Part of a family that has made wine for 250 years (context: since before the American Revolution), he became Wimmer-Czerny’s winemaker in 1987. From the looks of him today, Hans must have been about 8 at the time.

Czerny’s wines have a youthful vibrancy as well, but they’re also supple and complex. His “Felserberg” is one of the best gruner veltliners I’ve ever come across (tasting notes below), and all the wines I tasted are well worth their price tags.

Czerny said his home region of Wagram is “perfect for white wine, with cool air at night and warm sunshine during the day. The south-facing slopes [his 15 hectares all face south, toward the nearby Danube River] make for a lot of aroma. We prefer our fruit mineral-y.”

Mission accomplished, largely because the grapes get their oomph from deep roots (often exceeding 15 meters down) in an unusual soil “that is like sand from the Ice Age,” Czerny said. “It’s important that you don’t work with fertilizer or irrigate because then the vines won’t go down. It’s a living soil, so the grapes are strong.”

Czerny converted all his vineyards to organic in 2003 and got biodynamic certification in 2006, and many of his Wagram peers have been going the same route. “If you do something and it works,” he said, “your neighbor asks ‘what is going on?’ Biodynamics the concept is not to produce something but to preserve the land. That’s the central thing.

“It is like [Alsatian legend] Olivier Humbrecht said ‘The grapes will decide what they will be.’ ”

Czerny also uses his own yeast for fermentation, and he raises an unusual brand of furry pigs called Mangalitzas.

But mostly he focuses on crafting delicious wine and tries to keep on learning. “You should often listen to other people,” he said. “This motivates you.”

The wines:
• Wimmer-Czerny Blanc de Noirs 08 ($45): gorgeous, expressive, pear, soft mouthfeel, very clean finish.
• Wimmer-Czerny Roter Veltiner “Fels am Wagram” 2010 ($22): crisp, savory, yummy fruit, wet stone, balanced … 2011 ($24): ripe, expressive of terroir, a white for red wine drinkers.
• Wimmer-Czerny Gruner Veltliner “Fumberg” 2011 ($21): ripe mountain fruit, floral, sweet and sharp.
• Wimmer-Czerny Gruner Veltliner “Alte Reben Weelfel” 2010 ($28): racy but firm, sweetish start then bracing acidity, smooth finish.
• Wimmer-Czerny Gruner Veltliner “Felserberg” 2009 ($36): supple, gorgeous stone and citrus fruit, harmonious, long finish.
• Wimmer-Czerny Saint Laurent 2009 ($24): sweetish, plum, juicy, smooth

The compound known as resveratrol, found in red wine, has proven beneficial to our health in sundry ways, but this is a first: The government is testing to see if it can slow or stymie the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. Like I need another reason to enjoy red wine.

As a lifelong sports fan, I’ve often marveled at how people who show tremendous smarts in building a financial fortune can morph into dunderheaded numskulls upon buying a professional sports franchise. Well, as “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” and this ongoing story show, the ultra-rich often follow the same lame-brain de-evolution when it comes to wine.

Speaking of both that book and the worlds of sports and wine, Brad Pitt, recently nominated for an Oscar as baseball’s Billy Beane, is lined up to star in the film version of “The Billionaire’s Vinegar.”

And finally, we all know how well wine and cheese play together. Now I’m pumped about testing some pairings with sandwiches made in these seriously cool bags.

Everyday:

Occasion: It’s rare to call a sauvignon blanc “hearty,” but the Domaine Jean Teiller Menetou-Salon Blanc ($24) fills the bill. A crisp, refreshing nose lingers as pure minerality coats the mid-palate. Citrus flavors give way to peach, and the seriously long finish is rich and robust. A fascinating wine. Enjoy it on the patio by itself, or with some grilled chicken and zucchini, salad or pasta containing bits of goat cheese or as part of a Friday night fish fry or boil.

• Minneapolis-St. Paul is a whole heckuva lot like Los Angeles when it comes to consumer demographics. A SoCal wine buyer painted the El-Lay of the land like this: “You basically have three groups of avid consumers. Some just come and buy cases of wines they really like, many of which are commodity wines. Then you have the small group of people who usually love Burgundy and Barolo and riesling and show up at all the same events. And then there are the ones you never see, because they’re private collectors buying direct or on the gray market.” Sounded very familiar.

• India’s growing season is winter, because summer is monsoon season. Kerry Damskey, who consults for a number of Sonoma wineries (including Minnesota-owned Gustafson Family), also makes wine in southern Asia. He said Thailand, Brazil and other tropical Northern Hemisphere wine regions have the same kind of inverted season. The main grapes he uses in India? Chenin blanc and Thompson seedless.

