….. that came from a local wholesale distributor, I found a couple of bottles from the Abbey Saint-Hilaire in Limoux, a producer unknown to me.

You never know what you’re going to get when a friend in the wholesale wine business calls and says, “Hey, I have two or three boxes of wine for you.” Of course most of it will be recent releases, because the wholesalers want to get their new wines some attention. Wholesalers always, however, have cases or two or half a case of older releases, wines maybe one or two years past the current vintage or just stuff that they couldn’t sell; this friend likes to tuck a few bottles like these in with the other wines. Sometimes the result is a treasure that I otherwise would never have encountered, like the August Kesseler Riesling Kabinett 2004 mentioned in the previous post.

These examples from Abbey Saint-Hilaire turned out to be not only interesting but intriguing and quite good.

Limoux, in the foothills of the Pyrennes, is the western-most wine appellation in the vast Languedoc-Roussillon region of southwest France. The small area is known mainly for sparkling wines, the production of which goes all the way back to 1531 at the Abbey Saint-Hilaire. Known as Blanquette de Limoux, these sparkling wines are made primarily from the local mauzac grape, with the contemporary addition of chardonnay and chenin blanc. In 1993, a revision of the appellation rules was permitted to allow the production of still white wine, of which the dominant grape is chardonnay, though 15 percent of the blend must be mauzac; a small amount of chenin blanc is also allowed. In 2005, red blends once labeled Vins de Pays de la Haute Vallee de l’Aude were elevated to the Limoux appellation; the wines must contain 50 percent merlot and at least 30 percent of a blend of carignan, cot (malbec), syrah and grenache.

The impressive abbey was founded early in the Seventh Century; the first recorded mention is in 825. Saint Hilaire — his feast-day is celebrated by stand-up comics — was the first bishop of Carcassonne, the romantic castle-town that lies about 18 miles to the north of Limoux.

The Abbey Sainte-Hilaire Chardonnay 2005 is identifiably chardonnay, but the presence of the mauzac and chenin blanc grapes lends exotic touches. The color is pale straw-gold with green highlights. The bouquet is clean and fresh, with notes of spiced apple, pear and roasted lemon. The wine is crisp but slightly plush, slightly powdery in texture; scintillating acid and a limestone element that’s like the essence of mineral transparency add up to lovely weight and balance. A few minutes in the glass bring up touches of spiced peaches, dried herbs and flowers, with, on the finish, a hint of grapefruit bitterness. At its peak now, the wine should drink beautifully through the end of 2008 or into the first months of 2009. I rate it Excellent, but I’ll hold off on mentioning the price.

The Abbey Saint-Hilaire Red Table Wine 2004 is a blend of 50 percent merlot, 20 percent each syrah and malbec and 10 percent cabernet sauvignon; hmmm, that combination doesn’t quite conform to the regulation but whatever. This is a really charming and individual wine, bursting with notes of black cherries, plums, blackberries and mulberries, all steeped in a melange of cinnamon, cloves and dark cocoa powder; a bit of candied rhubarb comes in at the top, over cranberry tart. The wine is quite dry, intense and concentrated yet generous, rather yielding after a few minutes. The finish gathers elements of chewy tannins for a show of power. Drink through 2010. I rate the wine Very Good+

We were tasting these wines in the kitchen as I made the pizza for Saturday Pizza and Movie Night — we watched a very very very depressing French movie called Personal Property, starring Isabelle Huppert at her most wan and sad and dissatisfied — and I said to LL, “You know, these wines are terrific, but they just have the feeling to me of being expensive.” I mean, they have a certain amount of class and character, and they come in heavy bottles with gold stamping instead of paper labels. They look significant.

The truth? Prices on the Internet are $11 to $15. Go for it.

LL was out of town and I needed to get dinner together for myself, and it was one of those days when eight hours at the desk feels like 8,000 hours, and I wanted to go to the grocery store about as much as I wanted to teach a wine class in Amish country. So I determined that when I got home, I would make dinner from whatever I found. Eggs, O.K., that’s good, we’ll try an omelet. Black olives, good again. Parsley and thyme, looking better. Half a head of radicchio left from a salad, that might be fine. Ah, some nice spring onions. Some sausages in the freezer, all it takes is a few blows of a hammer and in a trice one of those suckers is thawing in the microwave.

