These days, beer knowledge is also common knowledge; “good” beer and just “plain” beer are fairly easy to differentiate. Good beer is more expensive and the cheap canned stuff will do when we need a lot of booze and have little money. The same does not go for wine, however. Some pretty incredible wines are actually being overlooked because of their affordable prices.

Finally some winemakers are noticing that there is a younger group of wine drinkers out here; a group with the same degree of taste, slightly less knowledge, and far less money than the wine aficionados’ of yesteryear. Just because I cannot elaborate on the tannins, pinpoint the exact acidity or tell you just how “oaky” your selection is does not mean I cannot tell a delicious glass of wine from a jug of Carlo Rossi. I know, we’ve all had the jugs, stayed fully stocked in college, but now I want something I can really enjoy, not just chug, or use for endless pitchers of Sangria. While I don’t need fifteen servings for ten dollars these days, I still can’t shell out $50 a bottle all the time.

I come from a long line of wine drinkers. My parents have three children, and following each of our births my father researched which grape that year had produced a wine worth aging. He saved each of these bottles for the next twenty-one years, and once we each came of legal drinking age, after the kegs were empty and the hangovers had passed, it was time to drink our wine with mom and dad. I heard my brother’s was pretty good. My sister, hers was corked. Mine was magnificent. I didn’t need to know much about wine to know that my bottle had aged with perfect grace. It was the first time I had ever sipped wine that truly danced on my tongue. The problem is I simply cannot wait another twenty-one years to experience that again.

Enter Yarra Valley, a region of Australia growing in popularity for producing some stellar wines, most notably Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. My favorite? My absolute, top of the list, number one choice is Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir. The wine experts will tell you that this wine is well balanced, goes great with food, and has strong hints of dark chocolate and ripe berries. All of this is true. It’s one of those wines that you want to let linger in your mouth a few moments before you swallow and let it really caress your tongue. I first tried Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir at Boa steak house in LA, paired of course with steak. I’d been perusing the menu for an affordable pinot noir and took a stab.

To my surprise the bottle had no cork, but a screw cap instead. Once reserved for low-end wine, the screw cap is making a comeback, and rightfully so. That corked bottle my sister drank on her twenty-first birthday could soon be a thing of the past. Technology now allows wine makers to preserve their wine more efficiently, not to mention the bottle fits in more refrigerator doors! I don’t know how many times I’ve tried cutting through a cork so I could stand a bottle up in the fridge. You can’t ever beat convenience. Check out this informative article on the whole thing.

So Innocent Bystander is not only delicious with meat, but I have paired it with just about everything. Dinner, dessert, nothing at all, Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir is the perfect companion. I know this because I buy it by the case. It makes the perfect gift, although I am always reluctant to give it away, and it’s worth having six bottles on-hand at all times. Have I mentioned that it retails for about $15.99 a bottle? Innocent Bystander will ship directly from the winery, but here in LA I’ve become quite the K&L Wines merchant. They’ll ship the case right to your door or you can go see them and pick it up yourself. They’re located in Hollywood.

While I hope you’ve been convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that you must pick this wine up for yourself, it also wouldn’t hurt to go check out K&L Wines and see what else they have to offer. While I usually avoid sales people in any and every store, I recommend letting them help you. They ask your budget, what you’re looking for, and they know what they’re talking about. During my last trip there I told the gentleman that I had no budget, just for kicks, and I ended up leaving with a $60 bottle of “special occasion” wine because he seemed so honestly smitten with it. He still recommended plenty of $10-$20 bottles that turned out to be lots of bang for their buck. If Innocent Bystander ever stops producing this perfect pinot noir, I may give up wine forever. Until then, this remains stalwart and steadfast at the top of my list.

KL Wines
1400 Vine Street
Hollywood, CA, 90028
(323) 464-WINE (9463)
(323) 836-0853 (Fax)

Photo by zappowbang 

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