• At an otherwise very collegial gathering, provincialism occasionally reared its head. During the sweepstakes (a taste-off of the double-gold winners), a California winemaker at the next table proclaimed, “Minnesota red table wines, how am I going to compete with that?” I shan’t relay his name, largely because we were at the end of two long days of tasting and hey, sometimes Californians don’t spit enough

• I have a new travel target: the island of Pantelleria, closest to Tunisia but part of Sicily. A cohort was there a few years back and talked rapturously about the stark physical beauty and especially the isle’s most renowned foodstuffs: capers and an amazing dessert wine called passita de Pantelleria, made from the muscat of Alexandria grape. That’s more than enough to get me there.

• Bo Barrett, grand poohbah at Chateau Montelena and star of the screenplay to “Bottle Shock,” is making wine with his wife Heidi Peterson Barrett, cult creator at Screaming Eagle and Grace Family and current vintner at Revana, Fantesca and her own La Sirena. The enterprise is called, not surprisingly, Barrett & Barrett, and so far they’re making about 100 cases of cab.

• Bo said he does most of the protein cooking at their home. For Chateau Montelena’s older cabernets – which age as well as anything out of Napa — he recommends tender red meat. As for the other brand of “cooking” on the premises, he said he always wants Heidi in the room when the final Montelena blends are concocted. When I asked her if she was a regular at those confabs, she chuckled and said “yeah, sometimes.”

• My favorite Central Coast wine personality, Adam LaZarre, showed up with some albariño and sauvignon blanc that he will be bottling Friday under his eponymous label. Both were expressive and fascinating but also, fulfilling wines’ first obligation, delicious. I was a bit disappointed when Adam said he would be filtering them before bottling (I wouldn’t change a thing), but there are, he explained, chemical reasons why that is important.

• Sonoma winemaker Clark Smith (left) put forth the proposition that all rosés should be a year after bottling. Absent that, he proclaimed forcefully, people should not limit them to the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Couldn’t agree more.

• My judging panel sampled a flight of six red wines made from University of Minnesota grapes and awarded a double gold (“just a glorious wine,” one panelist) to a wine I should be able to identify tomorrow, plus three silvers. One wine, however, was dreadful, tasting like really old coffee was poured into it. ”I think it re-fermented in the bottle,” said panelist Eric Miller of Pennsylvania’s Chaddsford Winery. I had never heard a winemaker admit that this kind of thing occurs, so of course I had to ask if it ever had happened to his wines. “Not after I started paying attention,” Miller said.

Everyday: It ain’t easy finding a stellar German riesling for under $20, and there might not be a better introduction to these wondrous white wines than the Weingut Eugen Muller Forster Mariengarten Kabinett ($18). Firm and fresh from the get-go, it’s a citrus and stone-fruit delight that finishes lovely and lively, with just a touch of spice enlivening the semi-sweetness. Hearty enough to pair well with pork roast, it’s also a nice match for Szechuan or Vietnamese food and grilled sausages with spicy mustard.

Occasion: Most amarones benefit from cellar time, but the 2007 Masi Costasera Amarone Classico ($60) is ready to roll — and to rock your world. The usually raisiny elements are there — it is, after all made from grapes that have been allowed to dry out —but this is ripe, juicy and silky-smooth, with dark berry and tropical-spice notes on the formidable finish. And the guess here is that you could cellar this puppy for at least a decade. Try it with red meat and blue cheese, separately or together.

But I use them. I parcel out a number (and a few notes) to virtually every wine I sample. I’m even tasting and rating wines as I write this (my kind of multi-tasking!).

Now inputting info on a couple hundred wines every month is a serous pain in the patootie, and a lot of friends, even in the trade, wonder why I bother.

The main reason by far: because it helps me convey useful information to you. I can and do choose my wines of the week for this site, and for the Star Tribune, from the scores and notes I take. (I’ll also be using them for upcoming “recommendations” posts of varietals or regions.) These assessments also give me a better feel for what’s out there in general, what’s happening with different grapes and brands. 

I use a 5.0-10.0 scale, the same as many popular scoring systems but divided by 10. Not sure how I landed there, except that it’s the parameters I found when I came to wine, and the decimal, well that’s probably to be a wee bit different from Robert Parker, James Laube (left) et al.

I diverge from those guys with a varietal “curve.” Kermit Lynch put it this way when we talked: “Here’s this Muscadet, it’s flawless, it’s perfect. That’s a 100-pointer. It’s not a Meursault, but it’s perfect.” So I grade wines with a varietal or regional context, rather than a “global” context. 

I also use a two-tier system for wines under $20, with a regular score and then a higher number withe an e appended to take into account economic value. The $12 Banfi ”Centine” white blend recently touted here was rated 8.9/9.2e; if it had been $17, the second number would have been lower, if it was $8, higher.

Ratings haters often say, “How can anyone just assign a number to something that has so many facets?” A legitimate question, that. The snarky answer: Because I can. The real answer: Because with all the wine I sample, I need something that will help me gauge what to recommend, what to write about.

