You know the rest of that line, right? Well, it's with some small amount of sadness that I am saying that about this blog: It must come to an end. I've had a terrific time writing it, but we've decided that in the end it's a bit strange, for a magazine that's all about bringing together food and wine, to have separate blogs on those topics.

So, from here on out, any wine blogging that I (and Megan Krigbaum, Kristin Donnelly, and various other stalwart folks) do will instead appear in F&W's primary blog, Mouthing Off. No less wine coverage, just a different venue. See you there.

Ray Isle

After a morning spent with New Zealand wines, I hustled off in the afternoon to a Sauternes-Barsac tasting. Sauternes and Barsac, locate in the southwestern corner of Bordeaux, are known for producing sweet wines made with the Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and (sometimes) Muscadelle grape varieties. These wines develop their sweetness due to botrytis, or "noble rot," a fungus that pierces the skin of the grapes, letting some water out and as a result concentrating all the good sugar inside. The best of these wines have a terrific honeyed quality, but also brightness and acidity so as not to be cloying.

At this particular tasting, the producers were pouring one recent vintage wine and one older one and, remarkably, in some cases the older vintages had more freshness than the more recently released ones.

The two I tasted from Château Doisy Daëne were strikingly different. The 2005 (find this wine) was upfront with fresh grapefruit and grapefruit zest aromas. The flavors tended more to bitter citrus than sweet. The 1991 bottling, however, oozed with honey and butter and orange marmalade flavors alongside a lovely citrus acidity.

Both wines from Château Guiraud were standout, too. The 2005 vintage (find this wine) was lighter and more mellow, with orange blossom flavor and a long finish, whereas the 2002 was lively and crisp with orange notes.

The contrast between the two wines from Château Suduiraut was just as stark. The 2003 vintage (find this wine), which was a very hot year, was big and brawny with rich ripe fruit that suggested nectarines and tangelos. The 1999, on the other hand, was a bit more restrained with a perfumed nose and citrus peel notes.

Overall, it was an interesting investigation into wines that I don't normally have access to, and by the end of the tasting, my palate was surprisingly not overwhelmed, thanks to the accompanying acidity-a great thing, because I was headed back to the office to taste yet more wines, this time from Tuscany. More on that on Monday.

I was on the Today show this morning (check out the clip here), recommending a few summer's-almost-over-don't-miss-them beers and wines to Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. It was, as usual, a slightly crazy affair, but a lot of fun.

Beer-wise, I suggested people track down New Belgium's Skinny Dip, a light beer (114 calories) that doesn't taste like a light beer—i.e., doesn't taste like watery dreck. I'm not quite sure how the New Belgium brewers manage that, but if you're inclined toward light beers, you could do far, far worse. I also mentioned Hoegaarden, a classic Belgian witbier, faintly flavored with coriander and orange peel. The cloudiness (which is natural) seemed to worry KLG and Hoda, but in the end they seemed to like it; personally, I think the stuff's a no-brainer on a hot summer day. 

In terms of wine, my recommendations included the 2008 Foxglove Chardonnay ($13, find this wine), an unoaked Central Coast Chardonnay with crisp tree-fruit notes and impressive intensity; the 2008 Crios de Susanna Balbo Malbec ($15, find this wine), which for the price provides a lot of smoky blackberry fruit and works well as either a summer-grilling or winter-warming wine; and 2008 Saracco Moscato d'Asti ($15, find this wine), which is perfect for summer desserts—lightly sparkling, low in alcohol, with pretty tangerine and floral notes. 

I also got to walk down a set of stairs next to George Foreman, who was on the show, too, and looking mighty dapper in a striped, off-white suit. I have to say he drew more attention than I did.

I stopped by briefly this afternoon at a tasting of the new 2007 Vintage Ports (here's a lengthy report from Jancis Robinson on the vintage) from some of the major houses, and walked away very impressed. Based on this group, the '07s are more precise and fragrant than I recall the 2003s being; not as lusciously ripe (no surprise—it was a much cooler growing season through the entire summer, though it ended on ideally warm days in September) but more complex and graceful; and with a refined, powerful, spicy tannic grip on the finish of almost all the wines. I'll blog more about the vintage when I taste a few more examples—the wines won't be out for quite a while—but the two at the top of the heap today, for me, were the compellingly floral, layered, powerful Quinta do Vesuvio and the plush, black-currant-and-chocolate Croft. 

