Well, as part of my ongoing attempt to achieve world media domination, I did another TV spot yesterday for local channel CW11, recommending a range of organic, green and etc. spirits and wines. It was much lower-key than the Today show gig, and it got me a chance to recommend Appellation Wine & Spirits, here in NYC, a cool store run by the equally cool Scott Pactor that focuses almost entirely on organic & biodynamic wines and spirits. It also gives me a chance to link over to some recent recommendations I made for organic & biodynamic wines that were an adjunct to my August article on wineries' green strategies (recycling, sustainable energy, using gerbils to power crusher-stemmers, that sort of thing), which I'm keen to do since the recommendations are a little lost on our site.

See? World media domination, but in a responsible way. I do my best to be a conscientious fellow.

So what if it's 95˚ in NYC, I say pull out a big ol' Sicilian red. Or, actually, a nicely structured and not-at-all-too-jammy Sicilian red, as well as a tasty Argentine white. To wit:

2007 Trivento Select Torrontes ($12) I'm sort of perplexed by this white, since neither the winery's website nor the importer's seems to have any info on it, but nevertheless it's in the market, so what the hey. Nice classic floral aroma, juicy melon-citrus fruit—it's not as over-the-top (nor quite as delicious) as Susana Balbo's slightly more expensive bottling, but it's a very appealing white for a fair price.

2006 Feudo Principi di Butera Nero d'Avola ($13) I wrote about this a few months ago, but had the opportunity to re-taste it with the winemaker, Franco Giacosa, a couple of days ago, and I'm still convinced it's a terrific value. The aroma is bright red cherry with a bit of tarry floral action, the flavor juicy and spicy but neither overextracted nor overripe. It's aged in big Slavonian oak botti—"no barriques, no French oak," says Mr. Giacosa. Kudos to him on that choice.

Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of how radically wine lists in restaurants have changed over the past, oh, fifteen years or so. I've been on a sort of Italian-resto-spree lately, and I'm coming out of it thinking that I'm either dreaming or I'm living in a golden age of Italian wine and food here in NYC.

Example One: Scarpetta. I've been a fan of Scott Conant's cooking since the first bite I had of his luscious polenta with wild mushroom fricassee at L'Impero, a dish which, I'm thrilled to find, he's replicated on the menu at his new restaurant, Scarpetta. I've been here a few times in the past month or so, and it's quickly becoming one of my favorite spots in the city, partly because it seems like Conant has finally landed in a place where the ambience of the room is of a piece with the character of the food. I loved L'Impero, but it was a tad formal for my taste; Alto was like watching Cezanne try to paint like Tintoretto or something; Scarpetta nails it. And besides the presence of things like Conant's signature capretto (roasted baby goat, and mighty darn good it is), there's also the smart, adventurous, and fairly priced wine list. We drank a terrific white, the 2006 Vadiaperti Fiano di Avellino, about which I know nothing but that it's packed with flavor and focused all at once. Next, a bottle of the 2006 Hofstätter Lagrein. Its bright acidity played foil to its dark, chewy fruit, and both went ideally well with Conant's rich duck-and-foie gras ravioli, not to mention his fall-apart-tender short ribs.

Example Two: Bar Milano. First off, if you're lucky, then partner Tony Abou-Ganim is going to be behind the bar mixing drinks here, as he was the night I stopped in. I asked him to make me something interesting with rye. He replied with a Rattlesnake, which, according to the 1947 edition of Trader Vic's Bartender's Guide is one ounce of rye, two dashes of Pernod, a teaspoon of lemon juice, a half-teaspoon of powdered sugar, and half an egg white, shaken with cracked ice and (in my case) strained onto rocks. Sublime on a steamy evening, and a good lead-in to poking around Bar Milano's all-Northern-Italian wine list. I bypassed the exceptionally weird 2005 Movia Lunar—I love Ales Kristancic's wines, but this stuff is odd to a fault—and instead settled on a bottle of the 2006 Grosjean Freres Cornalin from the Valle D'Aosta. This is the kind of wine that never, ever, in a million years would have appeared on a wine list back in, say, 1985 or even 1995. Utterly obscure, it was also mighty darn delicious—bright red fruit, potent but not weighty, distinctive and very fresh. Good with duck, you might think. I did, and it was. Plus the duck itself was superb, the skin crisp to a just-so toothsomeness, the meat tender and deeply flavorful (Pekin from D'Artagnan—good to know), the rhubarb compote that came with it a nice tangy-sweet touch as were the earthy, savory lentils.