The followup question is usually “how can you tell the difference between an 89-point wine and a 90-point wines?” Well I don’t worry so much about that, because my scores aren’t published, aren’t used by wineries or retailer and never will be.

The more I’ve done this, the easier it has become  Almost always, within a minute of jotting down a few tasting notes, a score will pop into my head that feels right, usually even more so on second thought. I have recently started giving less thought to the score for anything that is mediocre or bad, since I won’t be writing about it. But again, a number usually pings in readily while I’m not enjoying the finish.

Basically, it’s the least imperfect way I know to do this. Suggestions welcome.

“Exactly two years ago we did a 25-year vertical of the [Bonny Doon] Cigare Volant,” he said at his Santa Cruz winery. “I thought it was a good time to reflect. And over the 25 years the vineyards have changed, the blends have changed and the winemaking has changed.

“But the two most impressive wines were the 1984 and ’85. They were the most complex, the most satisfying. And those were made when I didn’t know anything. Sometimes when you’re seeing the world in a naïve way, you are more open to things. When you’re intellect is limited, you have to make some choices. So I thought, ‘maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.’”

Grahm, of course, has made boatloads of seriously great wine, and oceans of damn good juice, in his quarter century-plus as our most accessible iconoclastic winemaker. Besides continuing to craft an array that includes transcendent Bien Nacido syrah, the aforementioned stellar Rhone blend and arguably America’s best rosé (Vin Gris de Cigare), he is working on two decidedly cool projects: making cider and growing grapes from seed

Over the course of a winery visit and dinner at his restaurant, now called Cigare Volant and highly recommended, Grahm brought his inimitable take to several topics:

On how we taste: “The biodynamic calendar does have an impact [on a given day], but so does your mood and the barometric pressure.”

Grapes that will be a bigger deal in California in 10, 20 years: “The Italians, nero d’Avola, aglianico, sagrantino, vermentino for sure, fiano maybe. Grenache blanc is coming on strong. Grenache gris is a fabulous grape.”

His target audience: “I tell myself not to think about that because I think that perverts the integrity of the product. You wanna make wines that you like to drink, and not think over-much about ‘would people like it, would Parker like it?’ If I like to drink it, others will like to drink it.”

On old-vine carignane: “Those 100-year-old vines are like the Pablo Picasso of grapes, a horny old guy.”

On why he gave up making pinot noir: “I wasn’t good at growing pinot, so I  went to Rhone [grapes] because of a desire for success and a fear of failure.”

The most important part of a winemaker’s job: “Where do you plant your vineyard? Everything else can be fixed.”

His primary goal: “I aspire to make vin de terroir. Everything else is a trick, banal. Terroir is something that captures unique characteristics, an utterly unique culture. Burgundian terroir could not exist without Burgundians.”

And when they – or he – succeed at this? “Great wines enrich the world, like a new species,” he said.

The view from here: Grahm not only makes great wine but is a species unto himself.

Coursing through this “Bible” cover-to-cover works splendidly, and I recommend that readers peruse the first 30 pages or so early on.

 But bouncing around from region to region and topic to topic with this expressive, vibrant tour guide is a swell way to spend a day, week or month.

Just as important, MacNeil is a deft enough writer to avoid talking down or up to readers of sundry knowledge levels. Her passion pervades this book, whether addressing grape growing in Germany or food pairing at home.

And her mantra is that what matters is what you get when you drink a wine, not what she or anyone else says you should get.

Full disclosure: I’ve met, sipped and chatted with Karen at a couple of Wine Writers Symposiums, so we’re acquaintances if not friends; she cannot ever remember my name and has resorted to simply calling me “Big Guy.”

It’s a safe bet that those who spend much time with “The Wine Bible” will come away feeling as though they know her as well.

But most of all, they will know more, probably a buttload more, about this wondrous beverage.  

• I love lists, and from the looks of today’s magazines, most others do as well. So of course I was fascinated by the latest compilation of the world’s most admired wine brands — but as much for the groupings and juxtapositions as anything else (I’m long past getting outraged by such trifling matters). To wit: Two Aussie brands in the top five. That country’s most popular brand, Yellow Tail, eking in at no. 50. Blue Nun (they still make that?) at 26. Barefoot just ahead of Chateau d’Yquem. The odd placements of the other spendy French houses. The list, btw, was compiled by sommeliers using Yahweh-knows what criteria.

• After a fitful start, the ridiculous bridge project in Germany’s Mosel region, where some of the world’s best riesling is grown and made, has been halted. Here’s hoping it’s for good. Jancis Robinson’s account, mostly from a cohort’s reporting, is a bit dry, but the photos are cool.

• Both the graphic — a very cool (and cool-weather) map — and the content of this mini-guide to pinot noir regions are worth a gander.

• Finally, in example no. 34,772 of Why I love the Interwebs, I came across this marvelous cartoon posted on Facebook by A Glass of Wine: