Wine Around the World

There are times you don't want to--or simply can't--spend over $10 on wine. Maybe you just paid your son's NYC nursery school tuition and the monthly mortgage payment, or you're waiting for that check from the client who told you a week ago it was in the mail yesterday. Or maybe you're just cheap. All good reasons to look at Chateau LaFayette Reneau Seyval's Chardonnay from New York's Finger Lakes region. The wine is $8.99. It's fresh, supple, pretty, with enough roundness, enough body, enough mouthfeel to make you feel good about drinking it (read: it doesn't need to be ice-cold to be tasty).

New York wine? Well, yes. The Finger Lakes region of Northern New York is known for its German- and Austrian- and Alsace-style wine: Crisp, lively whites--think Reislings, Gewurstraminers and Euro-style Cardonnays (in other words, easy on the oak), like the earlier-mentioned Chateau LaFayette Reneau Seyval Chardonnay.

I got my Chateau LaFayette at Fresh Direct. Order a case and you get a 10 percent discount, bringing a 12-pack of wine to a bit over $80--you can make it your "house white," perfect for those times you order up Thai food, Vietnamese, Jamaican, spicy Chinese, Indian, Sushi. It even goes terrifically with barbecue. Hmm--another excuse to order take out from Blue Smoke. But Vintage Wines, in NYC, has it too (along with a few other La Fayette wines I haven't yet tried).

Incidentally, Vintage is an awesome wine store for anyone interested in learning more about wines from Finger Lakes or North Fork, Long Island. Also, Lake Erie and Hudson County. Great tastings, great opportunities to meet the growers and vinters, even dinners. And friendly, too. Visit Vintage Wines New York--you may learn something new about NY State wines.

Chilean Red

I have a fondness for South American wines. They are typically well-priced and well-made, combining European wine's food-enhancing finesse and North American bigness, without the snooty seriousness of either land-mass. Among my latest Latin favorites are Chilean and Argentinian wines made with Malbec--a deep, inky grape originally grown in France's Loire valley and blended with other grapes to make Bordeaux. The grape is intense, heavy and full-bodied, which is why it is commonly combined with other varietals such as Cabernet and Merlot. Once in awhile, however, it's left on its own, as in the Luis Felipe Edwards 2001 Malbec Gran Reserva from Colchagua Valley, Chile. Take a whiff and you get rubbing alcohol and black pepper (phew!), but the drink itself is round and gorgeous with soft tannins--pruney without being cloying, thanks to the termpering qualities of mineral and (laugh if you want), that same "whiff of green bean" which also hides in most Australian shirazes. Yum. I got my Luis Felipe Edwards for $14.99 at Windsor Wine in NYC.

Where's the Oak? This Ain't Your California Chardonnay

To many people--well, to those used to drinking North American wine--chardonnay is the smooth, mouth-filling, buttery, oaky, go-down-easy wine people drink when they're getting used to wine. A starter wine, if you will. And being a starter wine has made it the butt of oenephile snobbery. (That, however, is another post) But what if you take away the buttery smoothness? The oak? The slide-down-the-throat ease? Is it still chardonnay? Yes, providing those are the grapes it's made with. I turn your attention to Brancott's 2002 Gisborne Chardonnay, from New Zealand. This amber-color liquid, unctuous and seemingly thick with sunshine, is pure chardonnay grape. Hardly any oak to speak of and--could I be right? --it seems to be unfiltered and tastes as if it's made without the double fermentation which gives California chardonnays their familiar buttery bigness. Not big, not tooty-fruity, but straight down the throat, fruit-mineral-earth. Quite French. It's a non-starter-chardonay perfect for "I don't drink chardonay" wine snobs. (Be aware, however, that if someone feels Chardonnay isn't Chardonnay without the oak, well, this one may throw them--in a good, or a not so good, way.) I got mine (for $11.99) at 67 Wine & Spirits in NYC--though you could check out the winery's website at Brancott Wines