So, I sauteed the sausage, took it out of the pan and placed it on a paper towel, added a touch of butter, dropped in the chopped onions, waited a minute and added a little minced garlic, let those turn color slightly, and then dropped in the julienne radicchio and quartered black olives. Whisked three eggs with the chopped parsley and thyme, poured the mixture into the pan over the onions and radicchio and other stuff. Let it cook for a minute, lifted the edges with a spatula so the liquidy part would flow under, another minute or two and so on, watching carefully not to overcook, and there was my dinner, set on a plate with the sausage and a piece of wheat toast. I don’t mind eating breakfast for dinner, obviously.

As I usually do when I eat dinner alone at home — though one is never actually alone in a houseful of dogs — I set out four or five wines to taste as I ate: a Chianti, a merlot, a syrah, maybe a cabernet. (Though a lighter pinot noir or a hearty Beaujolais is good with an omelet.) My omelet, by the way, was delicious and looked good too; the hint of bitterness from the radicchio really balanced nicely with the earthiness of the olives and the sweetness of the onions. Yum.

So I opened the Chianti and poured a little in my glass, intending to go on to the other wines. I didn’t get to them.

Now I don’t want to oversell this wine, but the Vino dei Fratelli Chianti 2006 was not only terrific with the omelet, but it was a shining example of what a Chianti should be at its suggested price, about $10. Made from 95 percent sangiovese and five percent canaiolo grapes and seeing no oak, only stainless steel, the wine is incredibly fresh and lively, bursting with spicy black currant and plum scents and flavors with hints of cranberry and blueberry; something wild is there, something not just spicy but exotic and earthy. There’s a firm acid backbone and a foundation of tannin that lends dustiness and a dense, chewy texture. Yeah, I drank it with an omelet, but at the price it’s certainly worth buying a case to go with the food that’s going to be emerging, hot and crusty, from your outdoor grill this summer. Perfect with burgers, pizza, pork chops and such. I rate the wine Very Good+ and name it a Great Bargain.

It’s imported by Quinessential, in Napa, Ca. Visit quintessentialwines.com.

The albariño grape might be the great white grape of Spain. It grows particularly well in Rias Baixas, a small vineyard region in Galicia, Spain’s northwestern-most province. The Atlantic Ocean, which part of Riax Baixas touches, exerts a powerful influence on the coastal vineyards. The wines tend to be delicate, deeply floral and abundantly spicy. Though some producers are experimenting with barrel aging, I think that albariño doesn’t take kindly to such treatment; oak turns the wine into some alien distortion of itself and robs it of its inherent freshness and delightful character.

I tried two wines made from albariño grapes recently, and if they’re not the best I ever tasted, they come damned close. They’re made by Adegas d’Altamira, a small family-owned property above the Atlantic with beneficial proximity to ocean breezes and excellent drainage. Some of the albariño vines on the estate are over 100 years old; the entire estate was turned over to albariño in the late 1930s. Though several generations of the Touriño family had been involved in growing grapes and making wine, the first wines with labels bearing the estate’s name were bottled only in 2004. It was about time.

The estate produces two wines, the Brandal and the Adegas d’Altimiral; both are 100 percent albariño grapes. Neither sees any oak, and neither goes through malolactic fermentation, so the wines are incredibly fresh and crisp. The differences between the wines is that the Brandal undergoes 12 hours of pre-fermentation skin maceration and rests in stainless steel tanks for six months to be clarified. Adegas d’Altimira is given 24 hours of skin fermentation, and for three months of stabilization in tank, it rests on the lees of dead yeast cells to furnish the wine with depth and complexity.

