3 | Wine | White, Columbia Valley, $10 to $20

"Cold Creek Chardonnay is typified by concentration and intensity from the 40-year-old vines and warmth of the site. This Chardonnay is a decadent style with ripe fruit and a toasty character. The cooler 2011 vintage in Washington provided enhanced acidity with an elegant finish. The combination of a powerful vineyard in a cooler vintage makes for a very balanced and ageable style of Chardonnay."

"Peaches, tropical fruits, honey, and botrytis aromas. ...lead to a viscous, vibrant wine with superb natural acidity that frames the fruit brilliantly. This wine is all about pleasure; how long it will last is difficult to say but there is no rational reason to defer your gratification. By the way, it is also an outstanding value in sweet dessert wine."

"Toasty tropical aromas lead to a spicy, savory, well-balanced, lengthy Chardonnay that is an excellent value meant for drinking over the next 2-3 years."

"Full yellow-gold color. Aromas of peach, apricot, tangerine, honey and brown spices show an exotic character suggesting a bit of botrytis. Juicy and concentrated but a bit aggressively oaky on the palate, showing ripe stone fruit flavors and a slight umami saline character. Finishes with a bit of alcoholic burn."

"Citrus is alive and well in 2011. The nose on Murphy’s is full of meyer lemon, blood orange and apricots. A delicate chalky terroir is present in the finish that tells of the rich Washington state geology. The palate is redolent with peach, apricot, kumquat, orange flower, and chalky schist. The high levels of natural acidity show themselves in a long and persistent stone fruit finish that ends with shades of a lemon tart."