Frequently Asked Questions

Glossary of Terms

Acidity: The acid content of a wine. Acid is the nervous system of the wine and one of its most important components. It gives the wine its tartness and liveliness. It also helps preserve a wine as well as mitigate the sweetness of wines with residual sugar.

Appellation: (aa-puh-LAYshun) (Appellation d'Origine Controlee) French system of defining the place of origin of its best wines (and other agricultural products) and then controlling the standards for production as well as protecting its trademark. The U.S. version is American Viticultural Area (AVA).

Body: The weight and heft of a wine in your mouth, often determined by viscosity or thickness of a wine, which may be caused by high sugar or alcohol content.

Botrytis Cinerea: (bo-TRY-tus si-NEAR-e-uh) A sometimes beneficial mold referred to as "noble rot." It attacks grape skins, causing the moisture to evaporate and the grape sugars  to concentrate. It also imparts a honeyed and pleasant moldy-like smell and flavor to the wine.

Brix: Method of measuring sugar in grape juice and wine. Named for the man who developed the calibrations on the hydrometer used by American winemakers for this purpose. Degrees Brix translates exactly to percent of of sugar (e.g. 20 degrees Brix = 20% sugar).

Brut: (broot) Term for driest level of sparkling wine.

Champagne Method: The original method (from the Champagne region in France) used to create sparkling wine by causing a still wine to ferment a second time in the bottle.

Clean: A fresh-smelling and -tasting wine with no off odors or flavors.

Closed: Tasting term applied to a wine that is showing little or no aromas or flavors.

Complex: Tasting term for a wine that has many layers of nuances of aromas and flavors. One measure of a good wine.

Corked: Term for a foul smell and taste in a wine caused by a cork contaminated by the chemical TCA (trichloranisole). A "corked" wine may smell and taste of mold, mushrooms, wet cardboard, or a damp basement.

Crisp: Tasting term for a wine with a pleasant, refreshing amount of acidity.

Dry: A wine that has no discernable trace of sweetness.

Enology: (e-NAH-luh-gee) The study of wine, specifically the study of winemaking.

Estate Bottled: A wine made from grapes grown by the producer of the wine. The wine should also have been made into wine and bottled by the producer on the premises.

Fermentation: Process whereby yeasts feeding on the sugar in grape juice (must) secrete enzymes that create ethyl alcohol, thereby turning the liquid into wine.

Filtering: In winemaking, a method of clarifying a wine by mechanically pumping it through a filter of some sort.

Fining: In winemaking, a method of clarifying a wine by adding a coagulant to the wine, which collects impurities as it settles to the bottom of the cask or tank.

Finish: The flavor a wine leaves in your mouth after it has been spit out or swallowed. It's experienced on the back of the palate.

Herbaceous: (er-BAY-shus) The smell of plants, typically grass or hay, in certain wines including Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Hectare: (HEK-tar) The European metric equivalent of 4.5 acres.

Lees: (leez) The debris of fermentation, including dead yeasts, that collects in the tank or barrel.

Malolactic Fermentation: (mah-lo-LAK-tick) Secondary fermentation whereby bacteria convert harsh malic into lactic acid. The process softens a wine and gives it a buttery character.

Must: Term applied to the juice of crushed grapes until it has been fermented into alcohol.

Oxidized: A wine gone bad because of too much exposure to oxygen.

Racking: Most basic way of clarifying wine after fermentation, whereby the lees are allowed to settle and the clear wine is transferred into a clear tank.

Residual Sugar: Sugar remaining in a wine after fermentation.

Sparkling Wine: Any wine with bubbles.

Still Wine: A wine that contains no bubbles

Sur Lie: (soo-ER lee) French term ("on the lees") for aging a wine on its lees, which have the potential of imparting complexity to the aromas and flavors of a wine.

Tannin: (TAN-in) Phenolic compound found in all plants that comes to wine through grapes and new oak-barrels. Affects mouth feel and texture of wine imparting a dry, chalky sensation of sometimes bitterness.

Terroir: (tehr-WAHR) French term for describing the environment in which a wine was produced and how well the wine reflects that environment.

Varietal: The character of the particular grape from which the wine was made, which shows itself in the wine's flavor or aromas. Also, the name of the predominant grape used to make the wine.

Vitis vinifera: (vi-TEASE vi-neh-FAIR-ah) the grape species cultivated for making wine.

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Overview

"The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine." So wrote the Greek historian Thucydides in the fifth century B.C.,and indeed,wine-making is as old as civilization itself.
Table of Contents

* Overview
* Alsace
* Bordeaux
* Burgundy (Red)
* Burgundy (White)
* Champagne
* The Loire
* The Rhone
* Cabernet Sauvignon (U.S.)
* California
* Chardonnay (U.S.)
* Finger Lakes
* Long Island
* Oregon
* Pinot Noir (U.S.)
* Washington State
* The Piedmont
* Tuscany
* Australia
* Austria
* Germany
* Kosher
* New Zealand
* Port
* Riesling
* Spain

Just as society finds its roots in ancient Mesopotamia, the earliest evidence we have for the cultivation of grapes and the supervised fermentation of their juices dates back to 6000 B.C. in the ancient Middle East. The Egyptians recorded the harvest of grapes on the walls of their tombs; bottles of wine were even buried with pharaohs in order that they might entertain guests in the afterlife. Wine was also considered a drink of the elite in ancient Greece, and it was a centerpiece of the famous symposia, immortalized by Plato and the poets of the period.

But it was during the Roman era that wine became popular throughout society. In Roman cities wine bars were set up on almost every street, and the Romans exported wine and wine-making to the rest of Europe. Soon, production and quality of wine in other regions rivaled that of Rome herself: in A.D. 92, Emperor Domitian decreed that all of the vines in the Cahors region (near Bordeaux) be pulled out, ostensibly in favor of the wheat cultivation the empire so desperately needed, but possibly also to quell the competition with Italian wine exports.

After the fall of Rome, wine continued to be produced in the Byzantine Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. It spread eastward to Central Asia along the Silk Route; grape wine was known in China by the eighth century. But the spread of Islam largely extinguished the wine industry in North Africa and the Middle East. Throughout Europe, wine-making was primarily the business of monasteries, because of the need for wine in the Christian sacraments. During this period stronger, more full-bodied wines replaced their sweeter ancient predecessors (which usually were mixed with water before drinking).

During the Renaissance, the virtues of various wine regions were appreciated by the increasingly sophisticated wine drinkers, and by the 18th century the wine trade soared, especially in France, where Bordeaux became the preeminent producer of fine wines. The development of distinctive strains of wine grapes led to the production of regional wines with easily recognizable characteristics.

In the New World the first successful wine-making occurred in the 19th century. Somewhat surprisingly, Ohio was the first region in America to successfully cultivate grapes for wine, but it was soon eclipsed by wine production in California. About this time grape cultivation first began in earnest in Australia. In the Old World, Champagne was establishing itself as a favorite luxury beverage; and fortified wines such as ports and sherries were becoming increasingly popular, especially in Britain.

But despite the growing success of the industry, there was also a catastrophe: late in the century, the phylloxera epidemic destroyed many old European vines, a disaster that affected wine-making for decades. The plague was overcome by grafting cuttings of European varietal vines onto disease-resistant American rootstock.

Today wine-making is a global industry, with most of the countries of the world producing wine. Machines that can harvest huge areas by day or night have increased production, and modern viticultural science has ensured that the resulting product meets uniform standards, though sometimes at the expense of quality and flavor. Indeed, there has been a recent trend toward more traditional methods of wine-making such as unfiltered wines that preserve more of the grapes' true character.

Alsace
Tucked away in the northeast corner of France, Alsace is a fascinating amalgam of the German and French. How could it be otherwise? The end of the 30 Years’ War in 1648 gave Alsace to France. In 1871, at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, Alsace was taken by Germany. After World War I, it was once more part of France — until 1940, when Germany reclaimed it. With the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, Alsace became French yet again — and so it has remained.

Wine production in Alsace traces its beginnings to the early centuries of the Roman Empire, when the conquering forces introduced viticulture and vinification. Alsace’s vineyards reach from around Wissembourg in the north to Mulhouse (Mull-ooze), 70 miles south. Some 12 million cases are produced annually from 32,000 acres of vineyards. The principal grapes are gewurztraminer (without an umlaut over the u), riesling, pinot gris and muscat. About 90 percent of all Alsatian wine is white. (In Germany, where gewürztraminer originated and still thrives, the “u” takes an umlaut. But Alsatians prefer it umlaut-less.)

The wines of Alsace are sold in long, slender bottles, resembling products from Germany more than those of other areas of France. Alsace is similar to California in that wines are named after the grape type predominantly used in vinification, rather than the locale where the grapes were harvested, as is the usual French practice.

The best bottles carry the words "Alsace Grand Cru" and the name of the particular vineyard on the label, as well as the grape type. There are currently 51 grand cru sites.

Some of the most famous grape-growing areas in Alsace are called “clos.” They are special vineyards, usually enclosed by a wall (a clos) and owned by one or two proprietors. One of the best-known clos is the “Clos des Capucins,” near Kaysersberg and owned by Domaine Weinbach. It is planted with riesling, gewurztraminer and pinot gris. The Clos Ste.-Hune in Ribeauvillé is owned by Trimbach. It is given over entirely to riesling and is known as the Romanée-Conti of Alsace — a reference to a great Burgundy wine. Most clos vineyards are about 12 acres; Clos Ste.-Hune is only three. Clos wines are all grand cru, but command much higher prices than regular grand cru.

If an Alsatian wine is also labeled “VT,” it was made from late harvested (vendange tardive) grapes. These wines can be sweet, but are not necessarily so. Some are fermented until dry, yielding wines of special concentration and power.

The designation “SGN,” for sélection de grains nobles, means the wine was made from individually chosen, super-sweet grapes harvested by successive passes through the vineyard. These grapes have even more sugar than the vendange tardive grapes and are often infected with botrytis, the so-called noble rot, resulting in sweet wines of rare power and elegance. The wines require considerable effort to make, and sell for high prices.

