Here are the favorites from a recent tasting of $30-ish California Chardonnays. The trick in this category — at least, for me — is for the wine to offer richness balanced with some brightening acidity!

Cambria 2007 Chardonnay Santa Maria Valley Bench Break Vineyard ($25). Aromatic peach and pear flavors are laced with vanilla bean, toast, baking spices and a touch of citrus. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Carmel Road 2007 Chardonnay Arroyo Seco Clark Ranch ($35). Very nice — possibly the best of the tasting! — with smoky caramel aromas introducing pear, fig, hazelnut and sweet spices, finishing with a bracing, focused lemon zest note. Ready to drink now and over the next three or four years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

La Crema 2007 Chardonnay Los Carneros ($30). Starts slow and oak-driven, with muted fruit aromas and flavors, then builds to pretty pear and stone fruit, finishing with some tropical citrus touches and rich cream and spices. Could use a bit more time in the bottle. Best from 2010 to 2014. Locate this wine online or in your area.

La Crema 2007 Chardonnay Russian River Valley ($30). Offers an appealing brightness and clarity to the ripe pear and apple fruit that floats over the creamy, oaky base. Stays juicy and rich through the finish, picking up spice and creamy vanilla along the way. Ready to drink now and over the next 2-3 years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Sbragia Family Vineyards 2007 Chardonnay Dry Creek Home Ranch ($26). Lovely stuff, striking a nice balance between ripeness and elegance — with pretty pear and honeysuckle aromas and flavors playing against ripe tropical citrus and focused lemon zest, with spice and roasted nuts on the long finish. Ready to drink now and over the next 2-3 years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

ZD 2007 Chardonnay California ($34). The complexity here comes more from the fruit than the oak, with layers of pineapple, pear, apricot and lime zest, with understated floral and creamy vanilla notes on the moderate finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

If you’re looking for a red for the holiday weekend, here’s one that really delivers — it’s a lot of wine for the money!

Rosenblum Cellars 2007 Petite Sirah Contra Costa County Heritage Clones ($17). This is an easy wine to like — appealingly rich and slick, with dark blackberry, blueberry, licorice and chocolate aromas and flavors that pick up a spirited peppery kick on the finish. Pair with roasted and grilled meats. Ready to drink now and over the next couple of years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

I put together this riff on a Greek salad last weekend, and it just may be my “house” salad for the summer. The pinch of cumin in the lemony vinaigrette gives an earthy touch that compliments the baby spinach and seems to tie it all together. This salad works well alongside main courses like roasted chicken or grilled shrimp.

Recipe: Salad: Spinach, Cucumber & Feta Salad with Cumin Vinaigrette
Serves 6

Juice of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt & pepper
8 cups (about 8 ounces) prewashed baby spinach leaves
1 seedless (English) cucumber, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
6 ounces crumbed Greek Feta cheese

In a large serving bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil and cumin. Add a little salt and pepper, but go easy on the salt because the Feta is usually fairly salty! Add the spinach, cucumber slices and Feta and toss to combine. Check for seasoning and serve.

Pairing: Sauvignon Blanc is a good salad wine because the crisp acidity can stand up to the vinegar (or in this case, lemon juice) in most dressings. Here are a few to try:

Kunde 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley Magnolia Lane ($17). Refreshing and appealing, with juicy lime accents to smooth melon and guava, with a clean, lightly grassy finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Merryvale 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley Starmont ($18). Really pretty stuff here, with ripe, aromatic tropical melon laced with vibrant lemon, lime and juicy orange, with a touch of cream on the long, concentrated finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Rancho Arroyo Grande 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Monterey County Deep Sea ($18). Pungent (in a good way!) with mineral and grapefruit aromas and flavors, along with juicy orange and honeydew, and a long, crisp finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Sbragia Family Vineyards 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Dry Creek Home Ranch ($20). Ripe, boldly flavored, with tropical citrus, fleshy peach aromas and flavors that pick up touches of citrus zest and straw through the long, complex finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area. (2009-06-06)

St. Supery 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Napa Valley ($20). I just loved this wine — for its fresh, pretty lime and grapefruit aromas and flavors, as well for the complex floral/mineral/grass character that slowly emerges on the long finish. Ready to drink now and over the next couple of years. Locate this wine online or in your area. (2009-06-06)

Maybe it’s the heat wave where I am, but just the idea of Icewine makes me sigh longingly. This unique product of chilly winter is a perfect antidote to these hot summer days!

Icewine (or Eiswein as it’s famously known in Germany) is made from grapes that are literally frozen on the vine. In a nutshell, the frozen grapes are pressed quickly so that the water that has turned to ice crystals remain behind, and the juice that results has a higher concentration of sugar. Wines made this way can be deliciously pure, silky, concentrated and very long-lived.

Icewine is the most well-known specialty of the Canadian wine industry, and although the prices can be high (though not compared to Germany’s versions), so are the standards. Minimum harvest temperatures and sugar levels, minimum residual sugar levels (that’s the sugar content of the wine after fermentation is complete) and other winemaking standards are strictly controlled. Icewines must be varietal, meaning no blends, and made from either vinifera grapes (like Riesling) or the one hybrid grape allowed: Vidal.

In Icewine, Vidal, or Vidal Blanc, offers aromatic, silky orchard and stone fruit character, sometimes with a savory herbal accent. The acidity, and therefore the longevity, is not quite as high as Riesling, but the wines are still delicious. And often, Vidal Icewines are a bit less expensive than the Riesling versions.

