WINE & SPIRITS

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Veering south into California's Napa Valley I reacquainted myself this year with the huge, and celebrated producer, Beringer. The Beringer brothers had their first crush back in 1876 and have the distinction of being the region's oldest continuously operated winery. I've been enjoying sauvignon blancs and chardonnays from their well-priced Third Century line. Talented winemaker Mary Sullivan makes these well-crafted wines.

Other Summer Gems
Edna Valley Vineyards, in San Luis Obispo along California's Central Coast, is blessed with cool marine air allowing its Paragon vineyard the longest growing season in the state. This means long hang-time, which brings out more ripe complexity in the grapes. I met with winemaker Harry Hansen at Edna Valley, set five miles from the Pacific Ocean and considered one of the premier wineries of the Central Coast. Hansen is renowned for his crisp well-balanced chardonnay, which is aromatic with spice, pineapple and smoke and features notes of white peach and citrus. Try it as a summer barbecue aperitif.

The New York Times recently named Bearboat the best value in Russian River pinot noir—California's leading pinot noir region. This fabulous nuanced pinot is more Burgundian in style than most of its big-fruit-and-oak California competitors. Winemaker Raphael Brisbois is sometimes called the "grape whisperer." His pinot will match well with just about anything you're serving outdoors this summer.

The last stop on our jet-set wine tour takes us back to Long Island where Bedell has just released a masterful new Bordeaux blend. Their new Musée features a label by Chuck Close—an exquisite daguerreotype of a cluster of glistening red-black grapes on a mystical blue background. But it's what's inside the bottle that counts. The merlot-heavy blend is big and juicy with flavors of black plum, pomegranate and blackberries with hints of cassis, mocha and spice. The bottle is the latest in Bedell's artist series of wines.

Buy one bottle to collect and one bottle to drink.