The cork on this Barrelstone 2007 Columbia Valley Syrah was extremely dry, and on opening, the wine was slightly vinegary in aroma. After we let the wine breathe for a bit (about twenty minutes) we tried a glass. The first glass was still a bit like vinegar on the nose, with an incredibly deep crimson color. It was recognizably Syrah, but there was an interesting toasted grain undertone as well as the usual noticeable fruit quality; this time, mostly blackberry. It wasn't bad, by any means, but it was a bit uninspired, not as rounded and complex as I'd expect a Syrah to be. It improved quite a lot in flavor an hour and a half later; more cherry than blackberry, and the toasted grain quality was more like semi-sweet chocolate. It was much more like Washington Syrah, but it's sort of . . . unremarkable. It's not that different from any other Washington Syrah; there's just not much personality.

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Precept Wine Brands is relatively young, as corporations go. It was formed in 2002 in Seattle by Andrew Browne. Browne was a wine veteran, having previously been the President and CEO of Corus, producer of Alice White, Covey Run, Columbia Winery and Ste. Chapelle, until Corus was acquired by Constellation Brands. Browne convinced his former Corus colleague, Dan Baty, to join him as a founding partner of Precept. Precepts' business model initially was to be a negociant, purchasing wine from other wineries and rebottling it under various brand names and labels. The current Washington sourced labels include Avery Lane, Barrelstone, Big Sky, Grizz, Pine and Post, Pavin and Riley, Washington Hills, Sol Duc, and Sweet Pea.

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I like Gewürtztraminer, and, as I've noted, Washington state has some rather fine and rather affordable Gewürtztraminer. I thought it might be fun to directly compare two of them. Both these wines are in the bargain and budget categories; the Washington Hills was a find at the local Bargain Grocery Store for $3.99, and the Columbia Crest Two Vines Gew¨rtztraminer was a Rite Aid purchase for $4.99; it's been $4.99 for months, and we've been very diligent about doing our part towards stock reduction. Both these wines use grapes from Washington's Columbia Valley, and both list for between $8.00 and $10.00 a bottle. Comparing them, then, seems almost obligatory.

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Every year for the last eleven years Food and Wine Magazine has selected a Winemaker of the Year. This is an extremely prestigious award, and it marks the winemaker in question as creating some of the very best wines North America offers. This year, for the first time ever, Food and Wine Magazine has selected a Washington winemaker their Winemaker of the Year. Charles Smith is a relative newcomer to the Washington wine scene, but he's already made his mark in terms of Washington wine that's unabashedly characteristic of the state.

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We picked this up sagebrushon a whim at the local bargain grocery store. It's a very new vintage, from a winery I've never heard of; the bottle says "Sagebrush Vineyards, Pasco Washington." I can't find out anything at all about this wine, or the winery. There was a hand-written sign on the shelf under the bottles that said it was from Gordon Brothers Winery. I have no idea on what basis, but I note that the Gordon Brothers do make a rather well respected Sauvignon Blanc. The Sagebrush was a surprisingly sweet—almost dessert-wine sweet wine, but it was light, with a distinct aroma of roasted peaches, and just very slightly citrusy. It was quite enjoyable, to my surprise; it was the "youngest" bottle of professionally made wine I've ever had. Frankly, I half-way expected it to be pretty bad.

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This is another bargain grocery store wine. It's also a bit of a mystery; except for the winemaker's own Website, this is, apparently, a nonexistent wine. The 2005 Rose is easy to find, as are a number of positive reviews; the 2006? Not so much. That's a little surprising; the Gordon Brothers and their winery are extremely well-respected.; I had their Kamiak wines in Los Angeles, where they were presented at a catered dinner for a "cause" and selected by the host as premium domestic wines. I remember him telling me conspiratorially (I was staff, not an attendee) that he totally scored on the purchase, and had even bought two cases for himself.

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I will admit to some disappointment. I was hoping not only for some good prices, WA wine mapbut most especially, for some wines from the smaller wineries. There are lower prices, and yes, the lower prices do qualify for a case discount, and I do appreciate that. But even the "special wines" available for the month are from the larger and very well distributed wineries like Avery, Kiona, Washington Hills, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Crest, and Hogue.

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Barnard Griffin 2007 Fume Blanc Columbia Valley

The text under the name on the label describes as "dry sauvignon blanc." That's quite accurate. The first thing I noticed about the wine was the incredibly fragrant and complex aroma. It is slightly floral, with a hint of citrus. The taste is delicate without being watery or weak. I noticed the citrus again, but also, something else that's elusive and lovely—that's a bit like the mineral quality of artesian well water—I suppose this may be the "mineral" quality that people who know what they're doing write about.

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The Barnard Griffin Winery is one that a friend who works in the U. C. Davis botany department told me to be sure to look out for, when I first came to Washington. He said enthusiastic things about the wine, and about the winemaker, Rob Griffin, whom he described as being "innovative within the tradition." The Barnard Griffin Winery was founded in 1983 by Rob Griffin and Deborah Barnard. Griffin, who has a degree from U. C. Davis, has been working in the Washington wine industry since the mid seventies, first at Preston, and then at Hogue Cellars. His own winery is right smack in the heart of Washington wine country in the south-central region of the state, where the Yakima, Columbia and Snake rivers meet. Barnard and Griffin started producing their own wines in 1983, with their first efforts focusing on Chardonnay, Fumé Blanc, and Riesling.

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I will confess that until very recently, the only things I knew about Sauvignon Blanc were that it Sauvignon Blancwas one of the parent grapes of Cabernet Sauvignon, that it was a green-skinned white wine grape, and that it was a frequent ingredient of several of the Washington white blends I've tried and enjoyed. The name Sauvignon or "savage" refers to the grape's ancestry as "wild" stock; it's a native, so to speak, of western France's Loire valley and Bordeaux areas. It is, as far as we can tell, an indigenous grape that spontaneously appeared in southwestern France before the middle ages. Sauvignon blanc has since been carefully cultivated just about everywhere wine grapes are grown.

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