Sherry doesn't get enough love. It's one of the great wines of the world, but no one understands it, and basically, in this increasingly wine-obsessed country of ours, Sherry is sitting around moping by the phone while everyone else is going to the prom. (Partly this is because its sleazy little sister, the American stuff sold in jugs and labeled as cream sherry, will date anyone, especially winos and doddering old cat-ladies). In any case, I'm recommending a terrific dry sherry, the El Maestro Sierra Fino ($15/375ml), in my July column (not up for another week or so). Everyone should go out and buy it right now.

If you want more—and less frivolous—inside info on some great Sherries, check out my friend (and former colleague) Peter Liem's latest posts on his blog. Usually Peter is roaming around Champagne, but he just spent a week in Jerez tasting more than 300 sherries at an odd event called Vinobile, a celebration of sweet wines that, thank God, they moved to May from July—when I was there a few years ago, I found myself trying to taste vintage port in a tent under a 105˚ sun. Anyway, Peter's got a great palate and his picks are worth noting.

There are many people in the world who know more about Cyprus than me, but after the other night I'm willing to wager that there aren't that many people in the US who know more about Cypriot wines than I do (of course, I will now receive 70 emails from Cypriot wine experts calling my bluff here, but them's the risks of the job). And, in my newfound expertise—acquired the other night at a very engaging wine dinner put on by the Cyprus Embassy at Ammos—I can state that the wines of Cyprus are surprisingly good. They seem, unsurprisingly, to be benefiting from the same winemaking renaissance that hit Greek wine a few years back. I was particularly impressed by the 2003 KEO Heritage ($17), a vibrant, berry-driven red made from the native Maratheftiko  variety (try saying that fives times fast). It had a nice underlying earthy depth, and is a steal for the price. (If you're in NYC, you can track it down at Grand Wine & Liquor in Astoria, which always has a great selection of Greek wines as well.) Also impressive, or at least interesting, was a 2006 Fikardos Winery Spourtiko (not sure of the price), made from the apparently very delicate Spourtiko grape—it's known for having such a thin skin that it bursts when you pick it, basically. The wine was grassy (like new-mown lawn), clean and crisp—an appealing summer quaffer, but I suspect extremely difficult to track down, alas.

Of course, one significant detail about Cyprus as a wine producing region is that it is home to Commandaria, the oldest named wine still being produced. Pharoahs drank it (a bit unclear what they called it, though), Crusaders drank it (that's where the Commandaria part comes in—the word was also the name of the headquarters on Cyprus of the Knights of St. John), and, with somewhat less historical significance, I drank it the other night. If you like dessert wines at all, I'd suggest tracking down the St. John Commandaria (we tasted several; it was the best). Sort of on a line between Tawny Port and Oloroso Sherry, it's also its own thing entirely, with fig, prune, dark chocolate and nut flavors, but not terribly high alcohol, as it's not fortified. With a moderate chill, it was delicious. The best news? It runs a mere $14 a bottle.

It was a pleasantly sunny afternoon when the gun went off to start the annual barco rabelo regatta on the Douro this past Sunday (we're going to be bouncing around in time a bit with these Portugal entries; bear with). I'd abandoned my usual journalistic neutrality and was rooting for the Sandeman boat, largely because I was on it. 

In way of background, rabelos are the shallow-bottomed, keel-less boats once used to transport port casks down the Douro to Vila Nova de Gaia, the sister city to Oporto and home of the major port shipping companies. Back in the days that people actually used these boats—which are steered by a single long oar poking into the water from the stern, and feature a large square-rigged sail—the things were treacherous, since they were piled full of full port casks (heavy) and were sailed down the Douro before it was dammed (full of rapids) and had no stabilizing keel. Ours, on the other hand, were lightly loaded with empty casks and sailed on the Douro at the mouth of the river; entirely different proposition, which is to say that to become a fatality statistic in the annual regatta would take a lot of doing.

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