Example Three: Dell' Anima. One thing I like about this place is that practically every bottle that wine director Joe Campanale offers probably wouldn't have appeared on a wine list back in 1995 (with maybe the exception of some of the Tuscan & Piedmontese wines). The list is like a playground for Italian wine fanatics. In the mood for a little Fumin? A glass of Cesanese del Piglio? Or maybe some Petite Arvine—I was, for the latter, since I was still on my Valle d'Aosta kick. The 2006 Grosjean Freres Petite Arvine (those guys again!) was unctuous and rich; lots of texture, lots of minerality, and very good with avocado & preserved lemon bruschetta, a snack which wasn't exactly Italian but somehow very much was, all at the same time. Next up was a 2007 Romano Clelia Fiano d'Avelino "Colli di Lapio", about the best Fiano I've run across (including the Vadiaperti, much as I liked it). Melony, aromatic, and long, it was substantial enough to go with chef Gabe Thompson's intensely woodsy Garganelli with mushroom ragu (a died-and-gone-to-heaven dish for mushroom fanatics) yet graceful enough to also go with something as evocative of springtime as Thompson's farfalline with asparagus, ricotta salata and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms.

And I forgot to mention: we started off at Dell'Anima with a bottle of white Lini Lambrusco, which is made from red Lambrusco Salamino grapes, just to make things even a tad more complicated. It was like drinking lightly sweet flowers.

Man, this Italian wine-list thing. Esoterica everywhere. But it sure is fun.

The Tasting Room was getting overloaded with wine once again, so it seemed like a good time to taste through a passel of Pinots (which raises the question of whether groups of wines ought to have names a la "pride of lions" or "exaltation of larks", e.g. "crowd of Cabernets" or "symposium of Sauvignon Blancs" or "bog of fruit-bombs", i.e. "The wine critic fought his way valiantly through the fifty-bottle bog of fruit-bombs, but, in the end, his palate was obliterated and he drowned.").

In any case, moving right along, here were the winners out of the 22 wines we opened today.

2007 Cono Sur Pinot Noir ($9) This is labeled with the deeply terroir-specific tag "wine of Chile," but who cares—for nine bucks, it's surprisingly appealing Pinot. The nose isn't much to speak of, but it's got some appealing berry flavors, a leafy tobacco note, and the winery's carbon neutral, too. Can't argue with that. 

2006 J. Daan Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($24) I know zip about winemaker (and owner, I assume) Justin van Zanten, save that he was assistant winemaker at Andrew Rich, but I'm interested to find out more. This is a graceful, light-bodied Oregon Pinot, the nose a bit faint at the moment, but with evocative floral-strawberry-raspberry notes and a hint of earthiness.

2006 MacPhail Anderson Valley Pinot Noir ($45) James MacPhail has been getting a lot of praise for his Pinots from a variety of wine writers, and based on this wine—one of his two basic cuvées, the other being a Sonoma Coast bottling—it's deserved. Floral, spicy aromas and ripe but focused flavors—sort of raspberry liqueur, if you can use that term without implying overripeness, which this wine isn't in the least. My note says that it "sorta glows"—in terms of flavor, not color—which if you ask me is something Pinot ought to do.