Gewurztraminer, with its pungent, spicy flavors, is the best introduction to Alsace. Producers like Zind-Humbrecht can make sublime gewurztraminers — rich, complex and endlessly nuanced — but for a newcomer, the lighter, uncomplicated wines of Trimbach and Hugel are the way to go. Both houses put out simple gewurztraminers that start at around $15.

A gewurtztraminer Wintzenheim, from Zind-Humbrecht, will cost around $35. A pinot gris vendange tardive from Trimbach sells for about $65. For a memorable Alsatian riesling, Trimbach’s famous Cuvée Frédéric Émile sells for about $35. — Frank Prial

Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a magic name. It’s a city, a region and a source of fine wines. It’s also a powerful, unassailable brand. The millionaire chateau owner in Margaux and the debt-ridden little winemaker from some distant corner of the appellation can both proudly say, “My wine is a Bordeaux.”

But consistently great Bordeaux wines are a relatively recent phenomenon. There have been many memorable vintages, but until recently, excellence was not routine. The 1929 vintage was superb, but most of the wines of the 1930s were dreadful. Except for 1945, so were most of the vintages in the 1940s. Old-timers still shudder at the mention of 1951, 1954 and 1956. The 1961 vintage was a triumph, but 1963, 1965 and 1968 were barely drinkable.

Deceived by their self-image, Bordeaux winemakers were slow to profit from research and new techniques that had revolutionized winemaking elsewhere. But adapt they did, and by the 1970s their wines began to excel. The 1980s and 1990s were truly golden years in Bordeaux wine country, and the great 2000 vintage was, many Bordelais were convinced, a harbinger of lots of good vintages.

Back in 1855, a group of Bordeaux wine brokers created a five-class ranking of 60 chateaus in the Médoc, north of the city of Bordeaux (and one from Graves, Haut-Brion), that has for a century and a half largely determined how much those chateaus could charge for their wines – and, more important, how much the public was willing to pay.

Since then, with one exception, the rankings have not changed. The premier cru, or first-growth, wines are Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion, the original four, and Mouton-Rothschild, which was elevated from second growth to first in 1973.

In some ways, Bordeaux is a victim of its own success. With the most famous wines – Margaux, Latour, Pétrus, Haut-Brion, Lafite-Rothschild – selling for $800, $1,000 a bottle, many consumers find it difficult to believe that a Bordeaux at $15 or $20 is drinkable. They need not be concerned; there are approximately 7,000 chateaus in the Bordeaux appellation, and many make remarkably good wines at reasonable prices. The most famous wines are invariably excellent, but prices reflect cachet and scarcity as much as quality. Buyers are often wealthy collectors who have no intention of drinking them, or speculators who plan to sell at a handsome profit five or ten years hence.

A succession of good vintages makes specific vintages less important. Starting with 1990, and except for 1991 and 1992, Bordeaux has had a amazing streak of good years, with 1990, 2000 and 2005 ranking among the best ever. Cabernet sauvignon may be the most important grape in Bordeaux, but Americans have often been partial to the softer, fruitier, merlot-based wines of St.-Émilion and Pomerol. These days, though, it’s hard to go wrong with wines from anywhere in Bordeaux in almost any price range.

Bordeaux is not exclusively a red wine region, although about 75 percent of all Bordeaux wine is red. Some of the most famous chateaus, like Margaux and Haut-Brion, produce elegant, dry, white table wines, mainly from sémillon and sauvignon blanc grapes. Sémillon is the principal grape in the incomparable sweet wines from Sauternes and Barsac, communes in the southern reaches of the Bordeaux region. — Frank Prial

Burgundy (Red)
An old saying holds that a wine’s first duty is to be red. There are hordes of fanatics who would argue the point; a wine’s first duty, they would insist, is to be Burgundy – red Burgundy. At major Bordeaux events, it’s not all that unusual for one expert to wink at another and whisper conspiratorially, “I’m a Burgundy man myself.”

In this age of instant gratification, no one should be shocked; Burgundy is user friendly. In tastings, young Bordeaux can be harsh and off-putting, and can take years to come around. Fine Burgundy must mature too, but it spends less time at it and, truth be told, often tastes delicious right from the barrel. At its best, Burgundy is supple, round and rich. It can be complex or one-dimensional, but it will always give off the inimitable perfume of the pinot noir grape and, unlike Bordeaux, it will be approachable. Bordeaux is Beethoven; Burgundy is Johann Strauss.

The operative phrase here is “fine Burgundy.” The demand for it is overwhelming, the supply is short, and opportunists will always cut corners. In the bad old days, trains of cheap wine from Algeria or the south of France would roll through Dijon in Burgundy, pausing briefly to be declared Burgundy before being bottled and sold to a gullible public. Laws have stopped that, but oceans of legitimate but poor-quality Burgundy are still produced. If there is a buyers’ mantra here, it should be: “Good Burgundy cannot be cheap.”

From Chablis in the north to the outskirts of Lyon in the south, the delimited Burgundy region stretches for 156 miles like a golden ribbon through central France. But fine red Burgundy comes mostly from the Côte d’Or, a 30-mile strip running from the city of Dijon south to Chagny. The legendary villages of the Côte d’Or — Gevrey-Chambertin, Nuits-St.-Georges, Morey-St.-Denis, Vosne-Romanée — produce Burgundy’s greatest, and most expensive, wines. La Romanée Conti, one of France’s most famous wines, hails from Vosne-Romanée.

Originally, most of Burgundy’s vineyards were owned by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1789, after the Revolution, they were divided up among the local people, with many individual farmers owning tiny pieces of once-great properties. The 125-acre Clos de Vougeot vineyard, in the village of Vougeot, has more than 60 owners, not in a cooperative but vine by vine, in small plots, each making his or her own wine.

Burgundy lovers spend a lifetime keeping up to date on just a few vineyards or producers. For the uninitiated, the best way to get to know Burgundy is to start with the wines of the best-known shippers, some of whom own parts of many vineyards. Among them are Faiveley, Drouhin, Olivier Laflaive, Louis Latour and Louis Jadot. Each has a wide range of wines, beginning with simple Bourgogne Rouge and reaching the heights with wines like Jadot’s Romanée-St. Vivant, Drouhin’s Bonnes-Mares and Latour’s Corton-Charlemagne. These wines, when found, can cost hundreds of dollars a bottle. Their lesser wines, starting with Bourgogne Rouge, will cost around $20.

Burgundy’s most prolific source of red wine is the Beaujolais region. While legally part of Burgundy, it has always been treated as a separate region with its own wines and its own grape, gamay, which is banned in the traditional Burgundy vineyards. Beaujolais, in fact, produces almost half of all the red wine made in Burgundy. — Frank Prial

Burgundy (White)
Some wine lovers enjoy red Burgundy so much they seem to forget that Burgundy also produces several of the world’s finest white wines.

The French government didn’t forget white Burgundy when, in 1962, at enormous expense, it diverted the Paris-Lyon autoroute, then under construction, from the Burgundian village of Puligny and the tiny, 18.5-acre Le Montrachet vineyard, which Puligny shares with the neighboring town of Chassagne. Le Montrachet was – and still is – considered the greatest white wine produced in France. “It should be drunk,” Alexander Dumas said a century earlier, “on one’s knees with hat in hand.” Sadly, the Montrachet vineyard produces fewer than 3,000 cases a year of its intense, golden-green nectar.

Fortunately, though, there is more to white Burgundy than Montrachet. From the inexpensive but appealing wines of Mâcon and Pouilly, produced in the southernmost part of the Burgundy appellation, or region, to the elegant, flinty whites of Chablis in the far north, Burgundy produces a wealth of distinctive white wines, all but a few made from the chardonnay grape.

Chablis is actually closer to the Champagne area than to the rest of Burgundy. Its grapes grow in the same limestone soil that produces the luscious blanc de blancs Champagnes. Once considered the best-known white wine, Chablis is out of fashion. But its wines, especially its grands crus (the top Burgundy classification), like Vaudésir, Les Clos, Grenouilles and Valmur, can hold their own with most of the finest whites from the Côte d’Or region, the heart of Burgundy, 50 miles to the south. These grands crus sell in the $100 range, but lesser Chablis can be found at prices beginning around $20.

Burgundy’s Côte d’Or (golden slope) runs south from the city of Dijon to the wine village of Santenay. Its northern section, the Côte de Nuits, is best known for red wines, but some good to excellent white wines are made in the villages of Marsannay and Nuits-St.-Georges. An exceptionally good white bears the name of and comes from the town of Musigny. Producers include Louis Jadot, Joseph Drouhin and the Comte Georges de Vogue.

The lower part of the Côte d’Or, the Côte de Beaune, is the traditional home of Burgundy’s white wines. From Aloxe-Corton, just outside the city of Beaune, comes the grand cru Corton-Charlemagne, which, its fans contend, rivals Montrachet. Perhaps, but because so much is made, 25,000 cases in some years, quality can vary. A fine Corton-Charlemagne will cost as much as $250 a bottle, while a Le Montrachet, when one can be found, can cost $500 a bottle or more.

Meursault is probably the best known of the white wine villages in the Côte d’Or. Meursault has no grands crus, but its top wines, Les Perrières, Genevrières and Les Charmes, are exceptionally fine. Simple Meursaults are often good bargains at around $30, but they rarely show the depth and finesse of the top wines. A Meursault Genevrières from a year like 2005 will sell for $70 to $90.

Finally, there is Mâconnais wine, from a large region west and north of the town of Mâcon that produces three times more chardonnay than the rest of Burgundy. The wines are simple but good and sell for $10 to $20 or so. Pouilly-Fuissé and St. Véran also come from the Mâcon region. Beaujolais is the next wine region to the south. Some Beaujolais blanc is made, but it’s really just another Mâcon. — Frank Prial

Champagne
Wine lovers may argue over Bordeaux vs. Burgundy, Napa vs. Sonoma, or even cabernet sauvignon vs. merlot. But when it comes to Champagne, there is no argument. Almost everyone, it seems, loves Champagne.

