At the sixth annual Indiana Wine Fair yesterday at Story, Indiana, five judges, tasting wines from bottles concealed by numbered paper sacks selected the best from six different categories.

Dry White Wine:

GOLD MEDAL:                Oliver Winery                                Pinot Grigio 2007

SILVER MEDAL:            Whyte Horse Winery                    American Traminette N.V.

BRONZE MEDAL:           Easley Winery                               Governor’s Traminette 2007

Sweet White Wine:

GOLD MEDAL:                Brown County Winery                 Vista White N.V.

SILVER MEDAL:             Buck Creek Winery                     Der Champion Riesling N.V.

BRONZE MEDAL             Grape Inspirations Winery       Fuzzy Passion N.V.

Dry Red Wine:

GOLD MEDAL:                 Easley Winery                             Governor’s Cab Sauvignon 2005

SILVER MEDAL:              Turtle Run Winery                     Max’s Small Batch Red

BRONZE MEDAL:             Buck Creek Winery                   Syrah N.V.

Sweet Red Wine:

GOLD MEDAL:                  Butler Vineyard                        Vineyard Red N.V.

SILVER MEDAL:               Brown County Winery             Vista Red N.V.

BRONZE MEDAL:              Easley Winery                          Reggae Red N.V.

Dessert Wine:

GOLD MEDAL:                   Grape Inspirations Winery    Showcase Crystal White

SILVER MEDAL:                Chateau Thomas                     2007 Ice Wine

BRONZE MEDAL:              Chateau Pomije                       Niagra N.V.

Non-Grape Wine:

GOLD MEDAL:                   Winzerwald Medal                 Blueberry Weisser

SILVER MEDAL:                Oliver Winery                         Harvest Flavors Mango

BRONZE MEDAL:              Oliver Winery                         Blackberry

 BEST OF SHOW!  Easley Winery’s Governors Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Each gold medal winning wine will be served tonight at a black-tie Brown County Foundation Scholarship Dinner at the Story Inn, and the Inn will feature the wines on its wine list for the next calendar year.

To those of us who use wine daily, the question seems unnecessary. Yet, at some point in our lives, way, way back, we must have raised the same question: why drink wine?

The question came to mind recently when a doctor friend referred to wine as a “psychotropic drug.” He quickly assured me that he didn’t use the term in  a perjorative sense. “It is a relaxant and a stimulant,” he said. That led to a prolonged conversation about just why it is that wine is good for us (in moderation, of course) and why it is becoming America’s drink of choice.

For one thing, we agreed, wine promotes conversation, even if it’s only about the wine. When’s the last time you discussed the relative merits of a Pepsi? A French friend, while explaining to me how best to drink wine, said to sniff it, twirl it, then set it down and talk about it.

Wine easily evokes intellectual conversation, its role in history, in art, in religion. A vintage year brings up memories of what happened in that particular year. We recall stories by Roald Dahl, Vincent Price, even Edgar Allan Poe. Or we merely sip it, calmly appreciating it.

Probably wine’s most redemptive quality is its demand to be sipped slowly, with food, to calm the digestive tract and to destroy harmful cholesterol.

True, overconsumption is not healthful, but when wine is properly appreciated, overconsumption is not a problem. It can even prevent the overconsumption of food and serve as a valuable weapon in our war against obesity.

Any more reasons for drinking wine?

There was a time when the term Super Market Wines was a perjorative. This is not to say that has changed sufficiently to allow you to seek a grand cru Burgundy or Super Tuscan on the shelves across from the deli, but increasingly you can find good value in quality wines in many supermarkets.

Some have exceptional quality. The IGA Store in Nashville, for example, has a considerable number of wines on its shelves that qualify for the word fine as a descriptor. That particular store profits from being owned by the same man who owns a fine wine and spirits store almost next door.

I’m sure you have noticed how stores such as Marsh, O’Malia’s, and Kroger have expanded their wine spaces in just the past few months. This attention to wine in everyday-type grocery stores results from recognition that most wine shopping is done by women who also do most food shopping and that Americans are fast becoming the world’s largest wine-consuming nation.