The Brandal 2006 is absolutely lovely. Scents of crushed jasmine, roasted lemon and lemon curd and dried thyme waft from the glass. As you sip the wine, it picks up hints of peach and pear and a touch of dried orange rind, while layers of limestone and chalk add a bulwark of mineral-like seriousness. The texture is that gratifying combination of scintillating liveliness and talc-like softness; the finish brings in a bit of grapefruit bitterness. Brandal 2006 will make wonderful drinking through the summer, as an aperitif and with seafood appetizers or pasta dishes. The wine rates Very Good+. About $15, a Great Bargain.

If Brandal 2006 is lovely, Adegas d’Altamira 2006 is gorgeous. Take every element of Brandal ‘06, intensify it and burnish it, but don’t let it be unbalanced or overbearing. Here we find suaveness, a hint of lushness tempered by a profound limestone-flinty element, a sense of energy derived from bell-like acid and the ripeness of juicy lemon, peach and pear flavors. The floral note is subdued, but the spicy aspect is more prominent. The wine, while crisp and jazzy, flows like silk over the tongue and palate. As with its less expensive cousin, the Adegas d’Altamira ‘06 concludes with a bracing rinse of grapefruit and grapefruit rind. Serve with grilled fish and seafood though the end of 2008 and into 2009. Excellent. About $25.

The wines of Adegas d’Altamira are imported by Quintessential Wines in Napa, Ca. Visit quintessentialwines.com.

The New Day referred to in the title of this post calls attention to the fact that BTYH is now affiliated with Triggit!, a new program that will allow me to make a little moolah from this blog beyond the pittance that Google ads bring. This will still be a pittance, but if you add a pittance to a pittance, you get a slightly larger pittance, enough, perhaps, to pay for a bottle of wine every once in a while.

You will notice, from now on, that every wine I mention on BTYH is highlighted in red. Click on the name of the wine and you will be taken to wine-searcher.com, which will show you where the wine can be bought or ordered and the price it fetches around the country. Every click brings me, as they say in the South, “a thin dime.” Actually, I think it’s 11 cents, making that thin dime a tad thicker. So, visitors to BTYH, you know what your job is. By the way, as an alternative, I can direct the links to winezap.com instead of wine-searcher; I would be interested to know what readers think is more useful.

So, while I already went back and created a few links in previous posts, we’ll launch the Triggit! function officially with two Spanish wines that LL and I drank with meatloaf.

You know how it is with meatloaf. In the same way that migratory birds wake up one morning and think, “O.K., time to go,” human beings rise from slumber thinking, “Yes, it’s a day for meatloaf.” For years I’ve made the meatloaf from Julia Childs’ The Way to Cook (Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), and it’s so perfect a rendition of the concept — meat made into a loaf with a few ingredients to hold it together and make it taste even better — that I see no reason to change. For starch, we made the potatoes gratin from Alice Waters’ book from last year, The Art of Simple Food (Clarkson N. Potter, $35). This dish involved layering three strata of very thinly sliced potatoes, immersing them in milk, butter and (a suggestion) Parmesan cheese and sage, and baking the concoction for an hour. Holy moly!

The first night of the meatloaf, we drank the Casa de la Ermita Crianza 2004, from the Spanish wine region of Jumilla. The wine is a blend of 40% monastrell (mourvedre), 25% tempranillo, 20% cabernet sauvignon and 15% petit verdot. The bouquet is frankly gorgeous, a heady amalgam of smoke, lavender, crushed violets and minerals and ripe fleshy black fruit. The wine aged nine months in a combination of French and American oak barrels, a factor contributing to its spiciness and its firm structure. Casa de la Ermite Crianza ‘04 delivers great balance and integration, as well as a dense, chewy texture, currant, plum and black cherry flavors touched with cedar, tobacco and potpourri and, unexpectedly, a wild, high note of camellia. It was great with the meatloaf. Drink now through 2010 or ‘11. Excellent. About $19.