Genuine Champagne comes only from the strictly defined Champagne region, 90 miles northeast of Paris. Champagne producers wage an unrelenting war against any and all winemakers outside their region who try to usurp the Champagne name. Grapes have been grown and wine produced there for 2,000 years, but what we think of as Champagne can be traced only as far back as the 17th century and the development of the cork, which captured fermentation gases.

Champagne's popularity is largely based on its reputation as a luxury product. Champagne houses like Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot vie to publicize their association with high society and exclusive sports like polo and yachting. One house, Pol Roger, even produced a special bottle size, the imperial pint, exclusively for Winston Churchill, who drank Champagne for breakfast and responded by naming his favorite horse Pol Roger.

The Champagne producers created and maintain that luxury image even though their wine is not necessarily expensive. Krug Champagne may sell for $250 a bottle but, even with the weak dollar, dozens of excellent Champagnes retail for under $35, appreciably less than a moderately priced Bordeaux or Napa Valley cabernet.

Nor is Champagne in any way exclusive. Upward of 300 million bottles of genuine Champagne are produced annually, and the industry is pressing the French government to expand the 71,000-acre Champagne region to meet the swelling demand from newly affluent markets in Eastern Europe and Asia.

While the new markets, Russia in particular, have served to keep Champagne prices higher than they might otherwise be, the growing demand has led to the addition of perhaps hundreds of new brands to wine shops' Champagne shelves.

Major names dominate: the LVMH group, which includes Moët & Chandon, Mercier, Ruinart and Veuve Clicquot; Lanson International, which includes Besserat de Bellefon and dozens of smaller labels; Vranken Monopole, Laurent-Perrier and Allied Domecq (owner of Mumm and Perrier Jouet), which together account for well over a third of all Champagne production. But many unfamiliar names, small producers that used to sell their wine to the major houses or confined themselves to France, now are going directly to the retail market. Their products usually sell for a few dollars less, and a lot of their Champagne is good.

According to Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia, there are 19,000 grape growers in Champagne , of whom about 5,000 sell Champagne under their own name. There are, the encyclopedia claims, more than 12,500 Champagne brands.

Champagne should be served quite cold, preferably between 38 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold dulls flavor, so a cheaper bottle can be served colder than a more complex wine. The best Champagnes, including vintage bottles and blanc de blancs -- which is made entirely from white chardonnay grapes -- should never be served at less than 45 degrees Fahrenheit. A good Champagne should not be chilled for more than two hours before serving; longer chilling can dull flavor and bouquet.

The ideal Champagne glass is the tall, slender flute. Its relatively small surface permits only a few bubbles at a time to escape. It also concentrates the wine?s bouquet. So pour a glass -- and cheers! - Frank Prial
The Loire

The longest of France’s rivers, the Loire rises near the city of Lyon and courses leisurely westward some 600 miles to meet the Atlantic Ocean just beyond the seaport of Nantes. The 16th century writer and satirist Rabelais was born in Chinon along the Loire and came to call the land of his birth “the Garden of France.” It is a garden of grapes. There are more than 40 appellations contrôlées (legally defined wine-growing regions) along the river, producing 25 million cases of wine a year, two-thirds of it white.

There are five distinct wine regions along the Loire. Beginning at the Atlantic, the first is the Pays (region) Nantais, best known for Muscadet. Then comes Anjou-Saumur, famous for its rosé and a variety of white wines made from chenin blanc, such as Savennières and the sweet wine Quarts de Chaume.

The Touraine region, which takes its name from the city of Tours, includes the town of Vouvray, another chenin blanc community.

Then comes the Central Region, dominated by Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, quality sauvignon blanc wines. Pouilly-Fumé has no connection with Pouilly-Fuissé, a chardonnay wine from Burgundy.

Finally there is the Massif Central region, far to the southeast of the famous Loire towns, where the best wines, Côte Roannaise and the Côtes du Forez, both made from gamay grapes, have more to do with Beaujolais than the Loire.

Muscadet, grown close to the seaside, is the quintessential wine for fish. Light, sharp and fresh, it became the bistro carafe wine in the years after World War II. It has fallen out of fashion in Paris, but in Normandy it is still the inexpensive wine of choice in restaurants by the sea. Jean-Ernest Sauvion, who is to the Loire what Georges Duboeuf is to Beaujolais, makes a tasty Muscadet called “La Nobleraie,” which sells for about $10 a bottle. Good Savennières, from Anjou, sells for upward of $25. One, Nicolas Joly’s biodynamically made (and world famous) Coulée de Serrant, sells for about $90 a bottle.

Savennières is said to be the best of the chenin blanc wines. If so, Vouvray is a close second. A pleasant Vouvray can be bought for around $12, but it will have little to do with the great Gaston Huet Vouvrays, which can last for 50 years or more. The Huet winery has new owners, but the wines, when aged, still display the astonishing strength of the chenin blanc grape. For connoisseurs and collectors, one of the finest is the Huet Clos du Bourg, preferably in a very old vintage.

Chinon, part of the Touraine, puts out some attractive reds that, like the reds of Saumur, are made from cabernet sauvignon. Bourgueil, just across the river, makes similar wines. Chinon’s reds are said to smell of violets, Bourgueil’s of raspberries. They are considered the best reds in Touraine.

The Central Region takes its name from the center of France, not of the Loire Valley. The vineyards of Sancerre are closer to Chablis than to Tours. Sharp, pungent Sancerre is immensely popular but is in danger of pricing itself out of the market, something its neighbor Pouilly-Fumé seems already to have accomplished. Good Sancerres will sell for up to $35 a bottle. A neighbor, the less assertive Quincy, is an attractive substitute. The ubiquitous Monsieur Sauvion offers one, “Les Glaneuses,” for around $12. In terms of price, that’s more like it. — Frank Prial

The Rhone
The city of Lyon marks the symbolic end of Burgundy and the beginning of the Rhone Valley. It is at Lyon that the Rhone River, which rises in the Swiss Alps, meets the Saône and turns south for the 190-mile journey to the Mediterranean. For the wine lover, a pilgrimage through the vineyards of the Rhone properly begins at Vienne, 18 miles south of Lyon, where the vineyards, among the most extensive in France, first appear.

The Rhone region is divided, much like Burgundy, into two sections: the northern Rhone, which extends from Vienne to Valance, and the south, which begins at Montelimar and reaches south to Avignon. The stretch between the two zones is, in the late wine expert Alexis Lichine’s words, a vinous no man’s land. The northern section includes among others the appellations of Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie, Cornas, Condrieu, Château-Grillet, St.-Joseph and St.-Péray. In the south the appellations include Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Vacqueyras and Baumes-de-Venise.

The Rhone’s main grapes are, for red wines, syrah in the north and grenache in the south. Little white wine is made in the northern Rhone, but what there is comes mostly from viognier, marsanne and roussanne grapes. In the south, the main white wine grapes are viognier and muscat.

The Rhone’s best-known, or at least the most popular, wine is Côtes-du-Rhône. It is to Hermitage and Châteauneuf du Pape what Beaujolais is to Gevrey-Chambertin and Echezaux in Burgundy: a simple, inexpensive cousin to the greatest wines of the region.

Côtes-du-Rhône accounts for some 80 percent of the red wine produced in the Rhone Valley. It can differ considerably from producer to producer because it is always a blended wine, and some 20 grape varieties are authorized to be used in the mix. Invariably, grenache will dominate, with syrah, mourvèdre and cinsalut as supporting reds. Grapes that can be used for white Côtes-du-Rhône include marsanne, roussanne, grenache blanc and bourboulenc. Decent Côtes-du-Rhône can sell for $8, Côtes-du-Rhône Villages for a few dollars more. One of the best, the Coudoulet de Beaucastel, may go as high as $25.

The best wine of the northern Rhone is Hermitage, a deep, powerful, long-lived red wine made entirely from syrah. Quantities are always small, and a Hermitage from a producer like Jaboulet can cost up to $200 a bottle. (There is also some Hermitage white.)

Côte-Rôtie, also made from syrah, often with a touch of viognier, is a profound, elegant red wine that, coming from a producer like Guigal, can cost $80 to $100 a bottle.

In the south, the most important wine by far is Châteauneuf-du-Pape (the pope’s new castle). Arguably, it’s even better known than Côtes-du-Rhône, although production is far smaller and prices for the best much higher.

There are red and white Châteauneuf-du-Papes. Thirteen grape varieties are permitted. The best, red or white, are powerful, extremely dry wines; the image, as one writer put it, of their landscape – hillsides of mistral-battered vines growing between stones the size of loaves of country bread. One of the best red Châteauneufs comes from the Château de Beaucastel and will cost around $100. One New York shop recently offered Beaucastel’s Châteauneuf “Cuvée Perrin” 2004 at $485 a bottle. — Frank Prial

Cabernet Sauvignon (U.S.)
In the United States, cabernet sauvignon reigns supreme. American pinot noir challenges but has a long way to go before it’s ready to claim any title.

Americans adopted cabernet – called “cab” in the user-friendly American way – with a vengeance. It’s safe to say that 50 years ago, not one in 10 wine fans had any idea what grapes found their way into the wine they enjoyed. But thanks primarily to the writer and wine merchant Frank Schoonmaker, California winemakers gave up or at least de-emphasized fanciful European-oriented labels like Hearty Burgundy and Pink Chablis and switched to the names of the grape varieties: cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, pinot noir and zinfandel.

Cabernet sauvignon quickly became known as the best of the lot. And not just in California. It grows from Texas to Virginia, but thrives particularly in Washington State and on Long Island in New York State. Indeed, cabernet sauvignon may be the finest of all red wine grapes worldwide. Yes, pinot noir in great French Burgundies is a worthy competitor. But pinot noir is a prima donna of a grape. Incomparable at its best, it requires constant coddling to get it to perform. Cabernet sauvignon, on the other hand, produces great wine, year in and year out, in often difficult conditions. What’s more, it thrives all over the world.