So what kinds of wines are on those everyday shelves? Everyday wines, for one. It pays to take a look. And for the best bargains, it pays to bend that back and take a look at the bottom shelf. Store managers are skilled marketers, so they stack the goods with most name recognition at eye level. That doesn’t mean you won’t find good deals up there, because that’s where you’ll see the names of producers with whom you’re most likely to be familiar. It makes for easy shopping without disappointment.

But look way down there. With an open mind. Be a little adventurous. At Kroger’s last week, I found a delicious white wine from Crete for $9.99, a red wine from Crete for $7.49. Both came from the largest wine distributor/producer in Greece — Boutari. These are food-friendly wines of only 12% alcohol.

Granted, they are not trophy wines nor wines to store for a while. But they accompany any meal. The grapes are not the ones with which you are most familiar, but the blends give the red a suggestion of pinot noir, the white a hint of an unoaked chardonnay.

Those bottom shelves also contain wines with highly entertaining labels. That’s where you’ll find “Joe Blow White” from California — a wine whose name is not serious but whose wine is serious! Or “Oops!,” a delicate white wine from Chile. For ten bucks you can’t go wrong.

So now, tell us about your discoveries of interesting wine from unlikely sources.

Forty-eight hours in intensive care. Seventy-two hours in a private recovery room. Another forty-eight hours in an observation room. Finally, with sutures lacing up my torso, the surgeon said I could go home (at the time home was in Karlsruhe, Germany) if I didn’t drive. He gave me an envelope containing instructions for the doctor in Germany to follow in removing the stitches. All of this was caused by a ruptured appendix after dining in a fine Bordeaux restaurant and it meant that I had no wine in my mostly liquid diet for more than a week.

We checked out of the hospital about 11:00 a.m., my wife at the wheel driving us toward Limoges. I admitted to hunger — and thirst. She stopped the car in front of a village convenience store and went in to forage for some kind of sustenance.

Bearing pate, cheese, and bread, along with a bottle, she drove us to a roadside parking area and set up a pique-nique. She was apologetic about the wine. It was Chateau de Malfourat from Bergerac. No vintage year. Neither of us had ever heard of the chateau. (Nor have we since.) It was a rose, and, she said, the only “chateau” wine in the store.

It was wonderful. Truth be told, if I were to drink it today — or at any time other than during my health crisis and a week-long fast — I would not find it wonderful. But it proved once again that much of enjoying wine comes from the circumstances under which you drink it.

 Please share with us your stories about wines made memorable by the circumstances under which it was consumed.

On a hot summer day, my wife and I stopped for lunch in a tiny rural inn not far from Chateau Palmer in the Medoc. The maitre de chai had recommended the place, so we were not surprised to see him arrive shortly after us to deliver some wine.  He came to our table to tell us he would select a bottle for our lunch. We were surprised to see him bring in a bottle of Palmer cabernet in an ice bucket. “It’s very hot today,” he said; “good wine doesn’t like heat.”

We had become used to seeing young Burgundy, most Beaujolais, and even some Barberas cooled in ice buckets. But fine claret? We had to admit it made for a pleasant lunch experience, but at dinner that night in a Bordeaux restaurant, the sommelier made no effort to cool the cabernet.

Europeans claim, correctly, that we Americans drink our white wines too cold. “55 degrees Farenheit,” they say is about right. Try a riesling or chardonnay at that temperature, then try the same wine chilled in an ice bucket and see the difference.

Room temperature was the long-standing rule for most red wines. Room temperature in the days before central heat made sense. People dressed in suits and sweaters, and the dining room was seldom much above cellar temperature. As heating systems improved, red wine’s appeal became endangered.

We keep our wine room as close to 55 degrees as possible. In very hot, humid weather, it may reach 60 degrees, and in mid-winter it may fall to 40 degrees, but on average the temperature is fairly constant. (Slow temperature changes are not harmful, so long as they don’t reach extremes, especially at the warm end.)

This means that in general we drink our white and red wines at just about the same temperature. (We do chill our sweet dessert wines, and we do serve our champagnes out of an ice bucket.) It’s amazing how much fruit hits the nose and palate at the cooler temperature.

We urge you to try your red wines a few times at temperatures somewhat cooler than you would normally and tell us what you think.