That was last Sunday. Midweek we sat down to dinner with the leftovers and a bottle of Mas Igneus Barranc dels Closos 2004 from the Spanish region of Priorat. This blend of grenache (70%), carignane (25%) and merlot (5%), which matures only three months in French oak, uses soft, grainy tannins to support luscious currant, plum and blueberry flavors threaded with lead pencil and minerals, wild berry, black tea, potpourri and a hint of tar. A few minutes in the glass bring up touches of mulberries and roses, briers and brambles. It’s a clean, vibrant, spicy wine, super-attractive and drinkable, but with an element of seriousness about the structure. It too was terrific with the meatloaf. Drink now through 2010 or ‘11. Very good+. About $20.

Both wines are brought into the United States by Opici Import Co., Glen Rock, N.J.

As more of the largest producers in California import more labels and varieties of (too often mediocre) wines from Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Spain and Australia, sometimes I have to wonder: “How much wine do we need?”

That question didn’t cross my mind, though, when I tasted the Don Miguel Gascon Malbec 2006 from Argentina’s Mendoza region. The wine is imported by E.J. Gallo through Gascon Wines in Haywood, Ca. At $12, this is a terrific cool weather wine for hearty red meat and game dishes and a Great Bargain. There’s a complete review on this page that I put up last night at KoeppelOnWine, along with reviews for three other big-hearted, two-fisted reds in case you’re roasting large goat-like animals over an open fire on a mountainside and an unusual wine choice for Thanksgiving dinner — does the word “Niagara” mean anything to you? Ha!

I tasted these wines, which offer different sorts of charms, pleasures and virtues, last week, at home with various meals. The Bonny Doon Le Cigare Blanc 2005 and the Graff Family Vineyard Pinot Blanc 2005 were particularly good with wild Coho salmon, sauteed with nothing more than salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon, but let’s start with the wine that’s an Incredible Bargain.

That’s the Montinore Estate Gewurztraminer 2006, Willamette Valley, Oregon, a wine that I mentioned on a page of KoeppelOnWine recently as being “one of the best gerwurztraminers I have tried from the American West Coast.” It begins with a gorgeous bouquet of rose petal, jasmine and honeysuckle, litchi, peach and apricot. Flamboyant in the nose, the wine is more spare in the mouth, with bright, precise acid and sinews of limestone. Despite those factors, the texture is silky and sensuous, the flavors almost lush with roasted lemon and lime peel. The finish pulls up a bit of the grape’s natural bitterness. A wonderful wine for the price, about $13 or $14.

Next, look at the Leth Steinagrund Gruner Veltliner 2006, from Austria’s Wagram region. This displays more body and presence than the lighter, more delicate gruner veltliner wines we often see. Scents and flavors of roasted lemon and lemon curd receive emphasis from lime and pear and touches of dried baking spice. While the wine is moderately rich in flavor and texture, it’s also notably dry and crisp, the structure and foundation lying in unmistakable stony, minerally elements. Imported by Domaine Select Wine Estates, New York. Another Bargain at about $16 or $17.

The Turnbull Sauvignon Blanc 2006, Oakville, Napa Valley, strikes the themes of spareness and elegance, yet it doesn’t neglect to weave delightful strains of lemon-lime and grapefruit, dried thyme and caraway, with something a little leafy and curranty at the core. The wine is a blend of 85 percent sauvignon blanc, 10 percent viognier and five percent semillon; it’s fermented and aged 85 percent in stainless steel and 15 percent in new French oak, lending an overlay of spice and firm structure over scintillating acid. The whole package offers lovely balance and integration. Finished with a screw-cap for easy opening, though this image doesn’t show that. Terrific quality for the price, about $16 or $17.

Bonny Doon’s Le Cigare Blanc 2005, California, in homage to the white wines of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, is a blend of 54 percent roussanne grapes and 46 percent grenache blanc. The wine is carefully made, the grapes fermented separately first in stainless steel and then in barrel. After fermentation, the wine ages six months in neutral French oak (meaning used barrels); 25 percent of the wine goes through so-called malolactic fermentation (”so-called” because it has nothing to do with fermenting), a naturally-occurring process in which sharp malic (”apple-like”) acid is transformed to creamy lactic (”milk-like”) acid. I mention these winemaking methods — and they’re legitimate techniques, not tricks — to show you how a winemaker like Randall Grahm can meticulously strive to allow wine as much as possible to have a (silent) say in how it should be made, while ensuring that the wine possesses both freshness and personality, qualities Le Cigare Blanc 2005 has in spades. It’s a clean, fresh, lovely wine, offering winsome notes of pear and roasted lemon, crystallized lemon rind and ginger, jasmine and honeysuckle. In the mouth, it’s dry, crisp and spare, layering limestone, dried Provencal herbs, lime peel and grapefruit in a texture that’s appealingly soft and round but crackling with acid. Great winemaking. About $20.