It does well in Bulgaria, for instance, and in Romania, Chile, Argentina and parts of Spain and Portugal. It makes some of South Africa’s best wines and does equally well in Australia and New Zealand. China is said to have about 1.2 million acres of wine grapes, with cabernet sauvignon as the most popular variety. Cabernet can star and it can play a supporting role: it lends structure and elegance to sangiovese grapes in Italy, to tempranillo grapes in Spain and to shiraz (syrah) in Australia. It is the premier grape in most of Bordeaux. In the Loire Valley, cabernet sauvignon gives depth and complexity to the local red wine favorite, cabernet franc.

For California, just how good its cabernet sauvignon could be became clear in the now famous 1976 Paris blind tasting, in which a group of skilled French tasters found they had chosen several California wines over some top-rated Bordeaux, including a 1993 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars California cabernet over a 1970 Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

“Cult” California cabernets from tiny wineries like Screaming Eagle, Colgin Cellars and Harlan Estate sell for as much as wines from the famous Bordeaux chateaus like Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion. Collectors pay $2,000 a bottle for cult California wines — usually for collecting and bragging rights rather than for drinking. Harmless enough, except that ordinary wine buyers often assume that, by comparison, a $20 California cabernet can’t be very good. Not so; there are many good California cabernet sauvignons in all price categories. Finding a good one at an affordable price can be more exciting than overpaying for one with a famous name.

Here are a few $20 and under American cabs worth noting: Simi Winery (Alexander Valley, California); Raymond Vineyards R Collection (Napa Valley, California); Dry Creek Vineyards (Sonoma, California); Estancia (Paso Robles, Calif.); Francis Coppola Diamond Series (California); Ex Libris (Columbia Valley, Washington State); Gallo Frei Ranch (Dry Creek Valley, Calif.).— Frank Prial
California

The first thing to understand about the California wine industry, even before the quality of what it makes, is its size. Like the state, it is large – very large. There are, or were at the beginning of 2008, an astonishing 2,687 bonded wineries in California, producing 650 million gallons a year. Growth has been fast: 10 years ago, there were 1,011 California wineries; in 1987, there were 750. Just over 40 years ago, in 1965, there were 232 – less than one-tenth the number today.

Some California wineries are huge. The E. & J. Gallo winery, for example, the largest in the world, produces 75 million cases a year, or one in every four bottles sold in America. The second largest is Constellation Wines U.S., part of Constellations Brands, the world’s largest wine company. Constellation’s United States properties, which include Robert Mondavi, Franciscan and Simi, produce about 50 million cases a year. The Wine Group, which includes Franzia, Glen Ellen and Concannon, makes 25 million cases, and Bronco, the parent of Charles Shaw – better known as “Two Buck Chuck” – produces 9 million cases annually.

The 25 largest California wineries produce 90 percent of the state’s wine, but half the wineries produce fewer than 5,000 cases each annually. Some of the smallest wineries, like Harlan Estate, Bryant Family, Screaming Eagle and Williams Selyem, are so highly regarded that they have long waiting lists for their tiny quantities. Screaming Eagle produces only 500 cases in most years, which may be why a Los Angeles shop recently listed a Screaming Eagle 1997 at $3,995 a bottle. Often, consumers on these wineries’ waiting lists sell their allocations to retailers who set their own prices. Those on waiting lists usually pay much less, sometimes from $200 to $400 a bottle.

Other wineries, including Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Shafer Estates, Ridge Vineyards and Calera, produce extraordinary wines but in sufficient quantities for distribution throughout the country. Most make 20,000 cases and up. They frequently offer two or three price ranges, with a top of $100 to $200 a bottle. Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars SLV lists in New York for around $130. Its Hawk Crest cabernet sells for about $12.95.

Cabernet sauvignon is California’s most prestigious grape, but chardonnay, spurred by America’s preference for white wine, is the most popular. It accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the state’s table-wine volume. Merlot shot to prominence in the 1990s because it was thought to have the elegance but not the harsher tannins of cabernet sauvignon. Syrah, the signature grape of France’s Rhone Valley, has grown steadily in stature in California’s vineyards. But the biggest star recently has been Burgundy’s fickle grape, the pinot noir. Pinot noir was extolled in the 2004 movie “Sideways,” and supermarket sales throughout the United States jumped 18 percent between October of that year and July 2005.

California’s wine history is all the more remarkable because it is relatively brief. The great wine regions of Bordeaux in France, Tuscany in Italy and the Rheingau in Germany trace their roots back a thousand years. Less than 150 years passed between the earliest attempts at making fine wine in California and the triumph of its wines over France’s best in the now famous Paris tasting of 1976. In the 32 years since Paris, California wines have improved even more. And California’s winemakers promise us we haven’t seen anything yet. — Frank Prial

Chardonnay (U.S.)
Chardonnay is not only America’s favorite white wine, it’s America’s favorite wine, period. Cabernet, pinot noir, zinfandel – forget them for the moment. There are more chardonnay vines in American soil than all those red-wine vines put together.

It’s a classic American success story. In the mid-1960s, when Americans would drink any inferior domestic white wine so long as it was mislabeled “Chablis,” there were about 1,000 acres of chardonnay planted in California. By 1988 there were 30,000 acres; by 1995, 53,000; and by 2003, 97,600 acres. And that of course doesn’t count major plantings in Oregon, Washington, New York, Virginia and a dozen other states.

In France, Burgundy produces some of the greatest white wines in the world. Chablis in the north; Meursault and Montrachet in the Côte d’Or; St. Véran, Pouilly-Fuissé and Macon blanc in the south – all are chardonnay. The Burgundy region is big, yet California alone has three times more chardonnay planted than in all of Burgundy. In Champagne country, north of Burgundy, chardonnay is the only white grape allowed. Blanc de blancs Champagnes like Krug’s magnificent Clos du Mesnil are 100 percent chardonnay.

The British wine writer Jancis Robinson has observed that, in the United States in the ’80s and ’90s, chardonnay changed from being a type of wine and “virtually became a brand.” For many Americans in the ’60s and ’70s, both men and women, wine was a pre-dinner aperitif or cocktail long before it was part of the dinner itself. For women, it was a low-alcohol drink to nurse while their companions worked on harder stuff. Bartenders and table waiters got used to hearing women say, “I’ll just have a white wine, please.” At first, much of that white wine was cheap domestic “Chablis.” As tastes changed and Americans began to identify wines by grape names, the imitation Chablis was mostly forgotten, and it became fashionable to be specific and ask for “a glass of chardonnay, please.”

In the early days of the American wine boom, chardonnay was made slightly sweet. Naturally high alcohol contributed to that, but so did the practice of stopping fermentation early to leave a touch of residual sugar in the wine. A generation raised on Coca-Cola but new to wine liked it that way. Sweetness in those chardonnays was accompanied by the taste of oak, supposedly from the barrels in which the wine was aged. Actually it was produced by steeping the wine in oak chips. Often the vanilla-like taste of oak obliterated the natural taste of the wine.

In recent years, the pendulum has swung the other way; the best chardonnays are dry and elegant, like white Burgundy and the best rieslings. And the oak taste has been banished or at least kept to a minimum. Some good California chardonnays now say “unoaked” on the label. As wine drinkers become more sophisticated, so do the wines.

With the need gone to be heavy-bodied, sweet and oaky, good chardonnays can be made all over the country. In addition to California, fine, steely chardonnays are made in New York, Oregon and Washington State.

Among the finest California chardonnays are little known labels like Kongsgaard, Kistler and Paul Hobbs. Fine midpriced chardonnays come from wineries like Gary Farrell, David Ramey and Chalone, while reasonable wines for everyday use include Estancia, Francis Coppola and, from Long Island, Wolfer Estate. — Frank Prial

Finger Lakes
The picturesque Finger Lakes region in central New York State is soaring into prominence in the international wine world. Its producers and vineyard managers owe this overdue recognition to riesling, a white grape whose versatile wines are new favorites across North America.

Wine specialists are seeing Finger Lakes rieslings become synonymous with standard-bearers from Germany, Alsace, Austria and, increasingly, Australia.

The verdant slopes encircling the key lakes, Seneca, Cayuga, Keuka and Canandaigua, are home to 96 of New York’s 231 producers. The estates that cultivate riesling sell all they can make, and strive to plant more. Big upstate markets like Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo and Albany buy much of it.

Riesling is found in dry, off-dry, sweet, still-wine, ice-wine and sparkling-wine styles. A visitors guide to wineries with dependable rieslings would highlight Atwater, Chateau LaFayette-Reneau, Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars, Fulkerson, Glenora, Heron Hill, Hosmer, Hunt Country, King Ferry (Treleaven), Lamoreaux Landing, Ravines, Red Newt, Sheldrake Point, Standing Stone, Swedish Hill, Thirsty Owl and Hermann J. Wiemer.

The winery hub is the 38-mile-long Seneca; the heights of the 19-mile-long Keuka startlingly resemble the Rhine’s in Germany. The placid landscape is dotted with farms, grazing cattle and horses. At harvest time vineyards seen from distances resemble russet and golden patchwork quilts.

This cool-climate region’s wine industry is the hottest it has been since the post-Civil War boom late in the 19th century. Its economic growth dates to passage of New York’s Farm Winery Act in 1976, when the state had a mere 19 wineries. This legislation created incentives for economically depressed grape farmers dependent on native Vitis labrusca grapes – Concord, Niagara, Catawba, Delaware and Diamond – to become producers whose subsequent prosperity would be nurtured by classic European grapes.

The so-called vinifera revolution that followed helped position New York as the fourth most important winegrowing state – behind California, Washington and Oregon – as gauged by the number of producers.

