2006 Pey-Marin Riesling "The Shell Mound", Marin County, California

I can't divorce my sense of this wine from the sense of my interaction with Sue Pey when I tasted it. Weird, isn't it. In trying to talk to Sue, the conversation was so disjointed, off-kilter and unnatural, that the wine came across that way as well. It seemed to be starting and stopping and changing directions and speeds frequently. It's very aromatic for riesling, almost in a Chenin-y kind of way, because it's got a Creamsicle/orange blossom aroma that's very floral, but also very translucent-top-with-no-bra. It's feminine, but forthright, like a Cougar.

The wine shifts gears, showing off a lot of different attributes but few that I typically associate with riesling. It's very steely, very tangy, very minerally, very very. It comes from a celebrated German clone called Neustadt 90 (which Sue types up in a very Teutonic font). It leaves a long, dry, chalky streak across the tongue with it's acidity. I'm not sure if I like it. It seems like it would appeal to a grapefruit eater. It seems to include all the elements of a good white wine, that they'd all be necessary ingredients, but I didn't see, er, taste, the transitions, the integration, the whole.

That said, I would still drink a lot of it. The Shell Mound (named because the area was submerged in prehistoric times, leaving a lot of ocean-floor buildup in the soils) tastes like a hypothetical Loire or Marlborough Riesling that is wound up, tightroping and on tippy-toes. I bought 2 cases. $23