The Saint-Veran 2005 from Domaine Perraud is the first serious wine from Burgundy I’ve seen closed with a screw-cap, though since Saint-Veran is as far south in the Maconnais as you can get before you hit Beaujolais, it may be a bit of a stretch to call it Burgundy, though location is, of course, everything, in marketing as well as morals. More to the point: My first note is “Whoa, what a lovely little chardonnay!” Then: “Whoa, not so little!” It’s a vibrant and resonant expression of the grape’s spare, elegant minerally side, almost crystalline in purity and intensity, delivering lemon and grapefruit scents and flavors with a touch of baked pineapple and dried spice and, in the mouth, a walloping smack of acid. The finish is incredibly dry and austere. North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, Ca. About $20.

Typical prices for the Graff Family Vineyard Pinot Blanc 2005, Chalone, Monterey County, run from $24 to $28, but I saw sites on the Internet offering it for $18 to $22. The wine shows its pedigree in French oak (fermented and aged) but modulates the woody, spicy aspects in favor of almond and almond blossom, jasmine, lemon and lime peel. In the mouth, the wine expands to include orange rind and tangerine, smoke and a hint of caramel. It handily balances moderate richness and lushness with a firm structure and crisp acid and a long mineral-laced finish. 400 cases. Drink now through 2009.

… but that’s one of the reasons why the wines can be great, the sparseness of the stony soil forcing the ancient vines to work for their supper. The small region lies in Spain’s extreme northeastern province of Cataluña, northwest and inland from the coastal city of Tarragona. Vines have been grown and wine has been made in Priorat since the 12th Century, though a thousand years ago the vineyards were under the care of Carthusian monks. Long neglected because it was difficult to find workers to toil in the steeply-terraced vineyards, Priorat made a comeback in the 1990s, led by a producer called Scala Dei — “ladder of god” — that occupies the buildings of one of the old monasteries. Since 2001, Group Codorniu has owned 25 percent of Scala Dei. You can see how tiny the region of Priorat is on this map of Spain’s wine regions. In fact, you can see all of Spain’s wine regions. Thank you F.K., for this terrific educational feature of your blog!

Priorat is unusual in that its principle grape is grenache — garnacha in Spanish, garnatxa in Catalan — which in this arid climate and demanding topography manages to ripen and produce deeply colored and flavored wines. An irresistible example is the Scala Dei Negre 2005, a 100 percent grenache wine that features luscious, fleshy and meaty black currant, black raspberry and plum scents and flavors permeated by dried thyme, cedar and smoke, dust, tobacco and garrigue, that earthy, parched and weedy yet perfumed herbage of the south of France. This panoply is wrapped around an intense core of licorice, bitter chocolate, tar and minerals, while the whole package is framed and founded on bastions of polished oak and grainy tannins. Yet the wine is approachable, even likable and essential with grilled red meat. Excellent and Great Value for the Price, about $20.

Grenache composes 88 percent of the Scala Dei Prior Crianza 2001, with the balance made up of eight percent syrah and four percent cabernet sauvignon, a blend that serves as an example of Scala Dei’s innovative methods (along with aging in small oak barrels). Lord have mercy, what a mouthful of wine! This is like drinking liquid blueberry and blackberry jam with licorice and lavender, rose petal and plums and touches of something wild like muscadine and cranberries; it’s that exotic, but it’s never out of control. And though the wine is intense and concentrated, dense and chewy, there’s a touch of rose petal softness to the texture, that is until the tides of oak, tannin and minerals inexorably rise. It’s a tremendous achievement, meant to be consumed from now through 2011 or ‘12. Excellent. About $25.

