My overall impressions confirmed the conventional wisdom about the vintage – namely that a wet summer resulted in an extremely mixed bag of wines, some that will make for pleasant early drinking and some that should be avoided at all costs. There were no great wines but the opportunistic, value-oriented drinker will find some very pleasant bargains.

One such is the Chateau Beaumont 2007 at an astounding $15. This an area where Bordeaux has suffered much in recent years – the inability to produce pleasing wine at a modest price from lesser appellations – but Beaumont has excelled brilliantly.

It is a lovely bright scarlet color with soft, round tannins and brimming with refreshing acidity of red berry summer fruits, I am thinking strawberries and dark cherries here. It’s hardly a typical Bordeaux but that doesn’t matter – it’s the perfect every-day house wine, and restaurants will make a fortune pouring it by the glass.

Next week I will be featuring a more upscale and serious winner from the same tasting.

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You see, while the chardonnay grape is responsible for the sublime white wines of Burgundy, all too often the new world versions are over-oaked and cloying, and as such are looked down upon by us critics who pride ourselves on tastes far superior to such prosaic oak juice.

Now it is true that this trend to over-oak chardonnay has ameliorated somewhat in recent years but it is still the dominant characteristic of the American wine. But not all new world chardonnay conforms to this unfortunately well-justified stereotype, and over the next few months I will be featuring occasional versions from Napa other American appellations that set themselves apart from this unfortunate focus-group-driven trend. These are great, elegant, refined American chardonnays, chardonnays that are made to be drunk with food, and are wines deserving of wider attention.

The Chappellet family were amongst the earliest of the modern era wine pioneers in Napa, settling on the steep elevations of Pritchard Hill on the eastern slopes of the valley. They have long been known for their cabernet sauvignon but I have often found it disappointing, a bit over-extracted for my taste.

Far less noticed has been their chardonnay and so it was only with limited expectations that I pulled the cork on the Chappellet Chardonnay 2007 ($32), and consequently my subsequent surprise at what a wonderful wine I discovered was even greater.

It shows a delicate, woody – not oak, but more bark –  complexity with notes of real slatey minerality on the citrus-tinged finish.

It has what I look for in a great white wine – that mysterious combination of power and finesse, and here the judicious use of oak seamlessly integrated with pure, fresh chardonnay acidity results in a wine that’s all lemon-and-honey harmony. Winemaker Phillip Corallo-Titus has taken the lush California fruit and coaxed out of it an almost Burgundian elegance and finesse.

The angels are singing in this wine – now where’s my sole? Dover, of course.

Big....and bigger.

2/23/10. Great dinner and vertical with Randall Grahm last night to mark the 25^th anniversary of his flagship Le Cigare Volant, a Rhone-style blend from Santa Cruz. It was held at Hearth, in NYC, and the food and service was immaculate – the latter being an especially noteworthy feat given the hundreds of glasses being poured. The wine all came from magnums or even bigger bottles and confirmed that size really does matter, the older vintages from the 1980’s holding up spectacularly well and showing amazing freshness and acidity. As Grahm enthused “Large bottles are beautiful, large bottles are extraordinary!” A memorable evening indeed.

But it is also a large and very progressive wine estate where they are doing pioneering clonal research on the primary grape of the region, sangiovese. Now there’s no need to sprain your brain trying to understand just what that ghastly sounding concept “clonal research” means: it is sufficient to know that (a) it’s important and (b) the fruits of this investment can be seen in their latest release, the Banfi BelnerO 2005, the first since the third generation of the family, Christina Mariani-May took over direction of the company.

Banfi’s wines, not surprisingly given their high profile, are not cheap, and some of their bottlings I find disappointing given their price, so it was with more than a little curiosity that I approached this new offering, and

The Taverna

I am very happy to report that it’s a real success. Here sangiovese’s charming freshness has been rounded out by the addition of more sophisticated grape types, what Banfi somewhat mysteriously refers to as “noble French varietals” – I suspect merlot and perhaps cab.

Soft, round tannins, plush, generous fruit and a bracing, zesty acidity combine beautifully to give us a pure and eminently quaffable red. It’s a fine expression of sangiovese, in style falling somewhere between the exuberance of Chianti Classico and the deep complexity of the Brunellos – and the result is a pure and harmonious delight.

This was partly due to its scarcity – for many years it just wasn’t available in a distillery bottling – but also due to its utterly unique flavor profile: it has the lightness and finesse of an elegant lowland – and the same pale color – combined with the sort of peaty punch one expects from an Islay whisky.

As I say, pretty unusual. So when I hear that Diageo have now released as part of their Rare Edition series an unpeated­ Caol Ila my interest is more than a little piqued. What would a Coal Ila without peat taste like?

Well, it will certainly disappoint fans of those macho, punch-you-in-the-face malts that have peat heaped upon peat, but those of you with more evolved palates will be captivated.

It has an oily texture, and a pale straw color. Stripping out the peat allows more subtle, delicate hues to appear so there are now woody, aromatic elements that I had never detected before, along with a surprisingly sweet, creamy  palate and a huge, spice-tinged finish. It just shows what a magically complex and subtle whisky can be produced without a smidgen of peat.

This is most certainly a connoisseurs dram that will appeal to the sophisticated palate, but also one I would hate to encounter in a blind tasting, such a puzzler would it present.

If this isn’t exactly an original idea, it is one that proves decidedly popular and this time it was the European wines that were preferred by the assembled guests in five out of the six pairings.

The New World entrant that broke the trend was from Australia: the Keith Tulloch Hunter Valley Kester Shiraz 2004 ($35). It was picked over a French Hermitage by a large majority of the guests, a decision with which I was in full accord as it is a delicious wine.

Too many New World Shirazs have that jammy, over-cooked, sweet character that makes them work as an aperitif for those who drink red wine that way, but which then fall apart with food due to lack of acidity.

Not the Kester. First of all, the Hunter Valley in New South Wales is cooler than the better-known South Australia regions like Barossa and McLaren. Hence it tends to yield less overblown wines.

Keith Tulloch

Then there’s Keith Tulloch himself. His family have been making wine in the Hunter for over a hundred years, yet he is an innovative and enterprising winemaker who is enamored with the wines of the Rhone Valley. He even spent the 1996 harvest working at top Rhone producer Jaboulet.

This influence shows in his wines, especially the Kester. It still has the generous fruit one expects in an Oz shiraz but it’s dryer than most. All that luscious, earthy fruit is balanced by a fine, bracing acid structure and a smoky, chocolaty finish. In style it falls somewhere between Oz fruity overkill and the sort of French restraint which, in poor years, can become lean and parsimonious.

The overall impression, however, is one of unalloyed luxury, a viscerally indulgent wine that is a pure pleasure to drink. And drunk it was, with enthusiasm, by the guests that evening.

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Any one have their favorite Chablis?

Chateau Fuissé Pouilly-Fuissé, Les Combettes 2006
Chateau de la Maltroye Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Crue Morgot Vignes Blanches 2006
Chateau de Chorey Beaune 1er Cru Les Teurons 2006
Domaine Méo-Camuzet Grand Cru Clos Vougeot 2006*
Domaine des Perdrix Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru Aux Perdrix 2006*
Domaine Armand Rousseau Grand Cru Mazy-Chambertin 2006

In their different ways all wonderful wines.