Landmark Wines

Although Landmark Vineyards is an excellent Sonoma County producer of wine, I'm referring not to this esteemed purveyor of California Burgundies but rather to fine bottles of fermented liquid grapes that have changed how I look at wine.

Wine's always been a part of my life. My parents dragged my brother and me wine tasting all the time, but it pretty much all tasted like creeping death. Except for Manischewitz at Passover, which was awesome.

In the last few years I've encountered wines that have rapidly changed how I've come to understand what this vastly over-mystified, over-priced, and over-douchey product means and how it can be really fucking good.

2003 Txomin Etxaniz Getariako Txakolina. Light, crisp, slightly effervescent, and a minerally finish longer than Ron Jeremy's back hair.

2003 Michael Gay & Fils Savigny les Beaune 1er Cru"Les Serpentieres." Holy shit! There's dirt in this wine. It tastes like dirt! And not in a bad way! Awesome.

NV Bonnaire Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs. An independent champagne producer with a yeasty, bready, limey, zesty, and uber-complex glass of gold that tickled my tongue and other lame wine writing words.

2003 Wild Hog Carignane. Rich, juicy, ripe, and matched perfectly with pizza.

2002 Kuentz-Bas Tokay Pinot Gris. This was the first time I ever impressed a girl with a bottle of wine. It worked so well I bought a case. I ended up giving the rest away as Christmas presents. Because it's not worth spending money on broads, 'cause then all they want is your riches when the only thing they should be after is your jimmy. Word.

Charles Shaw Merlot. This wine fucking sucks. It made me realize that cheap wines suck and people who think they're "getting away with something" by pretending that shitty cheap wine is actually good are simply deluded assholes. It's shitty cheap wine. That's it. Enjoy it as such.

2005 Bonny Doon Pacific Rim Riesling. Now THIS is a cheap wine worth drinking. Dry, crisp, floral, and citrusy. Admittedly it's a whopping $8 a bottle at Trader Joe's, but it's like at least a million times better than Charles Shaw.