Last in this trio is Scala Dei’s Cartoixa Reserva 2001, a blend of 55 percent grenache, 30 percent syrah and 15 percent cabernet sauvignon that saw 12 months aging in French and American oak. This is a wine in which personality and character are one, in which detail and dimension are of a piece. The color is inky purple, the bouquet an amalgam of macerated and roasted black currant, blackberry and plum infused with minerals, smoke and an edge of charcoal, chocolate-covered raspberries, cloves and sandalwood. These elements segue seamlessly to the mouth, where palate-tingling acid keeps the oak and tannin structure vibrant. The finish, not surprisingly, is long, spicy, dry and increasingly austere. Try from 2008 or ‘09 through 2014 or ‘15. A triumph. About $36.

These three wines register 14 percent alcohol, not an outlandish level nowadays. And I would say that for the superb quality, they’re underpriced, especially compared with high quality wines from, say, Tuscany or the Napa Valley or Australia’s Barossa.

The importer is Vinum International, Napa, Ca.

The map of Spain’s wine regions is from customtours.com.

We read the reports of wealthy collections slapping down hunks of change for California’s cult cabernet sauvignon-based wines: Shafer Hillside Select, Screaming Eagle, Colgin, Araujo, Bryant Family, Dalla Valle, Harlan Estate, Bond, Abreu and others. These wines cost $100 to $350 a bottle and fetch more at auction.

Add to that list Dominus, the Bordeaux-style wine overseen by Christian Moueix, owner and winemaker of legendary Chateau Petrus, in Bordeaux’s Pomerol region. Dominus was launched in 1982 as a partnership between Moueix and Robin Lail and Marcia Smith, the daughters of John Daniel, who owned Inglenook Vineyard, in the Napa Valley, during its greatest years of the 1940s through the end of the ’60s. It was a terrific pedigree, one over which Moueix, one of the world’s best winemakers, became sole proprietor in 1992. These are wines that possess infinite degrees of power and elegance and never see too much new oak. For 2004 Dominus is composed of 85 percent cabernet sauvignon, eight percent cabnernet franc and seven percent petit verdot. It spent 14 months in barrel. It retails for $113.

Moueix produces a second wine from the estate, Napanook, which for 2004 is blended from 83 percent cabernet sauvignon, nine percent cabernet franc, four percent petit verdot and one percent malbec. It also sees 14 months in barrel and costs $42.

Proceed, however, to the Carpe Diem Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, Napa Valley. The blend here is 89 percent cabernet sauvignon, seven percent merlot, two percent cabernet franc and two percent petit verdot; the wine spent 12 months in oak.

Here’s the point. The Carpe Diem Cabernet ‘05 was made under the direct supervision of Christian Moueix and his winemaking team; its grapes derive from the same estate that Moueix controls. It’s a superb Napa Valley cabernet, deep and rich, bursting with detail and broad with dimension, layered with smoke and spice and intense, concentrated yet generous cassis, black raspberry and black cherry fruit. It’s a wine of tremendous character, balance and poise that seems to change minute by minute in the glass, passing through infinitudes of seductive complexities. It is little short of a masterpiece and will drink well through 2012 to ‘15. I rate it Excellent.

And the suggested retail price is $25. I have seen it priced on the Internet as low as $21.

Let the plutocrats drop hundreds of dollars on their cult cabernets, some of which cost for one bottle what you would happily spend on a case of Carpe Diem Cabernet 2005.

Occasionally the tasting I do at home falls out this way, serendipitous, lively, instructive, fun. So here are three pairs of wines, some closely related, others a bit less so, but all fruitfully compared and contrasted.

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Kendall-Jackson is well-known and sometimes derided for its low-priced Vintner’s Reserve wines, which tend to cost from $12 to $16. A second Vintner’s Reserve line, with the designation “Jackson Estates Grown,” is priced at $18. The ubiquitous K-J Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay and Merlot are probably the best-known of these wines, though the line includes sauvignon blanc, riesling, pinot noir, zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon and syrah. All of the wines carry the broadest California appellation.

