She Took a Hard Fall, There.

"Oh no, oh dear."

The notion of crushing grapes en pied just lost a little of its razzle-dazzle. I winced at the khaki shorts and I cringed when the woman fell, but it was the slow-mo instant replay that really sealed the deal.

Cristom 2005 Estate Pinot Gris, Willamette Valley

I just finished reading Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting. It made me painfully thirsty for wine from California and Oregon.

So yesterday I hit Red Feet and picked up two bottles from CA -- which I'll open and talk about later -- and Cristom's 2005 Estate Pinot Gris.

Cristom took root in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The estate is owned by Paul and Eileen Gerrie. In the early '90s the Gerries tapped Steve Doerner, who studied at UC Davis, to make their wine. Wine Geeks says Doerner is big on Pinot Noir.

Cristom produces 8,500 cases per year from 65 acres of vineyard. Growths include Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Syrah, Viognier and Chardonnay.

Estate Pinot Gris hails from a special vineyard called Emilia. Emilia was planted in '93 with two different clones as well as two different rootstocks. Grapes are fermented in stainless steel tanks. The winemaker says a glassful brings a plate of Hama Hama oysters to mind.

I uncorked the bottle last night. It's easy on the eye: pale yellow, like hay, with a friendly sparkle. A glass of Goldilocks hair! The cork is made of rubber -- an embarrassing relief considering I broke the Vacqueyras one last time.

Then there was the smell! I got fuzzy peaches, hard green grapes and newborn clover. Nothing overpowering; the notes remained just long enough to welcome you home. This is a bottle I'd like to have in Monterey by the seaside.

The taste drew me to the day my best friend and I tried making butter beer, way back when we first started reading Harry Potter.

The butter beer experiment failed, but if we had been successful, this is how it might have tasted: dry and buttery with notes of vanilla and cream, tempered by a longing for the sea.

It's also light on the alcohol, an aid to well-being without stripping you to your coarser nature.

Cristom's Estate 2005 Pinot Gris is a lively bottle that would easily charm a San Francisco meal at the pier. Think fresh bread, newly-caught fish, sharp salty wind, cold stones, colorful parkas and familiar faces.

I miss the West Coast.

Update: We finished the wine this evening. On day 2, the Cristom Estate 2005 Pinot Gris is less buttery and more wild-grassy. Also, Benj used some of it as a base with egg and flour to coat chicken. Sides included organic spinach, oyster mushrooms and rigatoni. It was a feel-good meal; no aggressive flavours. Yum!

Domaine le Sang des Cailloux Vacqueyras, Cuvée Floureto, 2004

I was excited about opening this bottle because I thought it was pretty. What can I say? I go for pretty.

Produced and bottled at the Domaine le Sang des Cailloux ("the blood of stones"), the Vacqueyras is 75 percent Grenache, 20 percent Syrah, five percent Mourvedre and Cinsault grapes aged in foudre, says Hudson Wine Merchants.

The color is a generous royal purple -- almost black -- and the nose is disarming, loaded with Mediterranean olive and pickled fruit, maybe plum, as well as black licorice (my least favourite jelly bean).

The 14 percent alcohol will go straight to your head without waiting for permission, so sip the wine slowly. I got more of that pickled fruit taste, but overall I found Vacqueyras regal and withholding. Its cards are kept close to the vest; if I'd known, I would have waited.

The keys on its bottle are quite apt.

We had the bottle with spiced pork, rosemary-seasoned rice and asparagus in olive oil and lemon powder. The variety of flavor complemented the olive aspect well, but I was feeling heady -- and a little cheated -- before I even finished my glass. Vacqueyras takes without giving back.

La Percée du Vin Jaune

It would be neat to visit Arbois and catch this sometime. The NY Times has me thinking it's the wine geek's response to mardi gras.

Little cups dangling from neck chains?

Jura, France -- where La Percée du Vin Jaune takes place -- is a wee (1800 hectare) place of clay and limestone that produces three grapes unheard-of anywhere else: Savagnin, Poulsard and Trousseau.

