2005 Clos Pegase Mitsuko's Vineyard Carneros Chardonnay

The ultimate test of any wine is how much is left in the bottle at the end of the night. I open a different bottle every night, but finish about one per month (my wife is a lightweight; one glass is enough for her.)

I call it the Empty Bottle Test. It's entirely different from professional tastings, in which people take two small sips of each wine being tasted, scribble down as many notes as we can, and assign a rating. I've done this kind of tasting many times and acknowledge its importance. That said, certain types of wines dominate professional tastings -- rich, full-bore wines that stand out amongst their peers. Food-friendly wines that are easy to keep drinking until they're done tend to get overlooked.

Winners of the Empty Bottle Test often surprise me. Some wines are delicious for two sips; others for two glasses. When I'm bored, I stop drinking; I'm a wine lover, not an alcoholic.

The 2005 Clos Pegase Mitsuko's Vineyard Carneros Chardonnay ($24) didn't seem like a great Empty Bottle Test candidate because it contains a formidable 14.7 percent alcohol -- a lot for a white wine. I don't know how well I would have scored it in a panel of 50 other Chards. My initial tasting notes were pretty simple: toasty, lime fruit, well-balanced, smooth mouthfeel, not overly rich. These are all positives, but nothing that screams "95 points!!!"

The key in there is "well-balanced," a term that often presages an empty bottle. I also think the palate tires more quickly of wines that scream at you with technicolor flavors. It's odd: the more shock and awe I feel from a wine on first sip, the less likely I am to be interested in a third glass.

In looking up the wine, I was surprised to learn it undergoes malolactic fermentation, with a cultured bacteria imported from Burgundy. I detest butteriness in wine, and generally "no malo" is a big selling point for me. Possibly the French bacteria is gentler than the native bacteria; it would be interesting to line up some other Carneros wines and do a taste-off of different malo-causing bacterial strains. The wine is aged in French oak barrels, and that's apparent from the yummy toastiness, with none of the strong vanilla notes you would get from American oak.

So who's Mitsuko?

One of the perks of the wine industry is that you get to have vineyards named after you. Mitsuko Schrem is the wife of Clos Pegase proprietor Jan Schrem. They met in Japan, where Jan established a publishing empire. He's a fascinating guy with an art collection that's as good as any in Napa Valley, though unlike at Hess Collection, very little of it is open to the public. Jan Schrem is obsessed with Bacchus, the god of wine, and collects sculptures of him in various incarnations. Check out the image of Bacchus on the front of the Clos Pegase website. Here's a game you can play on your next visit to Napa Valley -- who can count the most Bacchuses (Bacchi?) at Clos Pegase.

Though getting up in years, Jan and Mitsuko still enjoy a good meal and provocative political conversation. I had the pleasure of meeting her in Calistoga, where she served Sauvignon Blanc from her namesake vineyard with grilled eel on cucumber -- a great combination.

With this Chard, I had roast chicken with Middle Eastern spices, hummus, pita bread and green salad, and it was excellent. But even after the leftover chicken was bagged up and put away, the wine kept tasting delicious.

Oh yeah -- it's sealed with a screwcap! Thank you, Jan and Mitsuko, for being modern thinkers on this issue. All white wines should be screwcapped -- but that's a topic for another day.

Wine rating: **** out of 5.

This wine is available at several stores online for less than $20. This one in New York had the lowest price I saw today, at $18.99.