Covey Run Riesling

Wine: Covey Run Riesling.

Grape: riesling

Region: Yakima Valley, Wash.

Vintage: 2010

Price: $3.99

In the glass: Covey Run Riesling is a faint light golden yellow with a clean, clear star-bright appearance, showing a translucent core going out into a glass-clear rim definition with hints of greenish tinge and light viscosity.

On the nose: There are nicely concentrated notes of pears, Braeburn apples, stone fruit, grapefruit segments, kaffir lime and warm minerality emanating from the bowl of the glass with a hint of carnelian flowers as well.

On the palate: This wine enters all round and smooth with lovely expressive notes of well-delineated white fruit, crushed pear skins, applesauce, clean bright citrus character and hints of green melon and chalky minerals. The midpalate is very soft and balanced, and the feeling of harmony between acidity and fruit is constant through the bright, rounded finish with just a little bite to remind us that this is still a young wine.

Odds and ends: The most famous and profound wines made in Washington state are from either the Walla Walla and Yakima valleys or from the areas just north and east of Seattle in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains. Most wines in quantities that we see from there are the lovely and Old World-style pinot noirs and syrahs, but there are several superb rieslings and white blends made as well, some of which merit serious consideration. Covey Run is a winery established in 1983 by a group of wine lovers who got lucky with a land purchase in the heart of some of the best terroir (soil, weather) in the Yakima Valley. Following the establishment of the winery, they made easily drinkable wine from well-known French grape varietals but eventually settled on making true-to-variety wines. They also make chardonnays from one of Washington’s finest chardonnay vineyards, Celilo. When you find a wine such as this for the ridiculous price of less than $4 and you realize that it’s springtime, then there’s not much more to think about. Enjoy it chilled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, by the glass or with some light salads or fresh oysters. Drink it now through 2014.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.