Since the lakes region is primarily white-wine country, good chardonnay and gewürztraminer can be found. Some minor grapes produce charming, even memorable, wines that could belong in France’s low-priced vin de pay (country wine) category. They include Seyval blanc, Vidal blanc, vignoles (formerly Ravat), Cayuga white and melody. A few successful reds like cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah are taking hold.

Theoretical and practical grape-growing and winemaking knowledge and skills are offered by Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, in Geneva, on Seneca. In 2006, the New York wine industry opened its $7.5 million educational headquarters, the New York Wine and Culinary Center, in Canandaigua. A spectrum of wines can be tasted there.

A case of savory whites would include Dr. Frank’s best-selling rkatsiteli (er-kat-si-TEL-lee), made from a Russian grape, and Dr. Frank’s sparkling wines; rieslings from Wiemer and LaFayette-Reneau; Lamoreaux Landing chardonnay; Dr. Frank’s gewürztraminer; Lakewood white Catawba; Goose Watch Diamond; Atwater Vidal blanc; Red Newt White; and Glenora Seyval blanc. Wines vary by vintage. Prices are $7 to $50; many are less than $20. The Lakewood white Catawba is $7; Wiemer’s late-harvest riesling reaches $50. — Howard G. Goldberg

Long Island
The North and South Forks of Long Island, resembling a lobster claw reaching into the Atlantic, form America’s easternmost wine region. The shape symbolizes the best culinary uses for its whites. The Island’s physical orientation toward France suggests its dominant wine styles.

New York, as gauged by its 231 producers, is America’s fourth most important wine state, behind California, Washington and Oregon. While the Finger Lakes in north-central New York define the state's largest region, the Long Island wine region seems the most exciting. That’s because the East End, as the area is called, is a two and a half hour drive from New York City.

The East End saw about 1.2 million wine-related visitors in 2007, according to the Long Island Wine Council, a trade association. It also quickly supplies the city’s merchants and restaurants.

Before grapes, Long Island farmland was famous for potatoes; many wineries have been built in old potato barns and in new structures that evoke such barns. The region’s wine history traces to Louisa and Alex Hargraves’s establishment of the Hargrave Vineyard in Cutchogue, on the North Fork, in 1973. The Hargraves sold it in 1999; the successors, Ann Marie and Marco Borghese, a scion of Italian nobility, bought and renamed it Castello di Borghese.

About 50 producers, mostly on the North Fork, farm 3,000 acres in about 60 vineyards that yield 500,000 12-bottle cases per vintage. In their maritime climate — the Atlantic to the south and east, Long Island Sound to the north — they emphasize classic French grapes.

Although conventional wisdom rates merlot as the best red, many consumers and critics single out cabernet franc, which in France produces stand-alone wines in the Loire and functions mainly as a blending grape in Bordeaux. Cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot are also found. Combinations of these red grapes go into Bordeaux-style blends.

Chardonnay dominates the whites, but sauvignon blanc is strong and consumers can find rewarding riesling, gewürztraminer, pinot blanc and chenin blanc in various styles, as well as sparkling wines and, increasingly, rosés.

While the region is too young to have generated wines with the proved depth, subtlety and agreeability that define auction classics, a handful of first-class estates have emerged.

The North Fork’s top tier consists of Bedell and its sister Corey Creek, Jamesport Vineyards, Lenz, Lieb, Macari, Martha Clara, Osprey’s Dominion, Palmer, Paumanok, Peconic Bay Winery, Pellegrini, Pindar, Raphael, Roanoke and Shinn. On the South Fork, Channing Daughters and Wölffer are the leaders.

Lenz gewürztraminers, Lieb’s blanc de blancs sparkling wines (made from pinot blanc grapes), Paumanok chenin blancs, Raphael merlots and generally any Channing Daughters whites are first-rate.

Not all aspiring producers can buy, plant and maintain a vineyard and build a winery and tasting room. They buy grapes locally and can hire the Premium Wine Group, in Cutchogue, a so-called custom-crush operation, to carry through the full winemaking process while guided by the small producers’ needs and tastes.

A sure sign that producers feel they have become nationally competitive (though few sell their wares from coast to coast) is that their top wines have become increasingly expensive. Wölffer’s 2002 Premier Cru, a merlot, costs $125. Bedell’s 2005 Musée, a red blend, goes for $65. — Howard G. Goldberg

Oregon
Wine was made in Oregon in the 19th century. Some of it was from grapes, but most was from other fruit – apples, pears, cherries. It wasn’t until1961, when Richard Sommer set up shop in an old barn in the Umpqua Valley in southern Oregon and planted riesling, that the modern Oregon wine industry began.

Born in Oregon, Mr. Sommer grew up in California and got into wine at the University of California at Davis. He had spent time on a family farm in Oregon and was drawn back in spite of dire warnings from his Davis colleagues that there was no future for wine north of the California state line. His Hillcrest Vineyards in Roseburg made Oregon an irresistible lure for other Californians who wanted to make wine away from California’s commercialism.

By 1968, three others from U.C., David Lett, Charles Coury and Dick Erath, had headed north. They passed Roseburg and staked out their vineyards in the Willamette Valley, some 35 miles west of Portland. And they planted what would become Oregon’s iconic grape, pinot noir. Other pioneers arrived, David Adelsheim, Dick Ponzi and Bill Sokol-Blosser among them. As new Oregonians, they labored in relative anonymity, convinced that they would one day produce great wines.

Any lingering doubts they may have harbored evaporated in 1979, when Mr. Lett entered his pinot noir in an important wine competition in Paris. The wine took top honors, beating out a Vosne-Romanée entered by the famous Burgundian producer Maison Joseph Drouhin. Three years earlier, another group of French wine experts had been outraged when some California wines upstaged their wines at a now-famous Paris tasting. But the Drouhins were far from angry. Instead, they built their own Oregon winery, Domaine Drouhin, not far from Mr. Lett’s, and added some European sophistication to the Oregon wine establishment.

In the nearly half century since Mr. Sommer forsook California and headed north, Oregon has become one of the country’s top three wine states, with 350 wineries producing an average of 5,000 cases each a year. Most of it is pinot noir, but there’s also pinot gris, chardonnay and modest amounts of riesling and merlot. In fact, 70 varieties of wine grapes are grown and vinified in Oregon.

Oregon wines are not promoted as heavily as California wines, but they are not hard to come by. A distinctive Oregon pinot noir comes from Yamhill Valley Vineyards, one of the better Willamette wineries. Like most Oregon wineries, Yamhill Valley has a regular line and a reserve wine. Other popular Oregon pinots include Domaine Drouhin, Argyle, Ponzi Vineyards, Rex Hill, Erath and Adelsheim. Many of these wines are in the $25 to $45 a bottle range. Beaux Frères, which is partly owned by the well-known wine critic Robert Parker, concentrates on elegant, higher priced wines (up to $90). Benton Lane is one of the few wineries, in Oregon or anywhere, that has the courage to bottle some of its moderately priced wines (around $20) under screw caps. — Frank Prial

Pinot Noir (U.S.)
To most wine lovers, the father of American pinot noir is David Lett, who courageously planted the Eyrie Vineyards in Oregon?s Willamette Valley in 1966. French Burgundy, whose essence is pinot noir, is one of the great wines of the world. But before Mr. Lett, no one had produced anything resembling fine Burgundy in this country. His first wines, in 1970, proved that America could indeed make good pinot noir. Oregonians, in fact, have made pinot noir their signature grape.

Californians had been working with pinot noir for years, with meager success. The state, so the common wisdom held, was just too hot for the delicate grape. At first, hopes were high; pinot noir plantings went from about 500 acres in 1959 to 10,000 in the mid-?60s. The wines improved, but not enough; true Burgundian style was still elusive. By the late ?70s California pinot noir was down to about 8,000 acres. Privately, many California winemakers thought they should leave pinot noir to the Oregonians.

But some Californians hung in, and eventually they succeeded. Today there are well over 20,000 acres of pinot noir throughout the state. What made the difference, aside from persistence, had little to do with winemaking. The revolution of the early 1980s was in the vineyard; it was the development of the proper clones -- plants reproduced asexually that retain the genetic characteristics of the parents. Cloning means, in effect, pulling a branch or a leaf off a desirable plant and sticking it in the ground until it roots and grows.

The pinot noir vine is notoriously unstable. It produces hundreds of clones or strains. In the 1970s, French scientists began selecting the actual strains in Burgundy's vineyards and cloning them for use elsewhere. Carefully selected and planted, these 1970s clones, known as Dijon clones, have revolutionized the growing of pinot noir grapes and the production of pinot noir wine in California.

Someone once called pinot noir "the heartbreak grape." Winemaking is always a risky business. From bud-break in the spring until the finished wine appears in the fall, there are 100 things that can go wrong. Cabernet and merlot, even chardonnay, which is a pinot noir relative, can withstand some problems, like unexpected rain or cold or heat; not pinot noir. Even the new clones don?t always come through; in spite of everything, a wine that should be exquisite can wind up thin and disappointing.

"Pinot noir," Matt Kramer wrote in his book "New California Wine," "is a form of madness for both producer and drinker alike. Both persist because a great pinot noir brings you as close to God as any wine can."

Originally, it was thought that the only good California region for pinot noir was the Central Coast, from Santa Barbara north (the locale for the light-hearted pinot noir movie "Sideways"). In fact, good pinot is now produced all over the state. Oregon, too, has extended it vineyards beyond their beginnings in the Willamette Valley.

Recommending pinots is risky, but some California producers who regularly do it well include Marcassin, Kistler, Williams Selyem, Merry Edwards and Rochioli -- all at the top of the scale and expensive. Edna Valley, Bear Boat and Estancia are among the more reasonably priced California labels. In Oregon, Ken Wright Cellars, Domaine Drouhin and Domaine Serene are among the best; Ponzi, Erath Vineyards and Benton Lane are close behind. -- Frank Prial

Washington State
About 50 years ago, no Washington State winery was making serious table wine. There was wine, but it was mostly cheap stuff, made from foxy American grapes and sold in bulk to California producers of mediocre wine.