2005 Keller Estate La Cruz Vineyard Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir ($40) This had a touch of reductiveness when first opened, but some good swirling got rid of it (decant the wine, if you buy it) to bring out pretty black cherry and cola notes. The black cherry continues in the flavor, along with brushy spice notes; plus it's got a silky, sexy mouthfeel that is really impossible to resist. Technically this comes from the Petaluma Gap area, just north of San Pablo Bay. Winemaker Michael McNeill is making some terrific wines here, white and red, and they're well worth checking out.

2006 Paraiso Vineyards West Terrace Pinot Noir ($40) I visited Paraiso ages ago when I was doing a story on Gary Pisoni, and thought at the time their wines were good but not much more. In the past couple of years they seem to have hit their stride, though—I thought Paraiso's 2006 Riesling was a steal for $14, and this Pinot was an unexpected star of this tasting. Very aromatic, with licorice, cinnamon and dark cherry notes, it's ripe and full-bodied, but those cool Santa Lucia Highlands winds must have had an effect, because it's also got a firm enough backbone of tannins to support the fruit. You could pay a lot more for Pinots that aren't nearly as good.

This is part three, which is to say the final, the last, the end of the wines for this dinner. Definitely more effort to chronicle them than to drink them, but such is the journalist's life. I'll recap the 1988 Bordeaux tasting from the F&W Classic in the next day or two as well—some amazing wines there, and some not so. Interesting lineup to say the least. Here are the final six from the Schoenfeld dinner:

2005 HDV Carneros Syrah ($50) I seem to have written "blueberry gravel," and while I'm not sure what that is, it does in retrospect seem like an appropriate phrase for this sweet, dense, California Syrah.

2005 Colgin IX Syrah Estate ($300 or so, if you can find it) Ink black, with gamy, savory notes on the nose (and not a little wood), then a powerful, super-extracted, black-fruited Syrah, with fierce tannins and a slathering of cocoa-oak. Impressive, yes. Delightful, well. If you like being hit in the face with a mallet, sure.

2002 Standish Shiraz ($80) Dan Standish sources the fruit for this wine from the eastern side of Barossa, on sandy soils. The aroma was toasty and hard to read in an odd way; the fruit, though, was lovely sweet blackberry, with luscious, fine tannins and a lot of grace despite its size. I wrote that it was "very all fruit all the time," which it is, but I was impressed anyway.

2002 Glaetzer Amon Ra Shiraz ($80ish) OK: the Standish is very good Barossa Shiraz. This is great Barossa Shiraz. A chunk of the fruit comes from 150-year-old vineyards in northwest Barossa, a windy place with sand over clay soils. The scent suggests black olives, chocolate and blackberries with an overlay of red currants, and the flavor follows along those lines, and just fills the mouth. I know plenty of people who would write this off just because it's a blockbuster, New World Shiraz, but I suspect they're also the sort of people who wouldn't understand why driving a Maserati is more fun than driving a Prius.

2000 Fabiano Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico  Pleasant, tarry Amarone but no great shakes. The fruit reminded me of cherry cider, and it had a nice little nip of citrus acidity on the end, but Romano Dal Forno ain't quaking in fear over this one.

2002 Kaesler Old Bastard Shiraz ($160, more or less) I know this is supposed to be up there in Amon-Ra territory (or even more culty, who knows), but to me it shot over the top: superrich elixir of blackberries and sweetness, so ripe and gobular that any nuance seemed drowned in the richness. Perhaps pleasant on pancakes? You got me.

And that's it. No more wines. Just your average little wine dinner in Boulder. I may be recovered enough by May for the next one. We'll see. 

Just to keep going with what I started the other day (or what we finished the other night, depending on how you want to look at it), here are the red wines—and two rosés—from the wine dinner Bruce Schoenfeld hosted on the Tuesday before the 2008 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. (Photo again by Jeremy Parzen.)

1997 Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Rosé General agreement could be found around the table that this wasn't the most impressive version of LdH's rosé around; I was part of that gang. Nice enough, with a kind of old book-dried strawberry scent, watermelon-strawberry fruit and a creamy texture, but it didn't have the depth some other vintages have had.

