While we try to at least give lip service to “discriminating” drinking around here, this list of essential boozehound exploits is if nothing else lots of fun to read.

Perhaps the toughest:

Case In A Day - 24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I prefer to think not. You need to sit down with a couple of friends and a couple of cases and power through the day and the case. People that have never done this think it’s easy and the people that have, know it’s not. Added Difficulty: Keep a hand written journal of what you are doing each time you crack a beer. Bonus Points: If anything is legible after beer 17.

Never a huge fan of Pinot Grigio, I’ve found Graffigna’s new release quite compelling as the varietal goes. Here’s a crisp and brisk wine, very citrusy (especially lemon, maybe some lime), with a bracing acidity. There’s Pinot Grigio’s telltale “meat” flavor in the finish, but, and it feels weird to type this, it works well with the citrus. The name may mislead you a bit. Graffigna isn’t from Italy but from another hemisphere altogether: Argentina. Who’d a thunk?

Most Pinot Grigio is thin and harsh, cheaply made in enormous quantities and exported for an American audience that probably now appreciates anything but Chardonnay. Check out this PG from south of the border if you can find it. While I can’t speak to how many cases Graffigna makes in a year, I can say that this is a light white wine that’s something different than you might be used to in what has become a pretty boring varietal. And the price is certainly right.

Oh… for what it’s worth, the company sent along this white Sangria recipe using this wine. I think it’s great on its own, but it could indeed make for a fine Sangria. If you try it let me know how it goes!

Sangria Blanca

1 bottle of Graffigna Pinot Grigio
1/4 cup triple sec
1/2 cup of sugar
1 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice
2 oranges cubed
2 apples cubed
6 cinnamon sticks
crushed ice
mint leaves
1 can sparkling water

Pour the bottle of Graffigna Pinot Grigio and triple sec into a ceramic pitcher. Stir in the sugar and juice. Add fruit and cinnamon sticks and stir again. Chill over night.

Add the soda, ice cubes and fresh mint leaves the next day 15 minutes prior to serving.

A- / $13 / graffignawines.com

Want free wine? Enter the sweepstakes from Fleming’s restaurant, part of a promotion it’s running to celebrate a new by-the-glass wine list of 100 bottles. One lucky winner gets 100 bottles of wine and a wine fridge to put it all in.

Enter online before July 30. Winner selected July 31. You must be 21 or over and no, I have no idea how they’ll get the wine to you if you win.

The good folks at Gallo Family Vineyards (see prior review here) were kind enough to send along a four-pack of mini-bottles of Twin Valley Chardonnay, a non-vintage white that’s as close to a “picnic wine” as you’re likely to find.

Like “summer wine,” the “picnic wine” term comes loaded with baggage. It implies an easy-drinking, unchallenging wine that will go with ham sandwiches, fried chicken, potato salad, or whatever else you’ve got in the pic-a-nick basket. Twin Valley doesn’t really disappoint on this front. It’s a very simple and easy to drink wine, made even simpler by the pint-sized presentation and lack of a cork. The flavor is reminiscent of grape, apple, and some peach/apricot notes, but it honestly doesn’t taste much different than any very young, lightly oaked Chardonnay you’ve ever had. If you want nuance, try elsewhere.

If you’ve got a big picnic ahead, the wine’s also available in standard 750ml bottles (you can find it for 5 bucks) and 1.5 liter big ‘uns (you can find it for 6), too. But there’s just something satisfying about dumping the entire contents of a bottle of wine into a glass and downing it in one sitting. Take it from me: That’s hard to do with a regular bottle.

B- / $6 for four 187ml bottles / ejgtwinvalley.com

Italian sparkling wine gets little love, and is often hard to find in the U.S., so it was a real treat to get to try a dozen or so Proseccos at a recent event in San Francisco, offering that rare chance to taste numerous producers and varieties side by side.