Some quality Washington wines were made, but by home amateurs on a small scale. Then, in the early 1960s, several serious wineries were built near Seattle. But the wines left much to be desired, so the famed California enologist Andre Tchelistcheff was invited to see what he could do.

That did the trick. It was Mr. Tchelistcheff, flying up regularly from the Napa Valley, who helped introduce modern commercial winemaking to Washington.

At first there was resistance; 20 years on, in 1981, only 20 wineries were devoted to making wines with noble vinifera grapes. But the wines were good, sometimes excellent, and momentum grew.

By 2001 there were 180 wineries. In April 2007, Washington State celebrated the opening of its 500th winery, Sweet Valley Wines, in Walla Walla, the state’s own version of St. Émilion in Bordeaux. These days a new winery opens every two weeks or so, according to the Washington State Wine Commission. Fine wine has become a $3 billion industry, and Washington is the second largest fine-wine-producing state, after California (Oregon is third).

At first, Washington was overwhelmingly a white wine state. As recently as a decade ago, some 70 percent of the state’s wine grapes, led by chardonnay, were white varieties. But things have changed, and now the figures are 56 percent white and 44 percent red. Chardonnay is still No. 1, with about 6,000 acres planted. Riesling is second among the whites. Cabernet sauvignon is tops among the reds, with almost the same planted acreage as chardonnay. Merlot, first among Washington reds for 15 years, has slipped to second, with syrah a distant third but coming up fast.

For almost a decade, Eastern Washington has produced some of the finest cabernet sauvignons in the country. The best combine elegance, intensity and restraint. They are not austere; they reflect the style of the best French Pomerols from Bordeaux.

Top Washington cabernets like L’Ecole No. 41, Leonetti Cellars and Quilceda Creek are hard to find. Since production is relatively small and demand high, much of the best wine is sold at the wineries or through the mail. Quilceda Creek has a mailing list, but it is currently closed. The winery recommends getting on its waiting list to wait for a place on the mailing list – which may be why one California retailer offers a Quilceda cabernet 2004 at $250. Only 2,274 bottles were produced of Leonetti’s 2005 cabernet, $80 at the winery. L’Ecole No. 41’s top-of-the-line, cabernet-based Apogee, about $45 at the winery, may appear in some shops.

Woodward Canyon’s 2004 Artists Series cabernet is a bargain at about $30. Sageland Vineyards 2005 cabernet is a good value at about $12.

If California chardonnays are rich and powerful, Washington’s are crisp and delicate. Here are a few good examples, with early 2008 prices: Woodward Canyon’s 2005 Washington appellation at $36 is highly recommended. Then there are Andrew Will’s Cuvee Lucia 2005 and Dusted Valley Vintners 2004 Old Vine Yakima Valley, both at around $22. On the chardonnay bargain shelf are a Chateau Ste. Michelle 2006 at about $10 and Hogue Cellars, Columbia Crest and Covey Run for about $8 each. — Frank Prial

The Piedmont
Piedmont, Piemonte in Italian, means "foot of the mountain," and no place name was ever more apt. The Piedmont is a 230,000-acre wine region in Italy's northwest that stands between the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. It is near the top of the Italian boot and rests more or less in the center of a triangle formed by Turin, Milan and Genoa. Up to 50 million cases of wine are produced annually in Piedmont from, among others, barbera, dolcetto, muscat and nebbiolo -- which is the noblest of all the region's grapes.

Barbera accounts for more than half the acreage in the Piedmont and dolcetto about 15 percent. Nebbiolo is the grape of Piedmont?s greatest wines, Barolo, Barbaresco and Gattinara, but accounts for less than 3 percent of the region's vineyards. And that includes Spanna, the name nebbiolo takes in the region around the village of Gattinara. The name nebbiolo is derived from nebbia, the word for fog, because the grape thrives best in areas where, during the harvest, the hillside vineyards of the Piedmont are shrouded in morning fog.

Barolo is one of the great wines of the world. The best come from five villages near Alba, where many producers make four or five different versions. Choosing a favorite can be hard work. Barbaresco is mostly made by the same people in the same place, the Langhe hills. It displays a bit more finesse than Barolo and is usually lighter in alcohol. Some Barbarescos age faster than classic Barolos, but often only an expert can tell the wines apart. Both are dark and muscular and take a long time to mature. An attractive Barolo from Michele Chiarlo might sell for around $40; a great one from Bruno Giacosa might cost $150 or more.

Most of the local barbera is sold as simple Barbera di Piemonte; the rest, better quality wine, is sold as Barbera d'Alba and Barbera d'Asti. These last are D.O.C., or denominazione di origine controllata, wines. The D.O.C. laws set out the specific geographical limits of wine zones. They also determine minimum alcohol levels and maximum yields per acre. A higher status, D.O.C.G., means that the government guarantees the authenticity of the wines. Piedmont has some 50 D.O.C. zones, of which seven are D.O.C.G.s, including Barolo and Barbaresco. A Barbera d'Asti might sell for $17; Giacosa's 2005 is around $30.

The Piedmont's most popular wine happens to be none of the above. It's Asti, formerly Asti Spumante, Italy's foremost sparkling wine, made entirely from the Moscato di Canelli grape, some 23,000 acres of which grow in the Piedmont village of Asti. Asti -- the wine not the village -- is sweet, more so than almost any other sparkling wine. Moscato d'Asti, made from the same grapes and by the same producers, is more delicate and less fizzy and is often sold as a dessert wine. Cinzano and Martini & Rossi are popular Asti brands.

Dolcetto is an excellent grape, grown widely in the Piedmont. Its name comes from the fact that its juice is especially sweet at harvest time although the wine is finished dry. It is softer and lighter than nebbiolo-based wines. Prunotto?s Dolcetto d?Alba, a D.O.C. wine, sells for around $16.

Piedmont white wines are good but rarely outstanding. Gavi, made, from the cortese grape, can be a delicious exception. A good example is La Scolca's Gavi dei Gavi, which sells for around $35. -- Frank Prial

Tuscany
Fabled Tuscany is Italy’s most famous wine region and the home of Chianti, the country’s best-known wine. In some years Tuscany produces more than 60 million cases, of which some 8 million are Chianti. Sangiovese, which is ubiquitous in Tuscany, is Chianti’s principal grape. It is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Carmignano and the legendary Brunello di Montalcino.

To this day, Tuscan old-timers fondly recall the fiasco (Italian for flask), the bulbous round bottle with its woven straw covering that for years was synonymous with Chianti. What they would rather not remember was that the fiasco was a symbol of mediocrity, of long years of indifference to what should have been the region’s proudest achievement. Throughout the world, Chianti was known as a cheap wine in a unique bottle. The formula was immensely successful, and the winemakers saw no reason to change.

Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, a new generation of Chianti winemakers recognized that great wines were being made everywhere else and that Chianti’s marvelous potential had never been realized. Led by the remarkable Piero Antinori, 25th generation head of his family’s wine business, leading Chianti producers began to innovate. Regulations demanded a certain amount of white wine in the Chianti blend. Antinori ignored the rules and began blending traditional French varieties, especially cabernet sauvignon, into his best sangiovese and aging the combination in small oak barrels. The result: astonishingly rich and elegant wines.

They couldn’t be called Chianti, so Antinori and his followers gave their wines what amounted to brand names, among them Tignanello and Solaia, and called these new wines, collectively, Super-Tuscans. Actually, it was not an untried adventure. A wine called Sassicaia was first produced by the Antinoris in 1948 using cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc and no sangiovese. But it was not introduced to the public until the early 1970s, around the same time as Tignanello. (Solaia sells for around $185 a bottle, Sassicaia for about $160 and Tignanello for about $100.)

Soon everyone was making Super-Tuscans. Then Chianti producers decided Super-Tuscans were too dependent on foreign grape varieties. They resolved to use new clones and superior vinification of the traditional Italian grapes to make great wines exclusively from sangiovese and other Tuscan varieties. These days, a Chianti Classico like Ruffino’s Riserva Ducale Gold Label (about $35) has much of the richness of a Super-Tuscan while remaining Chianti. (The specification "Classico" refers to the Chianti region’s most ancient area of production.)

The renowned Brunello di Montalcino, a powerful, tannic red, is made entirely from the Brunello grape, a sangiovese variant grown around Montalcino, northeast of Siena. It must be aged four years to be bottled as Brunello. With less aging it is known as Rosso di Montalcino. An Altesino Brunello, one of the best, sells for around $100.

Carmignano is a red wine made primarily from sangiovese with about 10 percent cabernet sauvignon and aged for up to 24 months.

Tuscan whites are largely indifferent. Most are made from the lackluster trebbiano grape. Trebbiano is valued for use in cheap table wine and as part of the traditional Chianti blend. One Tuscan white worth noting is Vernaccia (wine and grape) from the San Gimignano region. At least it’s better than trebbiano. — Frank Prial

Australia
Until the 1970s, Australia was dismissed as a major source of serious wine. But things changed, and today Australia is the world?s fourth largest wine exporter. Only Italy, France and Spain, in that order, sell more wine to the rest of the world. The United States comes in sixth, just after Chile.

When it comes to wine production rather than exports, Australia is seventh (France, Italy and Spain are the top three). Australians shipped 84 million cases of wine around the world last year, and kept a little more than 45 million cases for themselves -- almost twice as much wine per capita as Americans consume.

Australia's best customer is Britain, which seems only right -- it was a British ship that arrived from South Africa with Australia?s first vines in 1788, when it was known as New South Wales and was still a penal colony. Americans get more wine from Australia than we do from France. (Mostly we drink our own. Italy is our biggest foreign supplier; Australia is second, and France is third.)

What kind of Australian wine do we import? Every kind. But perhaps the best is Grange, which is probably Australia?s greatest wine. Grange used to be known as Grange Hermitage and was developed by Penfolds, a famous Australian winery, and first released in 1952.