2007 S. C. Pannell McLaren Vale Grenache Rosé All ebullient ripe raspberry fruit and not much else. I wrote at the time, "crisp, juicy and a bit idiotic." 

2004 Sea Smoke Southing Pinot Noir Crunchy ripe raspberry and other berry notes wrapped with sweet spicy tannins. Very ripe Central Coast wine, but with a nice spice element to it. Sea Smoke's gotten a lot of culty praise; I thought this wine was very tasty, but not complex enough to justify raves.

2007 Emilio Bulfon Piculit Neri ($26) I completely rained on Jeremy Parzen's plan to mystify the whatsis out of me by having actually had this wine before—it's obscure as all get-out, but Henry Bishop (who used to run the wine program at Spiaggia in Chicago) once gave me a bottle, oddly enough. I liked it then, and I like it now. The aroma is floral and twiggy and reminiscent of a really good Dolcetto; the flavor is darker and sweeter than most Dolcettos, though, with lovely wild berry and plum notes, ripe but graceful. It's on wine-searcher.com, but strangely only available in Illinois. Go figure.

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OK. So here's how the first night of the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen feels if you're a wine editor:

 5:30 PM. Stop by Betts & Scholl wine party. Gawk at Dennis Scholl's extraordinary collection of modern art. Taste some B&S Hermitage Blanc, Aussie Riesling, Aussie Grenache and Côte Rôtie while munching on hors d'oeuvres made by James Beard award-winning chef Michelle Bernstein, of Michy's in Miami. 6:15 Jump into car, drive over to the big F&W welcoming reception. Exchange about fifteen words apiece with about two hundred people. Taste a rum cocktail that turns out to have lavender in it. Decide once again that lavender is meant for soap, not food. 7:15 Jump into shuttle bus, zoom over to the Wines from Spain shindig, where chef José Andrés is presiding over paella for three hundred people, which entails a paella pan literally big enough to seat four adults comfortably, if they wanted to be turned into paella. Taste Spanish wines, among them the 2006 Portal de Montsant Sant Bru Blanc, a fragrant blend of Garnacha Blanca, Garnacha Gris and Macabeo, and decide that yes, it was a good idea that you chose this particular wine to pour in your "Spain's Profound White Wines" seminar tomorrow morning.

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On my recent trip west, I tasted quite a few good Napa Valley wines, some of them discoveries (or discoveries for me, at least). I'd point people towards Jamie Kutch's silky, flavorful 2006 Kutch Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, for instance, if it weren't darn near impossible to find—still, get on the mailing list and who knows what will happen. Jamie makes his wines at the Deerfield Ranch Winery, and while I was there I also got to taste a pretty terrific Chardonnay from another fellow making wine there, Matt Wilson. The 2006 Sky Saddle Chardonnay ($30) comes from a small biodynamic vineyard in the Oak Knoll District; fourteen months of extended lees contact gives it a silky texture and depth that recalls Mark Aubert's Chardonnays, for instance, albeit at a lot less $$. Not very much of this around, but no one seems to know about it yet, either. Give the man a call.

You wouldn't cause yourself grave damage drinking the 2006 Rockledge Saralee's Vineyard Roussanne ($40), either, unless you liked it so much you inhaled the entire bottle and went zooming off in search of more—a risk, in fact. Pear and wildflower aromas, creamy texture bolstered by a firm mineral backbone, rich but not sweet. Fine example of California Roussanne. 96 whole cases made, so, again, act now. Or yesterday (again, best place to find this is by contacting the winery directly).

And I was happily surprised by the 2005 Wolf Family Estate Cabernet Franc 97% Cabernet Sauvignon 3% ($60), a cumbersome name for a graceful red that actually smells and tastes like Cabernet Franc, something a lot of California Cab Francs seem disinclined to do. From vines planted in the late 1970s—a whopping three-quarters of an acre of them—it's got pretty floral/violet aromas mingling with mocha and black cherry, and similar flavors ending on dusty, firm tannins. Where to get it? Yep, once again: call the winery. (Though if you're in CA, some retailers turn up on wine-searcher.com: check it here.)