Just before the turn of the century, a well known British wine writer opined in a Sunday newspaper feature that men should share their great wines only with other men. He expressed the belief that truly great bottles are best shared only with men who have bonded, as in combat, sport, or business. The stress was on men. Women, he contended, did not concern themselves with the greatness of a wine; they only liked it or didn’t. Besides, he confessed, the sexual polarity between a man and a woman distracts from full enjoyment of an outstanding vintage. Surprisingly, most letters to the paper — and there were many — agreed with him.

An article in the current issue of DECANTER Magazine, also a British publication, admits that wine collecting is still a man’s world. The author, a woman, by the way, believes that women in  the U.K. “are happy buying the everyday stuff but not the higher realms.” She argues that men “like to make lists and complete a set, and they like to impress people,”  and she points out that only 8% of DECANTER subscribers are female.

The author, Rosi Hanson, formed her conclusions after talking with wine specialists in such highly regarded wine houses as Sotheby’s, Farr Vintners, and Christie’s (whose director is a woman), all of whom admitted that 90% of their customers are men. She identified several exceptionally and independently wealthy women who collect the good stuff and  gives high praise to Cheryl Womack, an American woman who heads a trucking company and an insurance firm and is a passionate collector, a collector so successful she consigned for sale 4,775 bottles of top-growth Bordeaux and Burgundies to Sotheby’s because she had “more than she could store or drink.”

Such data as are available in the U.S. indicate that women buy most of the wine consumed in American households (except in New York City) but they most often select from the mid-to-lower price value bottles.

In short, concludes Rosi Hanson: “Men collect, women appreciate.” The Pontiff would love some discussion.

I know a man in Burgundy who can taste a wine and tell you exactly from which vineyard it came. I know wine waiters in Colmar and Cincinnati who can taste a wine and tell you exactly what grapes went into it — and mostly from which part of the world it originated.

To be sure, few people have such refined palates, but the distinctions above define a topic often discussed in serious wine circles. Simply put: what counts more — place of origin or grape variety?

Old World — that is, France, Italy, Germany, especially — have no doubt. A wine must taste of the soil in which its grapes were produced. It is established over centuries and generations that the pinot noir is Burgundy, the cabernet sauvignon (and prescribed blends) are Bordeaux, and nebbiolo is Piedmont.

New World — that is the United States and Australia, especially — while not dismissive of the importance of original soil, tend to prefer the grape variety without much concern about where it came from. No one really doubts that Napa and Sonoma are at the center of wine’s “Promised Land” and that the cabernet coming from those two counties is as good as it can get, and Americans accept that pinot noir, sangiovese, gamay, and a wide range of other grapes can also be produced there. What matters is how they taste.

Not so in Burgundy, Alsace, or most other European regions. You can raise and make wine from chardonnay in Alsace, but you can’t label it as such or count it among your “official growths.” That is unlawful

We are seeing cabernet, chardonnay and riesling from Italy where producers have learned that those world class grapes do better in the international market place than their traditional trebbianos, barberas, and dolcettos. Purists object; chardonnay lovers rejoice, because it means one more source for a grape variety they adore.

What you’ve read is just the tip of the ice berg. Producers, scientists, and farmers around the world are challenging the influence of “terroir,” that term defining the taste of the earth in wine. Modernists contend that technology in the vinification process can do more to create wines pleasing to the palate than traditionalists and their precious plots.

I will be in Burgundy and in Italy during May and will raise these points with wine people over there and share any updated thinking on their part. Meantime, we’d love to get readers’ thoughts on this sub ject. Tell us whether you are a “terroirist” or a varietist regardless of origin. 

So you’re in the wine department and you know how much you want to spend for a bottle or two. Conventional wisdom tells us that that’s all most customers know when they start looking. When asked by a helpful clerk, many don’t know whether they’re shopping for name recognition or a pretty label, not unlike the confused customer years ago when Blue Nun first appeared and he asked for the “Blue Wine.”

