WTN: And I'm getting old.

Continuing our rediscovery of California, we opened late this week and this weekend one old and one new favorite:

Edmunds St. John 2014 El Dorado County White Table Wine, "Heart of Gold," 62% Vermentino, 38% Grenache Blanc, 11.38% ABV, $24. I think this is a wine that Steve started making during our hiatus from serious wine-buyin' and wine-learnin', which means this is the first vintage of it we've had -- and that's a shame. We like Vermentino a lot, which in its various expressions always seems beautifully suspended somewhere between the sea air and the richness of whatever bit of seafood has just been delivered to you on a plate. This version is light and crisp but still complex: lemon-blossomy and saline and even showing a hint of tropical fruit around the edges. I'd easily mistake it for Italian, and for some reason it reminds me a little of the Bisson Bianchetta Genovese we had recently, notwithstanding the different grapes involved -- but maybe that's just me tasting through my gauzy associations of Liguria with San Francisco (a lot of the early Italian immigrants in San Francisco hailed from Genoa). Ah, what the hell, let's go full gauze: this is the wine I'd like to drink with a Ligurian Bakery focaccia sandwich at a sidewalk table at Mario's in North Beach, maybe even in distant earshot of the sea lions.

Matthiasson 2014 Napa Valley White Wine, 50% Sauvignon Blanc, 25% Ribolla Gialla, 20% Sémillon, 5% Tocai Friulano, 12.7% ABV, $40. Given our efforts to take a long-distance tour through the ranks of interesting newer California labels, I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of Matthiasson wines turn up at our local "beverage superstore." This is the first of theirs we've tried, and while the price tag as well as the unusual mash-up of grapes raised an eyebrow, I have to say that we fell hard for this wine. We didn't sit around thinking about descriptors for it or analyzing it, but what struck me the most about it was its energy and its length: somehow, the tension between the properties of the different components here made the wine seem remarkably lively, and all that potential energy unrolled in the mouth as if it were telling you a complex story with some plot twists (just when you think you're drinking a Sauvignon Blanc, some other grape nudges the narrative onto a different path...). I figured this might be a one-off, but we're going back for more.

I got the Neal Young association but not the "Heart of Gold". Nice notes. Wish I could find these in central Ohio.

[David M. Bueker]

Nice notes Patchen.

I am no fan of Sauvignon Blah-nc, but I fell hard for the Matthiasson White Wine. I have now had 3 vintages and loved it every time. To my taste it is the very best of the kitchen sink white wine blends coming out of the new California wineries, easily besting similar efforts from Bedrock, Arnot-Roberts, etc..

Not a fan of Sauvignon Blanc? I hadn't noticed that about you, and it's interesting, since our palates seem to be pretty well aligned in other ways. But does the "blah" in "blah-nc" imply that you find it tasteless or uninteresting? My feeling is it's more likely to be over- than under-whelming: too tart, too green, too tropical, etc. But I do enjoy well-made examples, and generally have a few around. In certain culinary contexts it seems like just the thing. (It's also something I often order when faced with mediocre by-the-glass options, especially at receptions or hotel bars, where the reds are certain to be too warm AND too alcoholic, and the Chard is likely to be butterscotch.)