First, a little primer: Prosecco comes from the Veneto region of Italy (predominantly the Conegliano-Valdobbiadene sub-region named for the two towns it lies between; all the wines at the event were from this sub-region), right outside of Venice, to the northwest. Hundreds of producers work about 50,000 acres of land separated into 15 communes. About 12,000 acres of land are planted with vines.

Prosecco is made primarily from the Prosecco grape, but up to 15 percent of the wine may, by law, be something else: Verdiso, Perera, and Bianchetta varietals. Since the grape structure is about the same from bottle to bottle, the real difference can be found in the level of sugar remaining in the bottle. Alas, this can be as confusing as pronouncing Valdobbiadene. As with Champagne, descriptors are used to explain the sugar level in the bottle. With Prosecco, two main types exist: Brut and Extra Dry. Brut is limited to 15 grams of sugar per liter and is generally considered the driest (least sweet) type. But Extra Dry can have anywhere from 12 to 20 grams of sugar per liter, so while it’s paradoxically considered less dry than Brut, in reality it can have even less sugar. Confused? Don’t worry: With Prosecco you’ll often find that Brut and Extra Dry are pretty meaningless since either one can end up being drier, and that bottles taste pretty similar within a brand.

In fact, there was a surprising consistency in the Proseccos I tried, even across brands and types; with most wines showing that light fizziness that I really enjoy in Prosecco (Champagne can often feel like drinking CO2 foam), with light fruit flavors that taste really refreshing. I dare say I didn’t have a bad glass of wine at all yesterday, and that’s good news if you want to try a Prosecco but find there’s only one brand on the shelf at the store.

Favorites were found, of course. At the top of the list I have to put Bisol’s “Cartizze” bottling, named for the Cartizze hill where the grapes are grown and one of the few specific-place-labeled Proseccos you’ll find. It’s blended from multiple lots of Prosecco, giving it an intriguing complexity and subtle sweetness that would go well with dessert or on its own. (The company’s PR rep called it “breakfast wine,” quoting a line from Decanter’s Steven Spurrier that though Prosecco is good all day, at least one glass should be consumed before noon.) Bisol’s less-expensive “Crede” bottle was also very good, and quite a bit richer.

In general I found myself favoring Brut bottles over Extra Dry, with both Col Vetoraz and Le Contesse offering Bruts that packed strong apple flavor. Neither could be described as overly complex, but both were just the thing for drinking on the porch as the sun goes down, just before a big fat Barolo ruins your palate.

As a side note, one of the draws of this event was the promise of interesting and unusual food pairings, courtesy of Greens Restaurant, where the event was held. Alas, in an hour I saw appetizers only twice, as they were snarfed up immediately by hungry restaurateurs camped out by the kitchen. Bummer.

Prosecco Tasting Report

NV Bisol Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Brut “Crede” - A-
NV Bisol Prosecco Valdobbiadene Spumanteante Superiore di Cartizze Dry - A
NV Borgoluce Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Brut - B
NV Cantina Colli del Soligo Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Brut - B
NV Cantina Colli del Soligo Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Extra Dry - B-
NV Col Vetoraz Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Brut - A-
2007 Col Vetoraz Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Extra Dry Millesimato - B+
NV Col Vetoraz Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Dry Millesimato - B
NV Col Vetoraz Prosecco Valdobbiadene Spumante Superiore di Cartizze Dry - B
NV Le Contesse Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Brut - A-
NV Le Contesse Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Extra Dry - B+
NV Terre di San Venanzio Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Brut - B
NV Terre di San Venanzio Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Extra Dry - B
2007 Zardetto Prosecco di Conegliano Valdobbiadene Spumante Dry - B+

Sake continues its slow but inexorable push into American cocktails and bottles, this time with Gekkeikan’s Zipang Sparkling Sake beverage.

Like saké2me, Zipang is a single-serve bottle (though larger, at 250ml). Unlike saké2me though, Zipang isn’t flavored, it’s literally just sake given a light carbonation.