For a century or more wine label language was very traditional. I could never characterize it as “dull,” but the only distinctions in the information  provided was usually a splash of color in a few letters or an “arty” type face. It was assumed that customers would know how to ferret out the wines that interested them. As more and more wines came to the market, however, producers became more and more aware that to sell their wines, they would have to attract attention. We began to see labels bearing pictures of animals, landscapes, colorful abstract designs, even people — like a picture of a youthful Norma Jean depicting a “young merlot.”

By federal law, wine labels have to tell you the country of origin, the alcoholic strength, the bottle content volume along with the name of the importer and producer. If the wines are imported, the label must also conform to label laws of the country of origin. In short, a wine label is a legal document. It usually but does not always carry the names of the grape varieties.

In 2004 Congress mandated that all food and drink labels contain allergin content information, something still being resisted by many wine producers. That’s why an increasing number of producers are adding back labels which also enables them to provide a description of the wine. Except for certain European regions, there is no legal requirement for a quality assessment on the label. In the U.S., for example, the words classic or reserve have no definable meaning.

So as new label designs appear, we are seeing more and more labels jumping out at us from store shelves. Just last week, we saw a big white label bearing in very large type the words “House White.” The required information was on a back label.

One’s first inclination, of course, is to think that a frivolous label suggests a non-serious wine. We have found that not necessarily true. No matter how much name brand recognition gets into your mindset, if the wine isn’t to your liking, you won’t buy it again.

So our discussion question for the day is about selecting wine in a wine store. Do you buy by name recognition or by attention-getting labels?  

With the Indiana Wine Fair imminent (April 26) and Vintage Indiana on the horizon (June 7), it may be helpful to comment about some of the grapes that go into some of the most popular Indiana wines.

Starting with white wines, one of the first you’re likely to meet is the  Vidal Blanc, a French-American hybrid that yields floral flavors ranging from dry to sweet depending on harvest date and style of fermentation. It slightly resembles the Ungi Blanc of southwest France and the Trebbiano of northern Italy.

The Chardonel is a descendent of Pinot Chardonnay and does well in the Midwest because of its ability to endure cold growing conditions. While it lacks the complexity of a classic Chardonnay, it is a very fruity wine.

Another French-American grape is Seyval Blanc, which produces a wine suggestive of Chablis because of its crisp texture. Though less intense than Chablis, Seyval Blanc gains structure through extended barrel fermentation.

Among the red wines you’ll meet is the Chambourcin which seems to have originated in the Rhone Valley. It can be spicy (peppery, as they say in southern France) and aromatic with considerable length on the palate.

You may also meet the Norton, a native of North America which moved to the Midwest from Virginia. While difficult to vinify, it does produce some highly colored, slightly perfumed wines with structure and body.

There other grape varieties on offer at these wine festivals, but getting familiar with these will get you started. Please share with us your taste experiences as you get acquainted with Indiana wine grapes. 

With 32 working wineries and several more under development, Indiana has become a real wine region. These wineries attract almost a million visitors annually and generate  more than 33 million dollars to Indiana’s economy.

Clearly, wine production is an important force in Indiana life. It is good for tourism, rural development, and for the state coffers. Best of all, vineyards and production facilities cannot be outsourced overseas. Indiana wineries are here to stay.

In just over 15 years, state-wide wine acreage has increased by 300 percent, to a total of almost 400 acres. Wine sales have grown by 78 percent since 2003.

Most wines produced in Indiana come from home grown grapes, but some wineries bring in grapes from California and the Northwest, and cherries and blueberries for their fruit wines may come from Michigan. Even so, our wineries are responsible for what is called “value-added agriculture,” taking fruit and increasing its worth.

You won’t see many local wines labeled with the classic grape varieties such as cabernet sauvignion or chardonnay that you see from Europe or the West Coast, but you will see some delicious hybrid varieties most likely cloned from them.

Judges at the annual Indiana Wine Fair in Story (coming up on April 26) say the improvement in such varieties as chardonel, vidal blanc, and chambourcin is remarkable. The sweet fruit wines available here are the equal of such wines anywhere.

A number of wineries have teamed to create “Wine Trails” to encourage visitors to travel from one winery to another as part of a day trip or weekend outing. We would really appreciate readers who follow such a trail to share their experiences with us. Such sharing would also lend support to the wineries.