I mean, the fact that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day is neither here nor there, right? I mean, if you wanted to get a bottle of a rosé sparkling wine to share with your sweetheart, that’s up to you. I am merely a vehicle, a conduit of information and opinion.
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First is a new product from Freixenet, the giant Spanish firm — “among the ten largest wine companies in the world” — best known for its champagne method sparkling wines, that is, the second fermentation (which produces the essential bubbles) occurs in the bottle in which the wine will be aged and sold. The Freixenet Elyssia Pinot Noir Brut Cava, non-vintage, is all steel and strawberries and dried red currants. Made mostly from pinot noir, with 15 percent trepat grapes, this sparkling wine sports a lovely rosy-pink hue with a hint of bluish magenta and a steady stream of glinting bubbles. A touch of sweetness is nicely balanced by bracing acidity, while flavors of red currants and black cherries (and an undertone of peach) are bolstered by a burgeoning mineral element. Nothing particularly complicated here but lots of charm. Very Good+. About $18.
Imported by Freixenet USA, Sonoma, Cal. A review sample.
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For twice the price, you get at least twice the quality with the J Brut Rosé, Russian River Valley (non-vintage). Composed of 59 percent pinot noir grapes and 41 percent chardonnay, the J Brut Rosé offers a very pale onion skin color, like palest gold with a bare blush of pink, and a continuous upward surge of tiny bubbles. This is very dry, quite elegant and high-toned and beautifully balanced among keen acidity, luscious berry and stone fruit flavors and heaps of limestone and shale. The nose is dried strawberries with touches of apple and orange rind with almond and almond blossom; Rainier cherries, peach and lime peel dominate the palate, woven into a texture poised between slightly creamy lushness and crisp, vibrant, steely minerality. Enticing presence and authority conveyed with delicacy and refinement. Excellent. About $35.
A review sample.
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Which came first, the wine or the marketing campaign?

In my career writing about wine, I have received, along with wine, of course, the usual and the odd assortment of devices from marketing and PR people. These include corkscrews and foil cutters, little notebooks with pens, packets of spices and jars of condiments and, back in the 1990s, when this was the rage for some reason, dried-up pieces of grapevines and sacks of dirt; now that’s what terroir is all about.

Rarely, however, have I been on the receiving end of as strange a perk as I was granted last week, along with four wines with a new label, Tempra Tantrum, from Bodegas Osborne. Depicted in the whimsical image here, this alien-looking creature, reaching out a hand of friendship to the aloof feline, is a webcam with which I and my similarly lucky winewriting colleagues are encouraged to “create web videos of your wine tastings, with Tempra Tantrum as your first post!” Fat chance of that, unfortunately. The cover letter, purporting to be from vintner Rocío Alonso-Allende Osborne, a member of the sixth generation to run the family business, founded in 1772, goes on to say, “I hope he” — the webcam, which she names Toñito — “inspires many moments of self-expression and I hope you enjoy these wines which are an expression of my life.”

I always hate it when a winemaker writes that his or her wines “are an expression of my life,” because then I have to say something like, “Erk” or “Gack,” because, in this case, the Tempra Tantrum wines aren’t very good and are certainly not as good as the Solaz wines produced by Osborne at the same property, Malpica de Tajo, in the vast, flat wine region called Vino de la Tierra de Castilla, not far from Toledo. Not that the Solaz wines are great; they’re pretty rustic and forthright, but they offer a sort of bruised-knuckle integrity and individuality that these Tempra Tantrum wines — the coy name is unendurable — cannot hope to emulate.

Each of the four Tempra Tantrum blends contains 60 percent tempranillo — get the joke now? — with 40 percent of something else: merlot, shiraz (as they say), grenache and cabernet sauvignon. The first impression is of dusty, bubble-gum-ish, basic Beaujolais-like fruity blandness. I found little of the typical tempranillo character of dried red and black fruit and spice, dried flowers and orange rind. The temp/merlot blend is the most generic; the temp/cabernet blend a little drier and slightly more muscular; the temp/grenache blend a little ‘darker” and spicier and slightly more austere; the temp/shiraz blend moderately characterful. None exhibits qualities that would compel you to drink it, and all are far from displaying, as the back labels put it, “the passion, flavor, style and emotion that embodies modern Spain,” subject/verb agreement error included free of charge. Nor are the wines notably, again quoting the back label, “vibrant, plush and in a word — sexy.” Sexy, I would say, least of all.

This conjunction of mediocre wine and ardently senseless marketing too often defines the relationship between wine and consumer in today’s global situation. I receive many new cute, goofy labels every year that raise the question: Which came first, the wine or the discussions about how to name and market the wine before the grapes were even harvested (or, in some cases, purchased)? And that question leads to another: Are consumers so naive, not to say gullible, that they will actually purchase a wine based on its supposedly witty name and its promise of “passion, flavor, style and emotion,” all for $10? Or do they give a damn?