So in the context of spending some time last week with the always erudite and engaging Michael Terrien, winemaker at Hanzell Vineyards, he felt it necessary to open up a few older vintages of Hanzell Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (undoubtedly because I shamelessly asked). If you're hanging on to older Hanzells, consider yourself in luck. Especially consider yourself so if you've got a stash of the 1998 Pinot, which pretty much blew me away. Here's why. We opened it in the evening—nice accompaniment to steak, btw—and it was both focused and luscious. I wasn't taking notes, because I decided I was tired of taking notes. Fine. Since we also opened a 1991 Hanzell Chardonnay (savory and spicy and still very much alive) and a 1984 Hanzell Pinot Noir (aromatics heading towards earth, dried cherries and twigs in a lovely way), along with a few other wines, we didn't finish the 1998. I cleverly deprived Mr. Terrien of the bottle. 

Then, because I'm of the "see if it takes a licking and keeps on ticking" school of wine testing, I stuck the remainder of the wine in the trunk of my car, and the next day drove it up Mt. Veeder Road and down the Oakville Grade (nice and windy—lots of aeration), headed back into Napa to have lunch at Ubuntu (fabulous all-veg food, and this is coming from a serious carnivore; I parked in the shade), then zoomed back to Yountville, where I parked the bottle on a countertop where I was staying until 7:00 PM, when I opened it to drink with a roast beef sandwich and potato chips.

Now, most older wines, you do that to them and they weep in pain and die. This Hanzell Pinot got better. My first reaction, after pouring a glass and sipping it, is unprintable in a family magazine (or on its website). Safe to say it was a violently profane expression of surprise. My second reaction was to think, well, maybe I better make notes after all. So: aroma of black cherry compote, brown sugar, black tea leaf, and orange skin; lasting flavors of fresh and dried wild raspberries and cherries, smoke, and more tea; and a velvety, fully resolved texture that still wasn't showing any signs of tiring or falling apart. A great wine.

Should I have drunk it with something more regal than a sandwich and some chips? I don't know, and don't really care. I suspect I could have drunk it with an old shoe and it would have been just as delicious.  

The other day I went to a vertical tasting of Chateau Palmer, the Bordeaux third-growth that's generally considered the best wine of Margaux after Chateau Margaux itself. Bernard de Laâge de Meux, Palmer's communication director, was there to conduct the event, which mostly involved presenting the various wine journalists present with a series of foil-covered bottles and smiling with a kind of offhand Bordelais devilishness as we tried to guess which vintages we were tasting.

I'd like to say that I nailed them all, but I'd like to say that I live in a villa at Cap-Ferrat and drive a Ferrari, too. Instead I drive a '93 Volvo and live in Brooklyn. But at least I didn't make a sad fool of myself, which is always comforting. All of the wines were very good (not surprising) and some were great. My favorites (slightly more surprising) were two less well regarded vintages. First there was the 1998, which had a fragrant, lightly gamy aroma with a slight and strangely appealing band-aid-box note, a dense, tongue-coating texture, and graceful black currant and black cherry fruit. About this, M. de Laâge de Meux (I sort of love writing that name-makes me feel like Stendhal or something) said, "A vintage of Palmer takes about ten years to show its aromatic complexity," to which I say, "Yep, sure seems that way."

The second of my favorites-along with several other people at the table-was the 1991, which was particularly surprising given it was paired against the much more acclaimed 1990. The color had a ruddy, beginning-to-fade quality, the aroma was full of tobacco, gamy secondary notes, licorice, and berries; in the mouth it was supple, lovely, fully developed, with dried fruit and plum cake notes, sort of sweet and savory all at once. Really wonderful wine from a frost-damaged and rainy vintage, and all the more mysterious for that. There doesn't seem to be much of it around, but what there is seems to run about $120 a bottle-not cheap, but given 2005 Palmer futures are somewhere around $250 to $300, you know, the price tag doesn't seem so bad after all...