Cool nights and well-drained volcanic soils give rise to rich, elegant wines. That’s the opinion of Brassfield Estate Vineyards. After tasting their 2004 Clear Lake pinot grigio, I’m strongly inclined to rhapsodize even more hyperbolically.

I haven’t tasted the ’05 through ’08 vintages of this wine. The 2004 is being cleared out of inventory at California’s Grocery Outlet stores, where we just bought three cases of it at $3 a bottle! But I think conditiions up on those Mendocino County hills are perfect for the variety, so buy whatever vintage you find, at least a bottle or two, for sampling.

American pinot grigio too often is produced in a style recalling jug wines made of chenin blanc and thompson seedless grapes. They grow tons of grapes per acre with little character but they are widely used in inexpensive white wines.

I have to pause to say that chenin blanc from David Stare’s Dry Creek Vineyard is a wonderful wine, made like the best in the Loire Valley, only just a tad more assertive.

That’s acually how the Brassfield Family treats its estate-grown pinot grigio. Its tropical flavors are an American-style assertive upgrading of the French-Italian gray Burgundies, and its assertive acids melting into a smooth mandarin-orange finish might annoy the sublety-loving French originators of the variety. But the Italians know what will go with the fresh ocean-seasoned tastes of seafood and this wine takes France’s Loire Valley straight to the Mediterranean by way of talented American hands.

The www.brassfieldestate.com website isn’t anywhere near as vibrant as this wine, but it’s worth a visit because they produce a whole lot of wine in a region of which the world is largely unaware. If the pinot grigios cost as much as $12 to $15 they’re worth it. You can probably find it for less.

Find it. –Bob Cramer, The Fearless Taster.