I, for one, would support a ban on the word “passion” from wine labels. I am a-weary, weary of reading squibs like, “This wine reflects my family’s passion for excellence and our passionate attachment to the land that our ancestors so passionately believed in with all their hearts and minds.” Just make the wine, Jack, and make it well and sell it at a decent price. Other than that, shut the fuck up.

The Tempra Tantrum wines are imported by Underdog Wine Merchants, Livermore, Cal. They were supplied as samples for review, along with the webcam mentioned above.

All the instruments agreed that yesterday afternoon in Memphis was hot as blazes and ridden with shirt-soaking humidity. Nonetheless, we sat out on the screened porch about 5:30 with a bottle of white wine, invitingly sheathed in beaded condensation, and a bowl of our favorite little Tuscan crackers, LL to finish that morning’s Times, and me to continue reading a biography of Frank O’Hara, and saying to LL about every three minutes, “Whoa, it must have been so much fun to live in New York in the ’50s!”

Now unless you are the sort of person endowed with the fiduciary prowess to say something like, “Let’s sit outside this afternoon. I’ll grab a bottle of Lynch Bages Blanc” — a wine I will admit not tasting for a decade or so — then you, like I, would bring something more modest to the table, in this case a bottle of El Coto Rioja Blanco 2008. This is not a great wine, and I think that anyone sipping from a glass of it would feel the same. It’s made from viura grapes, and not meaning to cast aspersions, this is a grape simply incapable of greatness. You could throw a lot of French oak at it, as some misguided producers are doing with the unsuspecting grüner veltliner grape in Austria, and the result would not be a great wine but merely an over-oaked, ponderous wine.

El Coto Rioja Blanco 2008 is, however, thoroughly enjoyable. Made completely in stainless steel, it’s taut and stony, moderately spicy in its general citrus-like nature, dry and crisp and with an almost haunting floral aspect. Fulfilling its purpose as a screened porch, late Summer afternoon, aperitif quaffer, it rates Good+, and there’s not a damned thing wrong with that. About $10, and appropriate for poolside, picnics, patios and such. Imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York.

Later for dinner, though, needing more character and presence, I opened the Sequoia Grove Chardonnay 2007, Carneros, Napa Valley. Here’s a chardonnay perfectly suited to our palates. Given a cool fermentation in stainless steel, the wine is transferred to French oak barrels, of which only 35 percent are new; the wine does not go through the malolactic process — in which sharp apple-like (“malic”) acid is transformed to smooth milk-like (“lactic”) acid — the result being a chardonnay that tastes like the grape, is lively and vibrant, and receives subtle and supple support from wood. The Sequoia Grove Chardonnay 2007 is bright and bold, with a lovely shape and texture, a sort of lushness permeated by crispness thing, as if you were biting into a peach and an apple at the same time. Classic flavors of pineapple and grapefruit reveal nuances of cloves and roasted hazelnuts, while the finish is sleek, resonant and slightly floral. Drink now through 2011 or ’12 (well-stored). Excellent. About $28.

My point, lecteurs, semblables et freres, is not that one wine is better or worse than another wine but that a wine makes its place with a sense of purpose as well as accommodation. There’s room for compromise between the positions that (A.) you can drink any wine any time with any food you want to and that (B.) each wine created on God’s Green Earth matches with one exact and Platonic food or dish and no other. What’s important is a sense of proportion. When we look at a Dutch still-life painting — this is Breakfast Still Life with Blackberry Pie (1631) by Willem Claesz Heda — the glasses of wine depicted therein embody an astounding sense of authority and deliberation. This ideal, we think, this bride of quietness, is the only possible wine that could have found a place in this setting, among these glowing foods and burnished plates and utensils and glittering fabrics, and I defy you not to wish that you were there, in that painting, so you could try that wine, which would surely offer a form of transcendence.

We do not, however, as much as we might wish, live inside a Dutch still life painting, and in this imperfect world all we can hope for is a modicum of poise, the reasonableness to make choices based on our preferences and experiences, two qualities that feed from and strengthen each other. Are there truly no wrongs choices in choosing wine? Of course there are, but even wrong choices broaden our experience and help lead us to the right ones. Just don’t expect too much of wine — it’s only a beverage — but let it speak to you itself of its own virtues and let it find its own place.

“Breakfast Still Life with Blackberry Pie” hangs in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.

It’s too bad that sherry is such a misunderstood and abused wine, because its pleasures are manifold and even endowed with nobility. Unfortunately, describing how sherry is produced in a couple of paragraphs is like trying to summarize the Matrix Trilogy in an hour — “O.K., so, then Neo goes into this dark place that’s sorta like Purgatory and sorta like an android mosh pit, see, and then …” — but I’ll give it the ol’ college try.

Sherry — the name is jealously guarded by international trade agreements — is made only in the arid region around the seacoast city of Cadiz in way far southern Spain, around on the Atlantic side, west of Gibraltar. The combination of grapes varieties, the chalky soil, proximity to the ocean, the close to drought-like climate — annual rainfall is 19 inches — and the unique solera process result in a wine that at its best rivals the great wines of Europe’s other famous winemaking regions. The corollary is that lots of anonymous, generic, mediocre sherry is also produced.

