Bittman Lamb with 2004 La Rioja Alta Viña Ardanza

Here's an example of a pairing where the food was delicious, and the wine was delicious, and the pairing was certainly fine enough because those two things existed in such close proximity to each other.

Mark Bittman inside-out lamb persillade recipe from NYT Cooking. Trader Joe's leg of lamb, with the addition of late-season oregano and thyme from the patio. Watercress-mint-serrano-tomato-pomegranate seed salad with bread and butter to accompany.

Perfectly cooked lamb with nice herbal punch. Delicious salad. It was everything we wanted from a meaty meat fest. Something to meander slowly through, while loving the sort of regionlessness it offered. Kind of southern French, a bit of northern Italian meat simplicity (courtesy of Bittman being Bittman), sorta kinda could have been Spanish, which we tried to angle towards with the wine.

This was our first tasting of the 2004 La Rioja Alta, a longtime house favorite, and it was wildly similar to other vintages with a caveat. Very pretty cedar notes, with cherry-spice chocolate bonbons to start that moved out of the picture at just the right time, before it became too blunt, transitioning to something so suave and light, with light notes of tobacco and dust.

La Rioja Alta is Lopez de Heredia with a bit more gusto in the tradional Rioja world, and has something like a house memory in taste. More than most wineries, year after year, we get exactly this in terms of flavor, but this vintage really nails it in its preciseness and knowing when to properly transition. In a couple of other vintages, the concentration (read: sap) hung around a wee bit too long.

A nice pairing, because all the elements present were nice. Oddly, for me, it was the best with the watercress salad, tasting like a cool Spanish breeze.

Yakitori-Togarashi Shrimp, Soba and Pea Shoots with 2018 Domaine Hüet Clos du Bourg Sec

We used to drink a fair amount of Hüet, and then we didn't.

And it was always Clos du Bourg, probably because it was more plush, firm, and punchy than Le Mont or Le Haut Lieu.

Here, with a simple but utterly fantastic dinner of yakitori-togasrashi shrimp over soba noodles with scallions and a big salad of pea shoots and mint, we rediscovered the stupid-loveliness of this wine from a master in Vouvray.

Tasted like a spring linen shirt. Wonderful leesy texture with white pit fruit whispering in and out, with touches of spiky herbs. Still very young and tight as a nun's caboose, the 2018 Domaine Hüet Clos du Bourg Sec ($33 - Binny's) will be a fun one to follow over the next few years. It doesn't seem like it's gonna go long and deep in the future, just pretty, delightful, and full of lilting fanciness.

There are few things better than something superlatively crafted. A well-made chair eclipses the mere purpose of its utility.

A well-made wine reminds the world that there isn't just craft on display here. There's art in a select few of these damn bottles. I don't know if this vintage is going to reach those heights, but we were certainly reminded that art exists in wine, if only briefly here.

Tuna Niçoise With 2018 Groundwork Picpoul Nouveau

Glou-glou, chuggable, smashable (my most-hated), fresh, open, fun, patio-pounder (feels like hyphened words from 2004).

Whatever term you want to use for an easy natural wine (or something on the natty spectrum), the wine still HAS to be interesting, have a second and maybe third level, and offer some sense of grace, even quirk.

It can't just approximate the grape's essence while not tasting like butt, particularly since glou-glou is going for upwards of $40 a bottle of late. I'm looking at you, Broc.

That's not really a slight on Broc Cellars. We've drunk and enjoyed the vast majority of their wines. But $40 for a picpoul, a Broc wine we've loved in the past, it runs against the nature of what picpoul is. It might be priced right for the economies of making it, but that doesn't take away the lament we felt when their wines went from "we have our bargain Cali-Natty deliciousness!" to "we simply can't afford this on a regular basis anymore." That's our economies, especially when many of Broc wines have pairing competition from Chinon, Portuguese baga, Beaujolais cru, Italian weird, Spanish juicy, and frankly anything off-region Frenchy. If you drink wine regularly, the $8-10-20 difference is hundreds of dollars over the course of the year.

On that note, here's one we can afford on a regular basis. It's from Sans Liege, the Paso-based winery that plays in Rhône-y grapes with dalliances elsewhere, like here. the 2018 Groundwork Picpoul Nouveau is carbonic picpoul blanc, with 10% picpoul gris for color. It's $18 at Vin on Elston, and the entire Groundwork line is $20 and under. With a delicate floral note weaving in and out of creamy berries and touch of bitter watermelon rind, the wine kept changing with each bite of the tuna Niçoise (potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, onions, parsley, olives, capers, A's do Mar oil-cured tuna...the usual - a delicious version).

This wine brings The Interest, approaches a third gear (but needs the right food to get there), transcends the sum of its parts, drinks like a four-season wine, and with this food it all tasted like a vacation lunch somewhere on a sun-drenched bay.

For $18.

New Zealand-Style Beef & Cheddar Pies with 2014 Heitz Cellars Napa

New Zealand gas station warm beefy hand pies. Sounds like something you can "get" by dialing a phone number on a gas station bathroom wall.

But the food version, from a Food 52 recipe, are little pillows of beef, cheese, and butter love. They became the epitome of comfort food in our house a couple of years ago and have continued to satisfy at the same level they did the first time.

Served with an arugula salad, to mitigate the hand pie fat parade on display, this meal also finds good use for the glut of red wine we have hanging around, bought on a whim, and left to merely to bring color to the dining room as they sit in the wine racks.

But with this meal, as I plow through The Wine Bible, a hands-on (or mouth-on...that sounds sexual as well) understanding of wines we NEVER drink seems like the right thing to do. Like pricier Napa Cabs. Never liked them in a broad sense. Don't crave them. Don't eat food that goes with them. So when would we have drunk them? Tell me? I'm asking.

For $50 at Trader Joe's, the 2014 Heitz Cellars Napa Valley might change our tune. All the signature cabernet notes of currants, licorice, and herbs, just done with a relative quietness. balance, and poise needed from so many other Napa cabs. Tasted like a favorite fall coat that's gone in and out of style a dozen times, and now just looks and feels classic. Its medium length would be its only knock. I wanted the prettiness to continue a tick longer. But it's a great price for old-style, beautifully done Napa cabernet where you can taste what Napa was instead of what it currently is.

Happy combo. A plusher syrah/shiraz or juicy grenache might have extended the decadence of New Zealand hand pies, but we'd do this pairing again.