New to the roster is the K-J Vintner’s Reserve Meritage; the 2003 and ‘04 have been released. Each is a blend of cabernet sauvignon grapes, merlot and (traces of) cabernet franc. I’ll say that at the price, $12 for the ‘03 and $14 for the ‘04, they shouldn’t be missed. These are thoughtfully conceived and well-made wines and can go head-to-head with the best inexpensive wines we love from Spain, Italy, Argentina and (less so) California, especially paired with hearty red meat dishes. Winemaker is Randy Ullom.

The K-J Vintner’s Reserve Meritage 2004 is a blend of 65% cabernet sauvignon, 34 percent merlot and one percent cabernet franc. My first note is: “Amazing depth & dimension for the price.” The bouquet teems with classic Bordeaux-like notes of cedar. tobacco and black olive, with black currant and black cherry fruit that segues seamlessly into the mouth. Support is provided in the form of dusty, chewy tannins and polished oak from nine months aging in French (56 percent) and American barrels. I rate this wine Very Good. Drink through 2009 or ‘10. About $14

The Meritage 2003, one year older, is a deep purple color and offers a real mouthful of wine that balances a pretty tough structure with a lovely plush texture. The blend here is 49 percent cabernet sauvignon, 47 percent merlot and four percent cabernet franc. Is it the whisper of cabernet franc that provides the touches of walnut shell and underbrush, of blueberry and bitter chocolate? The lively spice and whiplash acid? Actually I would say that the blend works in canny harmony here, with black currant and black cherry flavors permeated by cedar and dried thyme and earthy tannins coming from every element. Very good+. Now through 2009 or ‘10. About $12, great for buying by the case.

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What’s the idiom for “poles apart” in Spanish? These two wines from the well-known Rioja region, where the red tempranillo grape reigns, could not be more different, in intent and in result.

The Castillo de Fuenmajor Gran Familia Rioja 2004, 90 percent tempranillo and 10 percent graciano, is just a sweetheart of a wine. It’s rich and ripe, soft and warm, elegant and harmonious; it flows across the palate like satin woven with slightly macerated and roasted black currant, plum and blueberry flavors infused with dried spice, cedar and tobacco and a hint of orange pekoe tea. Gosh, how lovely and untroubled by ambition, toasty oak or high alcohol. Imported by Well Oiled Wine Co., Leesburg, Va. Very Good+. Now through 2008 or ‘09. About $15.

On the other side of the spectrum is the hugely ambitious and just plain huge Bodegas Bilbainas Vicuana 2003, a blend of 75 tempranillo and 25 percent graciano. Touted as the “new expression of Rioja” by parent company Group Codorniu, Vicuana ‘03 ages 15 months in oak barrels, the result, combined with dense chewy tannins, being a structure of impregnable firmness. It’s true that the wine delivers a tremendous burst of succulent black fruit and a powerful, pungent bouquet steeped in smoke and potpourri, but with its elements of briers, brambles and underbrush and dusty minerality, Vicuana goes from robust to rustic. The finish, unsurprisingly, is long, dry and austere. Imported by Vinum International, Napa Ca. Very good+. Best from 2008 or ‘09 through 2012 to ‘15. Prices vary from a deeply discounted $18 to about $26.

I don’t know about you, but my sympathy here runs to the old-fashioned, ripe, approachable and tasty Gran Familia Rioja ‘04. If I were tackling a lamb shank tonight, that would be the wine for me.
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Mer Soleil, which produces a chardonnay from California’s Central Coast, is closely associated with the venerable Caymus Vineyards, being operated by Charlie Wagner II, grandson of Caymus founder Chuck Wagner. Mer Soleil (”sea/sun”) makes only one chardonnay, fashioned in a full-throttle, oak-tinged fashion that actually calmed down a bit starting in 2004; the winery was launched in 1992. Though grapes for the Mer Soleil Chardonnay 2005 came from a vineyard in Monterey’s Santa Lucia Highlands, the wine’s designation is still the boarder Central Coast.