More importantly (at least for the tourism department), Jura is the home of yellow wine. Yellow wine is aged in oak for six years and three months. It keeps 50 to 100 years, says Wikipedia, and the NY Times goes on to describe it as a love/hate kind of drink upon first sip.

Can't wait.

Le Gœuil Côtes du Rhône Villages Cairanne, 2005

The Domaine Le Gœuil 2005 Cairanne (Cuvée Lea Felsch) is a grenache-based red at 14 percent alcohol.

The women at Red Feet were excited about it because it's fun to drink and was also produced by Catherine Le Gœuil, who's -- surprise-surprise -- a woman.

In Adventures on the Wine Route, Kermit Lynch (who imported this bottle) speculates wine doesn't just take on the qualities of its terrain. It also inherits characteristics from the winemaker.

I can believe this about Le Gœuil's Cairanne; it can't have been made with a heavy hand.

We opened the bottle last night. First inhale is an explosion of ripe red, sweet fruit: strawberries and candy, maybe even grenadine. Deeper inhale betrays a yielding, saccharine quality with a faint alcohol sting.

Cairanne is the color of Welch's grape juice with candy red highlights. She's playful. The taste is young and fleeting, coating the tongue for almost too little time.

It reminds me of being a kid, sometime close to summer when the sun's kiss is still so light it hardly disturbs the dew on your face.

I think it's best had with beautiful things that don't weigh heavy: a bouquet of flowers, fruit and yogurt, maybe quail with baby spinach.

I'd like to buy another one of these and age it awhile. It's a delight as-is, but that very quality makes me suspect an equally compelling maturity.

Paul Jaboulet Aîné Côte Rôtie Les Jumelles, 1997

According to the Jaboulet website, the Syrah composing Les Jumelles hails from vines aged between 15 and 40 years. The wine is left to its own devices for 12 months in oak barrels, about 20 percent of which are new wood.

That probably explains the smokiness. To the credit of the growers, this seems to add to, rather than subtract from, the personality of the final product.

We had this bottle during Christmas dinner and I have never seen or tasted anything like it. (Then again, I am new to this.)

The nose is met with a sharp smell that brings Mediterranean olives to mind. The wine itself gives off a dull gleam, like dusty rubies.

It tastes distinctly like I would imagine roasted earth to taste -- smoky and sweet, like smoked holiday ham (crowned with a pineapple, like the ones Mom would get from Goldilocks and claim she cooked herself).

It paired well with the home-made chicken pie and young boiled carrots -- indeed, Côte Rôtie Les Jumelles seemed to add a garnet luster to the sweetness of the carrots and the creamy heartiness of the pie.

True to form, the wine left bits of sediment at the bottom of the glass, adding to its earthy feel.

I've heard it said that wine represents a kind of communion between man and the soil he tills, but before this particular bottle I've not felt so close to the land from which these grapes were gleaned.

Domaine de Durban Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, 2005

I will raise my hand before talking, do the dishes when it's not my turn, and skip dessert in exchange for a good Muscat. And if you aspire to make me the happiest person alive, at least for the evening, I don't think you can do any better than Domaine de Durban's Muscat de Beaumes de Venise.

The color of pale gold, this honey-and-rose-scented pleasure tastes like the first bite of a fresh chilled Fuji apple. A slightly substantial, honeyed sweetness lingers thereafter.

You hardly feel the 15 percent alcohol -- there is no wine shudder -- and, according to the site, the vineyards for the 2005 batch are 25 years old.

The grapes are pure Muscat à Petits Grains. Berry Bros. & Rudd says Muscat Blancs à Petits Grains are the most noble variety of the Muscat family and cites Muscat de Beaumes du Venise among the best vin doux naturels in France.

Sans doute!

Unless you have company by, I don't recommend buying a bottle for home. Once chilled and opened, this is best had quickly and in sparing portions. It's hardly something you want to have on hand all the time; that would be like Santa coming twice a week. Horrors!