A semi-sweet farewell to summer

Have you caved in to your first fire of the season yet? I did -- a week ago Sunday. I woke to find freezing temperatures on the covered deck. I hopped onto weather.com to learn that Monday morning would bring 27 whopping degrees our way. With a garage full of chopped wood (my well-deserved and much-appreciated compensation for the ten-day critter sitting stint), I thought "whattheheck?" Of course, by 4:00pm I was opening windows and sliding glass doors, but that's par for my course. That cats are again snoozing on my legs and have stopped waking me at 5:00am, sleeping in till 6:30, God bless them all. Winter approaches. Ugh.

This is my eleventh winter here and it wasn't until the ninth, 2004, that my inner California girl had finally gotten her belly full of the angelic fluffy white stuff. That winter pushed me over the sanity ledge that I teeter upon so precariously. It was like living in freakin' Fresno, for all the gloom and unrelenting gray gunk of doom. We were "blessed" with the most snow since 1996, my first winter here. At least it felt that way. I vowed that I would not still be here last winter, yet here I sat. But it was mercifully dry and sunny, for the most part, and the shortest winter I can recall. And now the time of dread is upon me again, and here I still sit. I'm lazy and listless, fearful and anxious a lot lately; attributes which pair poorly with snow and ice. I tire of shoveling, I resent paying for plowing, and I tremble and shake when I have to drive. I don't ski. Or board. Or shoe.

The thing that will probably cheer and fortify me more than anything else this winter is having a semi-legitimate excuse to drink a lot of new red wines. I'm always making lemonade -- or grapeade. Like a prisoner requesting a last meal, I've been on a bit of a white wine binge recently. I know that I'll lose my taste for their refreshing ways -- their slightly sweet flavors and zippy acids -- once it gets cold and stays cold. Here are four very good choices that I've tried in recent weeks:

Kendall-Jackson Riesling 2005 ($11) The very quiet nose belies the super-tart apricot flavors that burst upon the palate. Lemon rind, orange peel and amazing acids keep the stone fruit sweetness from getting sickly. A bit steely/minerally on the aftertaste. The wine has a fantastic structure and by that I mean it stands up in the mouth. Some wines race through; some limp. The sensation is of the wine rushing up against the roof of the mouth and filling the whole cavity with its flavors. Buoyant and alive! With all that character and structure this would be a great food pairing wine and a perfect (warm autumn?) afternoon aperitif. Great value.

Fetzer Gewürztraminer 2005 ($10.50) You're always told to look for notes of honeysuckle, jasmine and rose petals in this grape, but I am not one to find flowers growing in my wine. However, "floral" was the first word that popped into my mind as I sniffed my glass and sipped. And then came honey. Honeysuckle! Very lightly spiced and not so sweet as to border on syrup. Beautifully balanced. On day two it was all white peach and fresh apricot with a tangerine kicker. Serve this one in a wineglass that lives in the freezer when empty. Like the K-J Riesling, this is a
no-brainer choice to keep in stock for all the winter holidays and festivities. Guzzle with turkey and ham.

Alpha Domus Unoaked Chardonnay 2005 ($12) Because I was on a New Zealand kick and felt as if I'd picked on chardonnay in print enough for one summer, I decided to take a chance on this unoaked offering from the Hawkes Bay region. I honestly couldn't remember the last chardonnay I'd tasted. A quietly intriguing, musty, dusty nose is there, yet it was oddly comforting. There was something ancestral and nostalgic about the aromas: the back of grandma's closet? The corner of grandpa's woodshed? The flavors were hard to tease out although I did say aloud upon the second sip: "mmmmmm -- that's lovely" so I obviously found something to like. The fruit flavors are soft tropicals, especially pineapple. There is a hint of light lemon with pleasing front-of-the mouth acid and a mineral aftertaste which comes across as salty. Don't overchill this one as you'll kill off the subtleties.

Spinyback Nelson Sauvignon Blanc 2005 ($10) This New Zealand offering was recommended by a store owner as a personal favorite. I always pay attention to recommendations from people who work in the industry but I did issue my paranoid disclaimer to him that I had to be careful about New Zealand sauvignon blancs because all that greenery in the glass disturbs me. As further inducement he mentioned that a tiny portion of my purchase would benefit the native lizard. I told him I suffered from lifelong reptile phobia and put the bottle with the off-putting iguana-like creature back on the rack. But the shelf talker promised me it would be balanced and not too grassy or slimey and I was suddenly feeling unbearably neurotic and rigid, so I bought it. And in the end I was glad.

This is a very interesting wine for under $10 and even though it's not a style that I normally prefer, I can certainly appreciate it for what it is. But you gotta know the nose terrified me: total jalapeno, green bell pepper and hay. Uh oh. The dominant flavors were all grassy and pink grapefruit with a vibrant lemon finish. Uh oh again. But wait -- the great body, lovely texture, and very firm acid backbone started to seduce me. The wine was getting under my scaly skin. It grew on me with each glass and was still very interesting the next day with the grapefruit flavors dominating. This is a beautiful wine and is highly recommended for people who look for the citrus, herb and vegetative components in a sauvignon blanc. I ended up enjoying it so much that I plan to grab a few more bottles in hopes that we have an extraordinarily dry and sunny winter ahead of us.

But as I finish this column today, the house is so cold and damp I am readying my second fire of the season. Blanco Basin residents woke to an inch of snow on the ground, and all the cats elected to stay in the house, under covers or quilts, when I left for work this morning. Winter has preceeded autumn this year. There's no denying it. I need to accept it. I also need to run out now and grab some mood elevating, body temperature raising, red wine.