Mer Soleil 2005 is bright, bold and brassy but pretty well-balanced. It’s a chardonnay that takes risks with super-ripeness and spicy oak, mingling pineapple, grapefruit and mango flavors with cinnamon toast and spice cake. Touches of lemon curd and Key lime pie come up, contrasted with chiming acid and a burgeoning mineral element. Frankly, I thought that I wouldn’t care at all for this wine, but its carefully managed sense of nuance, combined with Californian exuberance, won me over, slightly grudgingly, I’ll admit. Excellent. Now through 2009 or ‘10. About $42.

Seeing the need for a chardonnay not influenced so heavily by oak, or let’s say in which the grape is allowed to express itself more freely, Wagner brought out the aptly named Silver Unoaked Chardonnay, with a Santa Lucia Highlands designation, in the 2005 vintage. The new release, Silver Unoaked Chardonnay 2006, is sleek and clean as a whistle, very Chablis-like in its dryness and heady minerality. The wine sees no oak contact and does not go through malolactic fermentation, so it’s notable clean and crisp and very spicy, bursting with fresh apple, lemon drop and lemon curd flavors with a touch of pineapple. The texture is lovely in its satiny flow, dense and chewy, and the finish is bright, resonant and vibrant. The wine displays so much character that you don’t miss the oak a bit. A complete success. Excellent. About $42.

On the other hand, why should the unoaked chardonnay cost the same as the oaked chardonnay? I mean, one of the major costs of making fine wine is French oak barrels, which can run from $800 to $1,000 each, not to mention the time that the wine rests there in the barrels, tying up capital and doing nothing to pay for its upkeep. Silver is on the market in about six months, and no oak was involved. How about knocking a few bucks off the price for that?

Perhaps you remember the television commercials of the 1980s for Riunite and Cella Lambruscos, fizzy, grapey soda-pop wines from the western Emilia part of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. “Chill a Cella” and “Riunite on Ice — Very Nice” were the unforgettable slogans of those ads, which depicted the wines as mindless, fun babe-magnets. Americans drank millions of cases a year.

The Fontana dei Boschi Lambrusco 2004, produced by Vittorio Graziano in Modena, is not one of those wines, though it could be a magnet for babes who really like interesting wines. I got a bottle of this intriguing, serious effort from Gabrio Tosti’s De Vino store (de-vino) on Clinton Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “Drink it with pork or lamb,” he said. I was skeptical, though the dignified, straightforward label certainly did not imply that it was anything like Cella or Riunite.

Last night, LL made a pasta of farfalle with cipollini onions, sun-dried tomatoes, broccoli rabe and leftover grilled chicken. (It was great.) The bottle’s back label informed us that the wine is aged six to nine months in stainless steel tanks, put into bottles for a second fermentation (as in the classic Champagne manner) and then disgorged to clean bottles. Few Lambruscos — that’s also the name of the grape — today are made in this traditional manner, more typically being produced in the bulk method. When I opened the wine, it emitted a “POP” and a spew of lavender foam, and in the glass the effervescence persisted for several minutes before it subsided. The bottle is not closed with a Champagne-style cork and wire enclosure but with a regular cork that’s fatter at the bottom.

The Fontana dei Boschi Lambrusco 2004 is a rich, deep purple color with a dark ruby rim (see the picture above). It bursts with pure black raspberry and black cherry scents and flavors with a spicy black plum undertone and a touch of wild berry. The wine displays surprising tannin and structure; this is not a sweet, simple-minded little quaffer in any sense but a forthright and individual wine intended for hearty fare. It was delicious with the grilled chicken pasta and also at lunch today with tacos made of leftover grilled pork chops (we’re big into recycling, and I’ve been grilling outdoors a lot) with white bean puree and tomatilla salsa.

Fontana dei Boschi Lambrusco 2004 is brought into the U.S. by Lambrusco Imports, Spring Valley N.Y. At about $22, it’s definitely Worth a Search.