Need help in selecting a white wine

[stevebody]

Culi,

UNOAKED! Viognier absolutely doesn't need the dubious enhancement of the vanilla/smoke. That's not a policy statement; I like a BIT of oak in some wines. The St. Francis OV Zin gets a pretty fat dose of it and I drink a good bit of that every vintage. But Viognier has such a lush flavor curve already, why gild the lily?

I'm sorry to be such an ignoramus but I don't know exactly where Gravina is, except that it is name of a town somewhere on the southeast Italian coast. Apulia, maybe? That may actually be right. As soon as I finish this, I'm off to Google to find out...

Don't know if KC was getting a gentle dig in with the thing about "no one with any classical food training would ever..." regarding fume and fumet. Probably true. I, however, never had classical food training. I'm one of those lucky/tenacious/scholarly people who learned by doing and was fortunate enough to have good mentors and a rather howling amount of the sort of success which sometimes, sadly, allows you to go years without anyone ever correcting your assumptions. I've never actually drawn a distinction between the spelling of fume as a sauce and the fume that means smoke-treated anything. Never had anybody bring it up before, really. No doubt KC is correct. Please use his spellings to avoid being a doofus like me!

Quite a hot topic you posted up here, Culi! Good stuff...