Domaine de Font-Sane Gigondas, 1998

I was a bit disappointed with this Gigondas last April and not quite sure whether it needed additional aging or was already past its prime. This bottle convinces me that the wine has turned the corner and is ready for drinking.

The color is still a deep, dark ruby, and the bouquet is everything you expect from a Gigondas--pretty red berry/floral qualities plus a powerful whiff of dark cherries and Gigondas minerals. The cherry flavors fill out across the palate with a bit of firmness in the middle that may be either fruit tannin or alcohol. Either way, the wine is the none the worse for it; when that firm quality is gone, the wine will have lost some of the power that is characteristic of Gigondas. This 1998 Font-Sane is not as charming as the 2006 Perrin I had last week in Santa Fe nor as complex as the 1998 Tourade I had a few weeks ago. But it's a very good Gigondas with a few more years to show its stuff.

Font-Sane has a more expensive cuvee, aged in new oak, that I have tried only once or twice but never purchased.

Frenzy Marlborough (New Zealand) Sauvignon Blanc, 2008

This wine showed a sparkling range of aromas and flavors when it was young. Then a few months ago, it took on broad grapefruit aromas and flavors that were pleasant but not very complex. Yet another couple of months in the bottle, and the wine has evolved into yet another stage, better than either of the previous two. While not as fresh and sparkling as it was last summer, it is even more complex, blending grapefruit with gooseberry, passion fruit, Meyer lemon and honey dew melon. There is racy acidity and clean flavors that keep you coming back for sip after sip.

This will be a lovely wine for spring and summer drinking on the deck, and it's still on the shelves for about $10 a bottle--relatively inexpensive for a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Agricole Vallone Salice Salentino Rosso Riserva Vereto, 2000

Ribollito, a robust stew made of whatever vegetables you have on hand (onions, peppers, celery, squash, tomatoes) plus white beans and a healthy dose of greens (collard, mustard, kale, spinach) for body and flavor, is one of my favorite vegetable dishes. And to accompany it, I like a hearty Italian red--full bodied but with good acid to match the qualities of the ribollito. Barbera Piemonte would be good, but this Salice Salentino, an old favorite, worked even better.

This wine has reached a beautiful level of maturity. It's a deep ruby red color with little or no browning. The bouquet is flush with sweet cherries, black licorice and rose petals--beautiful. Full bodied and full fruited, this is a big wine...but not too big for ribollito. Extended contact with the skins has given this wine a lush texture and black licorice/mineral-tinged flavors. The finish is ripe, long and complex.

Chateau Bel Air (Domaine Henri Martin) Haut Medoc Cru Bourgeois, 1990

This is a mere Cru Bourgeois, purchased for $8 to $10, but at 20 years of age, it is still drinking beautifully. It's a bright ruby color with minimal, if any, signs of advancing age. The bouquet has developed nicely, dominated by blackberries, black currants and cherries. Everything is up front, but there is enough subtlety to make you pay close attention. The blend is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot. While there is plenty of the subtle cherry-tinged elegance of Merlot, I find none of the bell pepper that often comes through in lower end Bordeaux or New World Merlot. Flavors are clean, bright and well focused from front to back, and the finish is long and ripe. 1990 was an excellent vintage in Bordeaux, even for lesser wines such as this Chateau Bel Air.

La Vieille Ferme Rouge Cotes du Ventoux, 2005

The Perrin brothers who produced the lovely Gigondas described below also make this every day drinking wine that is widely available for less than $7 a bottle. I usually drink La Vieille Ferme in the first year after it hits the market, but this bottle has been in my cellar for three years now, and it's still showing beautifully.

It's a lively crimson color, and the fruit aromas and flavors are fresh and well focused--blueberries, spring flowers, spice and a hint of black pepper. It has a medium full body, silky texture and reasonably long finish. This is the wine that I know and love year after year. I haven't yet bought any of the 2008 but will do so soon.

Perrin et Fils Gigondas, 2006

It's not often you find a wine of this quality offered by the glass in a restaurant. So even though the price was more than I usually pay ($13), I was not going to settle for anything else to accompany my "baseball steak" dinner at the Dinner for Two Restaurant in Santa Fe. The "baseball steak" was actually a baseball-size beef tenderloin on a spherical bed of garlic mashed potatoes with spokes of green beans on the periphery--a perfect match for Gigondas. But the wine also paired up well with the crab cake appetizer and the asparagus soup made with Nieman Ranch apple wood smoked bacon.

This is definitely not a backward Gigondas. Aromas of wild blueberries, flowers and spice are front and center from the first sniff. I could enjoy this wine without ever taking it in my mouth, but why not? It's silky smooth on the palate with expanding flavors of dark cherries and blueberries and a bright lift in the middle that's characteristic of good Gigondas. I see Gigondas as a marriage of beauty and power, and this wine is oriented more toward the former than the latter. It's large framed but oh so lovely to drink.

The retail price for this Gigondas is $27, so a per glass price of $13 is more than reasonable.

Michele Chiarlo Barbera d'Asti Le Orme, 2007

Barbera is often a good wine to order by the bottle in a restaurant because it goes so well with so many different entrees. At Graham's Grille, an excellent restaurant on the plaza in Taos, NM, Donna ordered a lamb burger and I had pan fried trout. We were both more than pleased with this $30 bottle of Barbera d'Asti.

The wine is a deep, dark, bluish color as it's poured, and there are intense aromas of black and red fruit that give the impression of a big, tannic wine, more suited to lamb than fish. On the palate, the wine has a zippy acidity to counter the sweetish, blackberry/black currant flavors, and it's a delightful match for the trout. I suspect this wine will gain complexity with aging, but it's charm right now is its straightforward approach to the dinner table.