines that arose from this experiment did go forth and multiply in South Africa. But the wine they produce is no Romanée Conti: instead, it is a full-bodied and fruity drink, typically showing brambly, peppery elements. Weirdly, the tell-tale flavor note of pinotage is ripe banana. If great care isn’t shown in the cellar, the wine can develop off-putting, bitter tastes.

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For most people, Africa summons up images of lions, tigers, and baboons. So in preparation for our trip to South Africa, and in relation to the most famous and dangerous game we’d see on safari, my wife liked to quiz me: “What are the big five?” (The answer is lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and water buffalo.)

But for me, I confess that South Africa was all about wine. So I would reply, in reference to the five grape varieties involved in the making of red Bordeaux, “cabernet sauvignon and franc, merlot, petite verdot, and malbec.”

For part one of our journey into the heart of chenin blanc-ness, click here for more: More