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

“Qué guay. ¡Este vino me encanta!”
(Cool. I adore this wine!)
These are words I don’t hear often in Spain — coming from a native and directed at me. Usually it’s me on my knees, thanking a local for a super tip on a wine list, or for an insider connection to a friend and winemaker in Spanish wine country. But when I bought a 2005 Borsao Campo de Borja Crianza for less than six Euros at the corner store near my sister’s apartment in Madrid’s Plaza Chueca and served it to her Madrileño friends, they were exclaiming in Castellano over the big, soft, minerally Borsao’s price-quality ratio. But I wasn’t picking in the dark: I often by Borsao in the states, especially its old-vine granache “Tres Picos”, a “top” cuvée in every way but price, usually about $11 US.

For another wine we enjoyed after we were done putting my sister’s new baby to bed, 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

Last Monday’s Italian Wine Class got a little mental over Terra Rosa’s Brunello di Montalcino. Especially after our teacher Luca told us he seven bottles left of this wine, only 135-cases of which were produced, ten hands went up, chairs nearly tipping backward: “Can I have one?” Then, when one classmate slipped out the door with an armful of purchases, we panicked. “He didn’t buy all of that Brunello, did he?” We would have chased him down the street, that’s how much we loved it.

For how and why you can get in on the Brunello craze, click here: More

Dear Wine Girl:
What’s a Super Tuscan? How would I spot it at a wine store or on a wine list? And if I’m in a restaurant with a lot of Italian offerings I’m not familiar with, would I be safe to just go with a Super Tuscan?
–Super Italo-Curious

Dear SIC:

Fast and loose answer: a high-quality red from Italy’s Tuscany region that’s styled on French Bordeaux.

More nuanced answer: The Super Tuscan was born when Antinori, a big winery in Italy, tried to boost the quality, reputation, and price of Tuscan wine — at that time, mostly mediocre Chianti. They took the local grape sangiovese, blended it with cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, aged it in French oak, and gave it the romantic moniker “Tignanello,” the name of the single vineyard that produced the fruit. (Tignanello also was not made with any white grapes, a dollop of which typically went into traditional Chianti.) With the help of Sassicaia, another red with a similar Bordeaux-style recipe, the new Super Tuscans helped Italian wineries bust out of the Chianti closet and play to the big boys from Bordeaux and Burgundy.

For my sure-fire method of spotting a Super Tuscan, click here: More