Sauvignon Blanc

Fortunately, I decide from the outset I wasn't even going to try to get around them all. Besides, I live in Marlborough and have already had the opportunity to sample the region's finest.

So instead I choose to do two things: try to get an idea of what was popular on the day, and maybe try something new.

The first one was a no-brainer: on a sultry Marlborough afternoon our iconic sauvignon blanc was the wine on many people's lips. And hot on its heels was the sassy new kid on the block, sparkling sauvignon blanc. By mid afternoon several sites had sold out of their sparkling savvy.

Full Story: Wine festival more than just sauvignon blanc - Marlborough Express

It took the boom in still pink table wine sales for champagne producers to treat pink sparklers seriously. Mind you, of the ten I tasted for this article only two passed muster. The winning pink champagne is Bollinger’s mature, nutty, onion-skin pink l999 La Grande Année Rosé Brut, complete with floral, meaty, faintly raspberry-scented fruit, and best bought for £60 at Majestic Wine; at Berry Bros & Rudd it’s £66.45. This year’s bargain-buy Valentine’s Day pink champagne award goes to the delicious Oeil de Perdrix (see star buys) — a snip, but not for long.

The next best thing is a fine French sparkler made by the same method as champagne and from one of the region’s grapes. Helpfully, Waitrose has dropped the price of its tried and trusted Sparkling Burgundy, knocked down to £7.99 until Tuesday — a Blanc de Blancs from the Cave de Lugny, made exclusively from the chardonnay grape and, as always, a crisp, vivacious, mouthwatering Granny Smith and lemon zest-spiked mouthful.

With the apéritif spoken for, it’s time to move on to a tender, silky, seductive red, guaranteed to set the pulses racing, and it has to be delicate, fragrant burgundy. If you are planning a complicated Valentine menu with red meat, or game on the menu, try a Kiwi pinot instead. Remote Central Otago makes burgundy-beating pinot noir and M&S’s glorious, rich, ripe, truffley 2008 Earth’s End Pinot Noir from Mount Edwards is a real treat at £14.99. Even finer is the film-maker turned winemaker Michael Seresin’s stunning range of pinot noirs, including his peppery, smoky 2007 Leah Pinot Noir (Selfridges, £21.99; Handford, 020-7589 6113, £20.95; Philglas & Swiggot, 020-7924 4494, £20.25).

Full Story: Pink wine for Valentine's Day - Times Online

It begins with the 1971 from Ridge Vineyards, a reminder that Eisele was one of Paul Draper's most favored spots, and thought to be California's third vineyard-designated Cabernet. There's a brief homage to Conn Creek's 1974 bottling before a string of vintages from Joseph Phelps, the next luminary to highlight Eisele on its own.

Finally to the Araujo years. Bart and Daphne Araujo purchased the precious parcel in 1990, as a next step after selling A-M Homes, one of the largest home builders in the nation. If many Napa deals start with virgin land, this Calistoga site hosted grapes - Riesling and Zinfandel in toasty Calistoga - as far back as 1886. Milt and Barbara Eisele purchased the 137 acres in 1969, and although Robert Mondavi refused a vineyard designation, they took their grapes to someone who would, in this case Ridge. It became clear that even in a special spot for grapes, Eisele stood out as one of California's special places.

That long string of vintages is a testament to Eisele's staying power. Even today, Araujo crafts the Eisele wines to preserve a vineyard signature that dates back to that first Ridge bottle: black fruit flavors and a big blanket of fine tannin from deep-rooted Cabernet on tough, complex soils. The wines aren't the flashiest on first encounter, but that quietly muscular structure gives them timelessness.

Full Story: Araujos' Eisele vineyard, lineage of luminaries - San Francisco Chronicle

noelyoungwines.co.uk ; 13% abv), a personal venture from Kevin Judd, Cloudy Bay's founding ­wine-maker who released the reins there only recently. The truth is, there are now so many good NZ sauvignon blancs, there's no ­reason to pay through the nose for Cloudy Bay's.

Full Story: Wine: Cloudy Bay - The Guardian

Not too long ago, wine was a luxury item. Picking one was a mystifying process, and a good bottle was tough to find for less than $15. Now merlot is as common as Welch's Grape Juice, and the $10 to $20 price point is packed with so many ridiculously good choices that it's actually more surprising to find something lousy than to hit on a crowd-pleaser. But what if even $10 is too much? What's a boy with lofty romantic aspirations but a virtually empty wallet to do this Valentine's Day? Can there truly be bliss beneath the $10 mark? The answer, unsurprisingly, is yes...but with a few caveats.

As with most products, driving down wine prices to fire sale levels generally requires volume. Wineries try to make up for the low prices with sheer number of cases sold. And because so much wine is being produced, often those producers can't or don't take as much care in production - delivering what may be a solid product, but one that doesn't have quite the same character or soul as a wine made in a smaller batches and given more time and attention from a master vintner. On the other hand, in some cases you just end up with mind-bogglingly lousy wine.

Charles Shaw Sauvignon Blanc - The first of two “Three buck Chucks” in the tasting, this is a Sauvignon Blanc cranked to 11, and not always in a good way. Charles Shaw wines are found only at the Trader Joe's grocery store chain and they are the standard bearer of the cheap wine movement. This particular bottle of white is incredibly crisp, acidic and, for lack of a better term, “green.” It tastes unripe, almost as if it was bottled before its time. That said, the wine's acidic tang make it a decent picnic wine if paired with strongly flavored food. BBQ or fried chicken would be solid choices. You could do a lot worse for three bucks.

Full Story: Cheap Wine Challenge - FOXNews