Leitz Riesling Rudesheimer Klosterlay Kabinett, Rheingau, 2007: ~$15US:

My second bottle of this wickedly delicious fruit dart. I can’t imagine a cleaner, fresher expression of tropical fruits (lime, pineapple, mango, guava) in liquid form. I love the lean back, open wide and get-rocked character. The soil seems to be speaking a little more than last time though, which is fine by me - bringing a Pixie-sticks-meet-chalk finish. This just screams value.

Russiz Superior Pinot Bianco, Collio, 2006 ~$US20:

Another big winner here, but it started out a really lean and shy -  too much of a chill on. Once it got closer to room temperature, beautiful, ethereal and sexy aromas just poured out of the glass. Strawberry shortcake, with some fresh peaches in the mix - close my eyes, and this could have been a great Pinot Noir on the nose. Eucalyptus, roses, lemon tart, brambles - I could smell this for hours and got just as much pleasure by putting my nose into the glass as I did actually drinking the stuff…wierd.

Rich in color and on the palate, but not heavy or tiring. A mineral vein and acidic structure really kept this wine tight and focused. Finished long with dried flowers more strawberry patch.  It was great with pasta with a ricotta, pea and jowl bacon sauce - I think this would’ve been even better with buttery fish or crustaceans.

Both, serious wines - the Pinot Bianco more of a sipper and thinker, the Riesling an all out assault.

~$US10, 100% Tempranillo, Argentina

I’ve been feeling the need to expand the old palate and try more wines from the Southern Hemisphere - looking for oddball wines that represent good value and aren’t overtly spoofalated. At first glance, this could easily be mistaken for a Spanish Tempranillo - but alas, it’s from Argentina, the land of Beef, Malbec and Torrontes. And priced at under $10, it had my attention.

In the glass, the La Linda was a crazy dark magenta, with a decent level of transparency, which was an auspicious sign that maybe this wasn’t overly extracted and jammed. The nose was definitely a fruit fest - a glass full of berries with dash of vanilla. Decadent, it smelled like it could be heading the wrong direction, but the palate really pulled this wine into a good place. A punchy acidity and an intriguing bittersweet tang on the back-end really surprised me. It was more medium-bodied and leaner than the nose let on, which gave it a refreshing quality - one to enjoy with food (pork?) or on it’s own. Beyond the fruit some cedar and pepper-spice added dimension. Curious cool. A slight edge of stiff tannins packaged the whole deal quickly but nicely.

Overall, a great change-of-pace-weeknight red or party wine. It didn’t bring too much oak, extraction, single-dimensionality, or the funk as some cheaper Spanish Tempranillos can - instead showed a clean balance of sexy fruit, an elegant palate, and slightly off-beat swagger that made it a joy to toss back another glass.

~$15US, 100% Riesling, Rheingau, Germany

Slight hay color. The nose brings gobs of marzipan, green apple, white peach, some red cherry and wet slate. Powerful, fresh and vibrant. The wine bursts wide on the palate gripping the tongue with tons of ripe fruit, teasing with a notion of sweetness, then drilling towards a tangy, clean finish.  Passionfruit and guava in the mix. Right now this is a wild ride of a wine - an extraordinary amount of fruit without going into sweet-tooth land, balanced with ripping key-lime acidity.

This is the proverbial fruit scalpel to the proverbial fruit hatchet. I can’t imagine another Riesling at this price I’d rather have with Indian food. Kudos Josef-L - 2007 is looking like a classic and beautiful year in the Rheingau, after a slightly outsized 2006.

~$14US, 100% Riesling, Rheingau, Germany

Leitz’s Dragonstone is a wine I keep coming back to, despite not really getting it on first tasting. I gave it a second try a few months ago and was able to observe some nice evolution in the bottle - the early 2005s had a fierce minerality supported by great fruit, nearing a spatlese-level of ripeness (at least to my palate) - but it was disjointed. The later 05’s started to get that beautiful petrolly aspect along with a tapering of the fruit and an integration of the slatey mineral notes - making for an altogether more mature, harmonious and integrated wine. It was a welcome change, and I was interested to see if the 06’s followed suit.

My first ‘06 poured a very very pale straw - almost clear. The aromatics were obvious and clean with dominant white peach and fresh apple juice. Some nectary/floral notes beyond the fruit, and the tell-tale mineral rocky aromas that I’ve come to associate with this wine.

On the palate, I was pleasantly surprised by the freshness compared to the ‘05. On entry, the fruit ripeness dominates - but the brisk acidity comes dashing through to balance the wine perfectly - ever so slightly off-dry and chalky on the finish. Light-to-medium palate-feel and enough complexity/vineyard character/etc at this price point to keep my wife and I pouring more. In recent memory, I’m not sure I can remember a wine that was as simply refreshing to sip alongside a meal.

Very well-crafted, distinctive, refreshing and food-friendly - what else is would you need for a perfect summertime white? And I’m pretty sure that it will evolve in the bottle for a few years for anyone who has enough patience and discipline not to drink it now - but for me, I”ll be drinking it.

~$15US 100% Riesling, QbA, Rhiengau Germany
A very pale and clean Riesling. Exerts a massive stony minerality on the nose, along with a strong bilious acidity (alkalinity?) and some dried apricots. An all-out assault on the palate: Peach-syrupy sweet, a crazy tingle just to confound the tongue, and a short quiver of cider-acidity. Finshes with a lemon drop. Disjointed overall, the cloying up-front sweetness fights with the spiky mineral notes. Maybe more acidity or the right food pairing would save this. Vindaloo anyone?

A 2-note (dis)chord: Sweet and Wierd. Not for me.