If you like sake, you’ll really enjoy Zipang. Served nice and cold, it’s a crisp and lightly sweet drink with the flavor of decent enough sake. With a very heavy cantaloupe flavor, it would pair well with a first course or a salad. Heavier meals, of course, overpower the drink entirely.

At just 7 percent alcohol, drink all you want.

B+ / $6 per 250ml bottle / gekkeikan-sake.com

For those whose TVs remain off on Sunday afternoon, Luke Donald is a PGA golfer, and Luke Donald Collection is his new wine label. Produced in the Rutherford region of Napa Valley (and blended from grapes grown throughout Napa), the otherwise unnamed Luke Donald Collection red is a Bordeaux-style blend of 44% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot.

The taste of this dark, dark purple wine is exceptional, bursting with red fruit — cherries, raspberry — and just the barest hint of tannin to add depth. This is a very silky wine, ready for immediate drinking despite its relatively young age. It’s clearly a new world red — no hint of terroir in this one — but it’s a great example of what clever blending can do with a classic Claret set of grapes.

A / $40 / terlatowines.com

I doubt I’ll be dropping by Caduceus Cellars any time soon. The wine is made in northern Arizona, far away from the Wine Country as I know it. Fret not: Caduceus is not trying to make wine from local desert grapes: M.J. Keenan brings in hand-picked grapes from Ranchita Canyon Vineyard, in the well-regarded Paso Robles area in California. (Odd that Paso Robles isn’t mentioned on the label, only “California.”)

Naga (or more fully Nagual de la Naga) is modeled after Italian Brunello, a big blend of 53 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 47 percent Sangiovese. It’s a very silky wine, with a solid core of fruit — cherries, plum, some raisin — and laced with nutmeg and baking spice. Really an exceptional wine, not something I’d have expected to come from such an odd production arrangement (and, it must be said, the frontman for the band Tool, which is one of Keenan’s other endeavors).

70 bucks is awfully steep, but Caduceus may be worth it for those looking for a story they can spin for their guests as they drink your primo vino.

A- / $70 / caduceus.org

Uncomplicated and full of lush fruit, Sebeka makes for a perfect introduction to South African wine. What, you didn’t know they had wine in South Africa? They do, and it’s generally pretty good.

Sebeka’s Cape Blend is 60% Shiraz and 40% Pinotage, a grape bred in the ’20s  as a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault that has a characteristic smokiness to it. Here the spiciness of the Shiraz takes the forefront, though there’s plenty of that smoky character here to give Sebeka a really unique flavor, yet it’s so full of bright berry fruit that the smokiness isn’t overpowering, just a mild tobacco note that laces through an otherwise very straightforward quaff.

I did a double-take when I saw the price. List is $11. It’s available in my BevMo for a whopping $5.99. Grab a case immediately and tell your friends it cost $30 a bottle.

A- / $6 / sebekawines.com

I had my first — and only — bottle of Sean Thackrey’s wine on May 24, 2002, a bottle of the 1995 Orion (which the label professed not to know what grape varietal it was made of but which was likely Syrah), which I found in a mixed case lot at a Bonhams & Butterfield wine auction. My tasting notes read: “Fabulous plum and black cherry, no tannin, hint of spice and pepper, nuts, hazelnut, excellent balance. A perfect Syrah in every way. A+” If it is Syrah, that is.

Attempts to locate additional bottles of Orion have failed, though once in a while I see it at absurd prices on wine lists. (I paid 25 bucks, an equally absurd bargain.)

Now San Francisco Magazine is making it even harder for me. It’s gushing profile of Thackrey elevates his wine into the realm of the cult bottlings, but it provides some deep insight into the man, an idiosyncratic winemaker if ever there’s been one. The photos alone tell a fantastic story, which you should go read now if you’re a wine lover at all.

The good(?) news: Thackrey is looking to increase production, so perhaps I’ll get another shot at Orion before I die. Will the quality remain the same? Let’s hope for the best!