Very little is made, and it is very expensive, so we don?t get very much. Part of what we do get is Yellowtail, a simple, modest wine that is even younger than Grange. It first appeared in this country in 2001 when a New York importer reluctantly agreed to bring in 112,000 cases. Four years later, in 2005, Yellowtail's sales in the States were 7.5 million cases -- and in 2009 it remains strong. Grange, when you can find it, costs $500 a bottle or more. Yellowtail is about $5.

Since Australia has no indigenous wine-grape vines, getting started was not easy. When those first cuttings arrived in 1788 and were planted, they promptly died. The unfamiliar climate was blamed. It took years of experimenting to get it right, but by the 1840s a thriving wine culture had been established. By the 1870s, Australian wines were winning prizes everywhere, even in France.

Unfortunately, sales didn't reflect that glory. So the Australians turned to mass production of cheap wine, much of it sold in bulk. But some growers were experimenting, and it soon became evident that big beautiful syrah, locally known as shiraz, would be Australia's signature grape. When Max Schubert of Penfolds fashioned his first Grange, it was 100 percent shiraz from a vineyard near Adelaide. Today Grange is made from various grape varieties, including cabernet sauvignon, from different wine regions. The blend is secret, but shiraz is still a major player. Recently, a bottle of the pre-release 1951 sold at auction for $50,000.

In the 1970s, the production of quality wines increased, and today, along with Grange, Australian winemakers produce a panoply of world class cabernets, merlots and blends. Chardonnays rival anything made in California, while cabernet sauvignons from Coonawarra and Margaret River can be ravishing. Penfolds Bin 128 Shiraz, Fireblock Old Vines Grenache and D'Arenberg's Galvo Garage Red, all around $25, are a few worth seeking out. -- Frank Prial

Austria
Modernity entered Austria’s winemaking after a scandal nearly wrecked domestic and foreign markets in 1985, when a few producers added diethylene glycol, an antifreeze agent, to enhance body and sweetness and justify higher prices (there were no deaths).

Parliament enacted perhaps Europe’s most stringent wine legislation. Young winemakers, drawn by the law’s emphasis on quality over quantity, brought cutting-edge techniques and farsightedness to vineyards and cellars, revolutionizing both.

Today, Austrian whites are 70 percent of output; reds, 30 percent.

Consumers, merchants and restaurateurs worldwide prize the best dry versions of Austria’s native, peppery grüner veltliners and mineral-like rieslings, both whites, while sales have risen, especially in America; graceful sauvignon blancs, underappreciated abroad, await recognition. Juicy, highly flavorsome reds – zweigelt, blaufränkisch and St. Laurent – are winning broad acceptance. Rosés, sweet wines (particularly ausbruchs) and lean sekts (sparklers) abound.

About 73 percent of Austria’s production – which is small, about one-fifth of France’s – is consumed inside its borders.

Wines originate in four regions in eastern Austria: Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), mostly west of Vienna; Burgenland, south of the capital; Steiermark (Styria), southwest; and Wien (Vienna).

Lower Austria, the pre-eminent wine zone, has these regions: Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal, Traisental, Wagram (formerly Donauland), Weinviertel, Carnuntum and Thermenregion. Burgenland encompasses four subregions: Neusiedlersee (Lake Neusiedl), Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, and Middle and South Burgenland. Steiermark is an amalgam of South, Southeast and West Steiermark.

The foremost producers in the Wachau, partly defined by the beautiful Danube, include Alzinger, Domäne Wachau (formerly Freie Weingärtner Wachau), Hirtzberger, Högl, Jamek, Knoll, Lagler, Nikolaihof, F.X. Pichler, Rudi Pichler, Prager, Schmelz and Tegernseerhof.

Kamptal’s include Bründlmayer, Ehn, Hiedler, Hirsch, Jurtschitsch, Schloss Gobelsburg, Steininger and Loimer. Kremstal’s embrace Malat, Mantlerhof, Sepp Moser, Nigl, Salomon-Undhof and Weingut Stadt Krems.

Carnuntum offers Glatzer, Grassl, Gerhard Markowitsch and Pitnauer. In Traisental, it’s Neumayer. In Thermenregion, Alphart, Biegler, Fischer, Johanneshof and Stadlmann. In Wagram, Bauer, Fritsch, Leth, Ott and Wimmer-Czerny. And in Weinviertel, Graf Hardegg and Pfaffl.

Burgenland is rich in achievers: Paul Achs, Feiler-Artinger, Gsellmann and Gsellmann, Gernot Heinrich, Kracher-Weinlaubenhof, Kollwentz-Römerhof, Krutzler, Lang, Hans and Anita Nittnaus, Pöckl, Prieler, Schröck, Ernst Triebaumer, Umathum, Velich and Weninger. Steiermark’s best include Gross, Lackner-Tinnacher, Polz, Sabathi, Sattlerhof, Tement and Wohlmuth.

Full appreciation of Wachau’s standard-setting whites requires knowledge of special designations: steinfeder, denoting low alcohol and feathery lightness; federspiel, fruitiness and medium weight; smaragd, full body and complexity

An insightful introduction to dry whites can involve virtually any from Bründlmayer, Schloss Gobelsburg, Nigl and the biodynamic Nikolaihof.

For reds, any from Pöckl, Triebaumer and Umathum. No dessert wines rival the brilliant whites crafted by the late Alois Kracher. High-end wines typically cost $20 to $90. — Howard G. Goldberg

Germany
A half century ago, Americans loved German wines. For years they consumed millions of bottles of white German wines with names like Blue Nun, Black Tower and Zeller Schwarze Katz. But as times and tastes changed, Americans recognized these wines for what they were — bland, sweet and boring — and they soon disappeared from the shelves.

With them, unfortunately, went the reputation of German wines. In vain did connoisseurs try to explain that there were dozens, probably hundreds, of exceptional German wines, some of astonishing quality. Then, beginning in the late 1980s and early ’90s, a curious thing happened. Wine drinkers had begun to tire of their beloved chardonnay as too oaky and too high in alcohol. A.B.C. became their slogan – Anything but Chardonnay — and Americans began searching for and buying fine German wines. From 2002 to 2006, exports of German wines to the States doubled every year.

This despite the fact that learning about German wines is exceptionally difficult. There are eleven specified regions where the best wines are grown. almost all the wine is white and made from the riesling grape. All the regions are along the Rhine or its tributaries in southeast Germany. The most famous are the Rheingau — on the river itself, including the famous wine towns of Hochheim, Eltville and Johannisberg — and the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, which follows the Moselle from Trier to Koblenz, where it joins the Rhine. Its wine towns include Bernkastel, Piesport and Wehlen. Other regions include the Rheinpfalz and Baden, whose vineyards face those of Alsace, in France, on the Rhine’s left bank. The best Moselle wines, like the fabled Bernkasteler Doktor, are considered equal in quality to the finest wines of the Rheingau, like those of the great Schloss Vollrads estate.

In France, all the grapes in a famous vineyard are picked at the same time. Not in Germany. German wines are ranked by the ripeness of the grapes when picked, and pickers may go through a vineyard four or five times. The first grapes will have the lowest sugar content; the last, perhaps weeks later, will be packed with natural sugar and produce a rare, fabulous sweet wine. The first have a “kabinet” rating; the second is “spätlese” or late picked; the third “auslese” for selected picking; the fourth “beerenauslese” for individual grape picking; and the fifth “trockenbeerenauslese,” or TBA, which stands for the few remaining shriveled grapes that are almost all sugar. TBA wines are among the most expensive in the world.

German wine labels offer much information. For example: “Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Spätlese 2005, Carl Graff (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer)” tells you that the wine comes from the Würzgarten vineyard in the village of Ürzig; that it is a riesling spätlese, or late picked; that the producer was Carl Graff; and that the region was the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer.

When buying German wines, a knowledgeable wine merchant is important. He can cut through the thicket of regulations and definitions to find what you will enjoy (and can afford). Should you choose to go it alone, here are a few suggestions. The Riesling above sells for about $20. A Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Spätlese 2005, from J.J. Prum, is about $40, and a Schloss Vollrads Riesling Spätlese Oestrich-Winkel 2005 about $30. — Frank Prial

New Zealand
The “New” in agricultural New Zealand defines the country’s status in New World winedom. It evokes scrubbed air, brilliant sunlight, glinting high technology and the diamond sheen of southwestern Pacific waters.

Similar clarity pervades its strong suit, whites. Adjectives like pungent, lithe, clean and refreshing apply especially to the signature sauvignon blancs; to broadly findable chardonnays, rieslings and pinot gris; and to rarer gewürztraminers and sémillons.

Among reds, pinot noir, notably from idyllic Central Otago, has won the most attention; by 2009, the industry expects pinot noir, which is partly sluiced into sparkling wine, to be the second most widely planted grape (behind sauvignon); merlot may become the fourth (after chardonnay, the third). Syrah is a comer.

Begun in 1973 with sauvignon vines in the Marlborough region of South Island, the modern industry, with 62,654 largely coastal acres planted, had 543 wineries in 2007; in 1997, there were 262.

The New Zealand Winegrowers, a trade association with a San Francisco office, characterizes its largely export-oriented industry as boutique: 89 percent of the wine companies sell 22,222 cases each at most.

Encompassing 1,000 miles, from warmer North Island through cooler South Island, the 10 major vineyard regions and many subregions, expressing a spectrum of climatic conditions and soils, yield a variety of styles. As gauged by percentages of plantings, the main regions are, in descending order, Marlborough, Hawkes Bay (North Island), Gisborne (North) and Central Otago (South).

In wine jargon, green — synonymous with herbal, herbaceous, vegetal — describes the new-mown-grass scent and flavor common to racy, food-friendly sauvignons. Environmentally, it connotes sustainable winegrowing, a major program the industry promotes vigorously.

Because of a cornucopia of innovations in vineyard techniques, New Zealand’s viticulturists are recognized as a font of knowledge and proficiency in canopy management, as their field is called.