Sherry is a fortified wine made principally from the palomino fino grape (95 percent) with some estates still cultivating minuscule amounts of Muscat of Alexandria and Pedro Ximenez, the latter for dessert wines that can attain legendary qualities. After fermentation, the wines are fortified with grape spirit to 15 or 15.5 percent (for elegant fino sherry) up to 18 or 19 percent for richer oloroso style sherry. The lower alcohol content in fino sherry does not inhibit the growth of the flor, the natural yeast the grows across the surface of the wine in the barrel and contributes to fino sherry its typical and unforgettable light mossy-nutty character. The sherry houses are situated in three towns, Jerez de la Frontera — “sherry” is an English corruption of “jerez” — Sanlucar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa Maria; though geographically not too distant from each other, the three locations impart different qualities to the fino sherries that originate in them.

The solera system is essentially a method of blending in which some of the oldest wine is withdraw from its barrel and topped up with the next oldest and on down the line to the youngest wines that entered the solera after fermentation and fortifying. The constant process of topping off in this manner keeps refreshing the older wines and ensures a steady house style year by year. Some houses run complicated systems of as many as 20 different solera to satisfy the demands of the different types of sherry that they produce. Unfortunately, modern times have seen the adulteration of the method through shortcuts and the addition of sweetening agents, mainly used for cheap versions and for so-called “Cream Sherry.”

The types of sherry can be confusing, certainly as confusing as the many types of Port. Basically, the system goes like this: Fino is the most delicate and elegant of sherries and the best to be served with tapas and other light appetizers. A fino from Sanlucar is a Manzanilla. If a fino, either through natural process or induced, loses its flor, the increased exposure to air will result in a darker, more flavorful sherry; this is the famous Amontillado. The sherries called Oloroso, fortified after fermentation to around 18 percent alcohol, never develop flor, and so their character is far different, being darker in color and more intense and concentrated. All of these are dry wines. The rarest and best sweet sherries are made from sun-dried Pedro Ximenez grapes, though vast quantities of sweet sherries are turned out using other, cheaper processes.

The motivation behind this brief disquisition is the tasting I did recently at home of three spectacularly good aged sherries from the house of Williams Humbert. These qualify for the recently permitted designations of V.O.S. (“Very Old Sherry”) if the wine has aged at least 20 years and V.O.R.S. (“Very Old Rare Sherry”) if the aging has been at least 30 years. These are sherries to be savored slowly, thoughtfully and appreciatively at the end of a meal, not to be partaken of as an aperitif or with tapas. For that function, there are many choices, but one of my favorites is the Emilio Lustau Solera Reserve Jarana Fino, as light, as dry, as delicately nutty, as elegant as you could desire (Excellent, about $19).

By the way, fino sherry should be served chilled, the others at room temperature.

The Williams Humbert sherries are imported by Kindred Spirits of North America in Miami, Florida.

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The William Humbert Dos Cortados Rare Old Dry Palo Cortado Solera Especial falls between an Amontillado and an Oloroso style sherry; it spends at least 20 years in the solera. The color is medium-amber suffused with old gold. The bouquet is an intoxicating wreathing of roasted hazelnuts, toffee, baked apple, orange rind and toasted coconut. After such a heady display of aromas, it’s startling how dry, I mean bone-dry, this sherry is, both sensuous and austere; it tastes like smoldering peat, iodine, sea-salt and woody spices bound in a sumptuous yet not overwhelming texture that flows liberally across the tongue. There’s an after-burn of alcohol, spicy wood and vanilla. Quite a performance. Excellent. About $50.
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Well might one cry, “For the love of god, Montressor!” The Williams Humbert Jalifa Rare Old Dry Amontillado Solera Especial spends at least 30 years in solera. The color is medium-amber with a hint of green-gold. It smells like scotch, warm, enrobing, inviting, richly spiced; one understands why wars were fought over cinnamon and cloves. Again, a briskly dry sherry (but so mellow, so smooth!) that embodies elements of pomander, wheatmeal, orange marmalade, the blondness of sawdust, the characteristic dusty woody (and woodsy) earthiness and mossiness, all given bass tones by a strain of deep, dark bitter chocolate. Oh yes. Exceptional. About $70.
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Made from sun-dried grapes and aged at least 20 years in solera, the Williams Humbert Don Guido Rare Old Sweet Pedro Ximenez Solera Especial offers the color, but not quite the viscosity, of molasses. This, friends, reaches the Platonic extents of sweetness along an astonishing depth and range of effects: smoky brown sugar, roasted raisins, rum raisin ice cream with bananas Foster, almond brittle, orange zest and orange blossom honey. This is almost shamelessly enjoyable, but it does not offer quite the dimension or complexity of the Dos Cortados or Jalifa Amontillado, though its vibrancy, resonance and sheer appeal-power are admirable. Excellent. About $50.
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