A. Margaine non-vintage Brut Premeir Cru Champagne

Medium-pale straw color, long-lasting streams of very small vigorous bubbles.

Very restrained smell, apple and orange as it warms.

Green apple taste, orange, buttered toast if you go looking for it.

Very good bottle for $43.20, idiosyncratic in a good way, does your champagne land butter-side up or down?

Vincent Girardin 2006 Bourgogne Chardonnay Cuvee Saint-Vincent

Brassy golden color.

Apple and tropical fruit smells, oak in the back.

Flavors primarily of apple, with hints of ripe peach, of papaya, and of milk. Oak hovers.

Very good bottle for $23.99, clearly a high percent (but not, I suspect, 100%) of this has been through malolactic fermentation but it retains the chardonnay character without the taste being softened to mush by the process.

While this wine lacks over-oaky flavor, it does make me reconsider my low opinion of malo chard and I can appreciate what oak there is.

Coopers Creek 2007 Gisborne Viognier

Pale greenish straw color.

Peach and flowers smell.

Apricot and peach fruit, dry, petillant,

Very good bottle for $17.99, worked well with a sandwich of leftover turkey on a roll.

Robert Oatley 2008 Rosé of Sangiovese

Orange-pink, perhaps a bit darker than most rosés.

Strawberry, grapefruit, cranberry, floral smells.

Dry strawberry, blackberry, lemon flavors, some petillance on the tongue.

Very good bottle for $15.99, a bit more body then the typical rosé. A rewarding taste of summer, even in the winter.

Update: I held off on posting this until I opened another bottle to accompany a roast turkey Thanksgiving dinner, which was a quite successful match!

Schramsberg 2005 North Coast Brut Blanc de Blancs

Cork a little reluctant to leave the bottle, took a lot of twisting of the champagne star! I shall buy a champagne key and see if that works better.

Very pale straw color, greenish tint, vigorous long-lasting cloud of tiny bubbles.

Some stink on opening (like the ghost of Nixon) that blows off almost immediately (again like the ghost of Nixon) with the bottle's initial exhalation. Thereafter apples, melons, sugar-cane, grapefruit and river-washed stones.

Tastes of apple, mouth-puckering lemon, toasted Arnold's white.

Very good bottle for $14.73 / 375ml, a reminder that Champagne isn't the only area that can make very good fizz.

PS: Champagne key FTW!!1!

Kreinbacher Birtok 2006 Somlo Old Vines Cuvee - Oreg Tokek

The cuvee consists of 60% Olaszrizling, 20% Harslevelu, and 20% Furmint.

I continue my exploration of Hungarian wine, the unexplored country.

Pale straw color.

Fresh clean citrus smell, ripe apple.

Dry melon flavor, saline texture, hints of grapefruit, light-to-medium-bodied, tart, slight bitterness at the end, which also seems warm. Admirable intensity.

Olaszrizling is grown in many places, though not as many as it used to be, but only in Hungary, I think, is it generally accepted as a source of fine wine.

Fine bottle for $22.87, I feel justified in learning more about Hungarian wine, which is so little known here.

Disznoko 2006 Tokaji Dry Furmint

Rich straw color, petillance forms on the glass..

Smell of melon and granny smith apple.

Rather thin-tasting green apple flavor, lacks concentration, good acid. I think I detect aging on the lees, but no oak.

OK light-bodied wine for $16.80, I'm not eager to buy this again, but I would compare it to Muscadet, which I do like quite a bit. Maybe this needs a simple seafood dish. I considered this as an accompaniment for Thanksgiving dinner, but rejected that possibility on the first taste.