For summer, I love a chilled glass of Icewine alongside a selection of perfectly ripe, unadorned summer fruit. Sweet berries, juicy plums, tropical melon — it all works. Here’s one Icewine I’ve tasted lately that I would definitely recommend:

Jackson-Triggs 2007 Vidal Niagara Peninsula Icewine Proprietors’ Reserve ($20, 187 ml). This one manages to be both rich and fresh, with musky melon, loads of apricot and a long, mouthwatering finish. Ready to drink now and over the next six to eight years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

These days, Chile seems to be the second home for many of the world’s wineries and winemakers. Everyone from John Duval to Paul Hobbs to Domaine Baron de Rothschild and Miguel Torres have their stakes in Chilean ground. As does Italy powerhouse Banfi, with Viñedos Emiliana.

The Emiliana estate includes 1500 acres of certified organic vineyards, and according to Banfi, it is the world’s single largest source of estate-bottled wines produced from sustainably farmed and organic grapes. Estate vineyards are located throughout much of wine-growing Chile, including the Casablanca, Maipo, Rapel, Cachapoal and Colchagua Valleys. (For those of you who are map-geeks like me, there’s a really useful one on the winery website!)

Emiliana offers several lines of wines, including these value-priced, certified organic Natura wines. At just $11 each, they are quite the bargain! Here are my notes:

Emiliana 2008 Sauvignon Blanc Casablanca Valley Natura ($11). Fresh, juicy and refreshing, with bright, aromatic lime character supported with crisp white peach, finishing with a light lemongrass note. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area. (2009-06-06)

Emiliana 2008 Carmenere Central Valley Natura ($11). Very nice for the price! With plum and blackberry character accented with toasty vanilla, sweet tobacco and light spices. Appealing, fruity finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Emiliana 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Central Valley Natura ($11). Ripe raspberry and blackberry aromas and flavors are accented with roasted nut and toasty vanilla notes, with a fruity, fresh finish. Ready to do drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

To learn more about Emiliana, visit http://www.emiliana.cl/.

I’ve got “winery” in quotes here, because I feel a bit silly calling this a winery spotlight when I’m not at all sure there’s an actual winery involved… Tangley Oaks is a brand owned by Terlato Wines International, that much I know. And I think it may well fit the category of a “virtual winery,” depending on how you define that term. My hunch is that there are no actual Tangley Oaks vineyards and that grapes are purchased from growers in various regions. Which is all fine – you can end up with perfectly good wine that way.

Referring to the Tangley Oaks website is not especially enlightening. General references to “our story” and “our team of winemakers” and “our vineyards” is what I found — with no specifics about actual names or sites. Not even a phone number.

Again, all that doesn’t preclude the possibility of good wine, and I can understand from a marketing perspective why they’d want to package it like a “real” winery. My only real cringe moment came when I read about their commitment to sustainable farming, when I’m not sure “they” are doing much farming at all. Some wineries really do work hard on sustainable farming, and I hate to see the term tossed about insincerely or for marketing filler…

(By the way, if I’m on the wrong track about all of this, then they seriously need to improve their website copy!)

(And one further note — this whole exercise started because I tasted the wines first, liked them, and tried to figure out a bit more about them. But now that whole sustainable farming thing is making me cranky, and I have half a mind to just scrap the article completely. Well, maybe someone at Terlato will post a comment that will clear things up…)

Tangley Oaks 2006 Chardonnay Santa Barbara County ($15). Fuller-bodied than the reds, below, with plenty of cream and smoke accents to the ripe, vanilla-scented tropical fruit. Finishes with a welcome touch of crisp citrus. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Tangley Oaks 2006 Merlot Napa Valley ($15). Quite light-bodied, but with some bright acidity and red cherry and raspberry character that make it appealing. Minty accents on the finish. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Tangley Oaks 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley ($22). This is one tasty under-$25 Napa Cab! Sleek, structured, intense blackberry and currant fruit, with accents of dusty cocoa and deep spices. Medium-bodied but rich enough, food friendly, delish. Ready to drink now and over the next two or three years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

I had the opportunity to meet with Three Rivers winemaker Holly Turner earlier this year — and taste a lineup of current releases from this relatively new Washington winery. Just about five vintages old, Three Rivers specializes in the classic red Bordeaux varieties that Washington has built its reputation on — Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Malbec — as well as Chardonnay, Riesling and Syrah.

I thought the wines offered very good quality — expressive fruit, balance, structure — but also good value (especially the “entry level” Columbia Valley wines). Here are my favorites:

Three Rivers 2007 Chardonnay Columbia Valley ($19). A crisp, citrusy finish offers appealing balance to the smoky oak and ripe pear aromas and flavors, for an all-around appealing wine. Ready to drink now. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Three Rivers 2006 Merlot Columbia Valley ($19). Smooth, supple, with just enough acidity and grip on the finish to balance things out. Black plum and cherry aromas and flavors are laced with mint and toast. So easy to like that you might miss the really good structure behind the wine. Ready to drink now and over the next three or four years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Three Rivers 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley ($22). Aromatic black cherry and berry flavors are medium-bodied and ripe, with accents of roasted coffee, dark chocolate and toast that linger on the smooth, food-friendly finish. Ready to drink now and over the next three or four years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

Three Rivers 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Horse Heaven Hills Champoux Vineyard ($50). Earth and aromatic pipe tobacco notes accent rich (but not especially full-bodied) black cherry and blackberry fruit, with a peppery kick on the moderate finish. Ready to drink now and over the next three or four years. Locate this wine online or in your area.

To learn more about Three Rivers, visit its website at www.3riverswinery.com.