From the time its sauvignons began upstaging Loire versions, the prevailing model, New Zealand has gone its own way, possibly because the closest land mass, Australia, is 1,000 miles distant. You see free spirits in the friendly informality of its winegrowers, whose underpopulated, awesome mountain landscapes seem remote from global angst.

This individualism took a pragmatic turn in producers’ collective action in 2001 to shift to screw caps, which (no pun intended) encapsulates and symbolizes their New World wine. With 95 percent of production under screw caps in 2007, the no-nonsense industry does not genuflect to Old World cork ritualism.

Whether twist-off metal closures promote long-term development and complexity in wines is unresolved, but hardly anyone doubts they preserve short-term crispness, fruitiness and charm.

New Zealand’s superior producers include Allan Scott, Ata Rangi, Babich, Brancott, Cloudy Bay, Coopers Creek, Craggy Range, Dry River, Felton Road, Fromm, Goldwater, Grove Mill, Highfield, Huia, Hunters, Kim Crawford, Kumeu River, Martinborough Vineyard, Matua Valley, Mills Reef, Millton, Montana, Neudorf, Nobilo, Palliser, Pegasus Bay, Saint Clair, Seifried, Seresin, Spy Valley, Stonyridge, Te Mata, Trinity Hill, Villa Maria, Whitehaven and Wither Hills.

Sauvignon blancs range from $12 to $28; pinot noirs from $18 to $47. — Howard G. Goldberg

Port
In the late 17th century, trade wars cut England off from French vineyards. French wines had been central to British life since before the Norman Conquest. So the English turned to an old winemaking friend, Portugal.

The Portuguese obliged. When the English rejected Portugal’s common wines, the Portuguese suggested reds from the Douro region. Struggling up the Douro River from Oporto through some of the most inhospitable country in Europe, intrepid British wine merchants discovered a heavy dry red wine that they began shipping back to England. To stabilize it, they added a dollop of brandy to each cask.

Bordeaux lovers in England hated it. Then someone discovered a monastery in the Douro where brandy was added to the wine while it was fermenting, not after. The sweet, high alcohol wine this created was a sensation back in London. British merchants flocked to Oporto, where they blended and aged the wine from the mountains and shipped it to England. With unassailable logic, they called it port. “Sweet or dry,” the wine critic Hugh Johnson wrote, “port was much the most-drunk wine in Britain from the early 18th century to the early 20th.”

Port production is heavily regulated. On average, only about 40 percent of each grape crop is considered good enough. The red grapes are crushed and begin to ferment. After about 36 hours, alcohol — neutral wine spirits — is added, and fermentation stops. The result is a naturally sweet, fortified wine. This young wine is transported 50 miles downriver to the shippers in Oporto, who separate it according to quality.

Some will become ruby port, some tawny and some — only in years when a shipper considers the vintage worthy — will become a vintage port.

The lightest, less promising wines make ruby port. It is aged in barrels for about two years and marketed. The next quality level, with more body and concentration, is tawny port. It is aged in barrels, usually for eight to 10 years, and loses its deep red color from oxidation. Tawnies allowed to age in wood for 20 years or more are among the most elegant of all ports, rivaling vintage ports.

Shippers decide individually on vintage years, because sources of grapes and particular blends differ. This wine is bottled after only two years in barrels, then allowed to age in glass bottles for 10, 20 or 30 years before it is considered mature enough. Vintage ports account for less than 3 percent of total production.

Late Bottled Vintage ports, called L.B.V.s, are wines from a single harvest that must be aged four to six years in barrels and are ready to drink when bottled. They are actually high-quality ruby ports.

White port, made from white grapes, is drier than red; it is usually an aperitif, while red port is usually a dessert wine.

The great old port shippers predate all but a handful of prestigious French and German wine companies. Taylor Fladgate was founded in 1692; Offley-Forrester in 1737; J.W. Burmester, 1750; Sandeman & Co., 1790; Quinta do Noval, 1813; Cockburn Smithes, 1815; W.& J. Graham, 1820.

Very old ports appear at times at prohibitively high prices. Here are prices of some relatively modern vintage ports: 1955 Graham’s, $995 a bottle; Dow’s 1963, $395; Quinta do Noval 1970, $160. A 2000 from the same shipper is $140. An L.B.V. 2001 from Fonseca is $16, and a tawny from Trevor Jones, an Australian shipper, is a remarkable $8. — Frank Prial

Riesling
Riesling is one of the world’s finest wines — and without question, the greatest rieslings come from Germany. The riesling grape accounts for only about 20 percent of Germany’s wine acreage but is found at only the best growing sites. These are the Rheingau and the Moselle as well as the Rheinhessen and the Rheinpfalz, all next to or close to the confluence of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers and their tributaries, the Nahe, Neckar, Saar and Ruwer.

Through history, the great German vineyards constituted the northern limits beyond which fine grapes could not be grown. New grape varieties and clones of old ones, along with global warming, are pushing that boundary northward, but the riesling is still the latest ripening of all the noble grapes. Unchanged, too, is the rule noted by Frank Schoonmaker many years ago in “The Wines of Germany” — that 100 days of full sunshine are needed between May and October to produce good wine, and 120 to produce great wine. “They get their 100 about every other year,” he wrote, “and their 120 perhaps twice in a decade.”

In France and increasingly in the United States, wine lovers look to Alsace for their favorite rieslings. Alsace is the only place in France under French law where riesling is permitted to be grown. The best Alsatian rieslings, while richer, often higher in alcohol and earthier than their German counterparts, are superb wines. They come from individual vineyards owned by the Grand Cru estates rather than from a specific part of the Alsatian wine region. Schlumberger, Zind-Humbrecht, Trimbach and Domaine Weinbach all produce outstanding Alsatian rieslings. A Trimbach riesling sells for $15 to $40.

Logic decrees that the future of riesling in the United States probably lies in the Pacific Northwest, with the state of Washington leading the way. (True riesling in the United States may be labeled Johannisberg riesling or white riesling.) Washington even sponsored a conference some years ago to promote the grape. Unfortunately, though, the public prefers Washington’s immensely popular reds — so riesling is just going to have to wait its turn.

Until then, the country’s one outstanding riesling producer may well be Hermann J. Weimer, who works not out west but in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The region, Mr. Weimer says, is very similar to the Mosel area in Germany, where he grew up in a winemaking family. Lake Seneca may not be the Mosel River, but the lean, elegant rieslings he makes at his eponymous winery in Dundee may be the best in the States in the classic German tradition. Weimer rieslings sell for about $25 a bottle.

Buyers should beware so-called “rieslings” that are not made from the true riesling grape. Because unfortunately, more sins are committed under the name riesling than with any other grape. Over the years it has been affixed to countless dreadful wines.

California’s Emerald Riesling is a sweetish, bland cross between riesling and muscadelle. Also in California, a simple “riesling” might actually be sylvaner, another lesser variety. Welschriesling, a completely different grape, flourishes in Central Europe, where it also turns up as Riesling Italico. Riesling-Sylvaner is a name used in Switzerland for Muller-Thurgau, a German grape much favored for cheap blends such as Liebfraumilch. — Frank Prial

Spain
One of the more compelling wine stories of recent decades has been Spain’s almost miraculous evolution from a producer of oceans of mediocre commercial wine into a source of some of the most exciting, original and sought-after wines in the world.

Change was a long time coming. Grapes first appeared in Spain around 1100 B.C., probably grown by Phoenicians near what is now Cádiz. The arrival of the non-drinking Moors in the eighth century A.D. put a damper on the wine trade that lasted 700 years. Not until the 1490s, with the expulsion of the Moors, did business begin to pick up again. Spanish explorers planted Spanish vines throughout the New World, but only in the 19th century did Spanish wines begin to move, hesitantly, into modern times.

When phylloxera destroyed the French vineyards in the 1860s and ’70s, many Bordeaux winemakers moved south. They brought with them their vines, their winemaking skills and the Bordeaux bottle. A century later, in the 1970s and ’80s, Spain decided to join the contemporary viniculture world, and Spanish wines began to improve. Suddenly, wine regions unknown, even within Spain, a few years earlier — the Rioja, of course, and the Penedès region in Catalonia, but also Ribera del Duero, Priorat, Navarra and Toro, and even the Rias Baixas region of Galicia in northwestern Spain — began to capture the attention of wine lovers worldwide.

As late as the 1980s, most Spanish wines were over-sulfured to combat spoilage, not always successfully. Within a decade that practice had ended, even in the cooperatives that still sell inexpensive bulk wine all over Europe.

Grenache, called garnacha in Spain, is the country’s most widely planted grape but hardly its best. That honor goes to tempranillo, the principal grape of the Rioja, the Ribera del Duero, Penedès and Priorat. Vega Sicilia, long considered Spain’s greatest red wine, comes from Ribera del Duero and is made principally from the tinta del país grape and about 20 percent cabernet sauvignon. Tinta del país was once thought to be a separate variety; today it is known to be tempranillo.

While Vega Sicilia has maintained the standard it set in the mid-19th century, it now has some serious competition. For several decades, Priorat, which is part of the Penedès, has been producing wines the envy of winemakers everywhere. Wines from Alvaro Palacios and the Clos Erasmus, to name two producers, are the equal of anything Bordeaux or Burgundy can produce. In the Ribera del Duero, Peter Sissek at the Dominio de Pingus has produced intense red wines that go for $400 a bottle and more. At the other end of the price scale, Marques de Caceres Rioja is under $10; Torres Gran Coronas Reserva is under $20.

Sherry, still Spain’s best-known wine, is made from palomino and Pedro Ximénez grapes.

Recently, the country’s once embarrassing white table wines have taken on a new life. The reasons: the Rias Baixas region, along with a once little-known grape, the albariño. The wine is dry, fruity and fresh, with lively acidity.

And then there is Cava, Spain’s widely popular sparkling wine, made mostly from the parellada grape, along with macabeo, riesling and muscat. The best known labels include Cordoniu, Freixenet and Juvé y Camps. Freixenet Cordon Negro Brut is about $8. — Frank Prial