Click Wine Group, a privately held, Seattle-based company that owns and imports wine from around the world, features a great selection of recession-friendly vintages with average prices of between $10 - $13. Their Global Wine Collection consists of signature varietals from world-class appellations with easy to pronounce (and sometimes amusing) names and appealing, consumer friendly packaging aimed at taking the intimidation out of wine. They have something for virtually every palate and summertime occasion.

Fat Bastard Chardonnay:

To craft Fat Bastard Chardonnay, grapes are sourced from all over France's Languedoc-Roussillon region. The golden yellow wine with pale-green tints has expressive stone-fruit aromas with soft floral undertones and well-balanced citrus and acacia notes. Soft oak gives warmth and balance to the palate. Serve with fresh crab or shrimp, or with a roasted pork tenderloin and vegetables. Try also: Rosé.

2 Up Shiraz:

Named for a popular game of chance in Australia, 2 Up is an elegant, intense and exceptional quality Shiraz that is hand-crafted from a blend of grapes carefully selected from highly prized local vineyards. According to Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate, 2 Up represents "the type of wine value that simply can't be found in California." Goes well with Italian dishes, ribs, and grilled meats such as aged beef and lamb.

Root: 1 Cabernet Sauvignon:

Chile is one of the very few grape growing regions in the world where original European rootstocks have survived, producing the intense fruit flavor and authentic varietal character of Root: 1 wines. Rich ruby color with aromas of ripe berries and soft plum are followed by tastes of black cherry, soft vanilla and dark chocolate characterize their Cabernet. Artfully accompanies grilled meats, ripe cheeses, Italian and Mediterranean cuisine and chocolate. Try also: Chardonnay.

Most wine is released the year it is ready but Smith-Madrone Winery has an interesting approach, it re-releases its older Rieslings. This year the winery is re-releasing its 2002 Riesling. Why re-release? The winery's founder and General Partner Stuart Smith says they do this because "we love how Rieslings age and develop and we want to give people the opportunity to taste what a moderately aged Riesling is like." He says that Rieslings age just as well as Cabernet Sauvignons and can age for 10, 15 or even 20 years adding depth and tonality to the flavor. The 2002 is available for $60 a bottle with a three bottle limit. If you posses a bit more patience, you can pick up the 2008 for $27 and cellar it yourself for a few years.

The summer season stirs memories of fire pits, charcoal grills and outdoor parties which almost always include barbeque in some fashion. Of course a refreshing beer is often a great partner to grilled fare but many prefer the perfect wine. When it comes to uncommon wine pairings Natalie MacLean, and her website NatDecants.com, offers simple solutions to food and wine conundrums.

Here are Natalie's top choices to pair with your summer barbeque:

1. Canadian or Oregonian Pinot Noir with Planked Salmon
2. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with Grilled Portabello Mushrooms
3. Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon with Shish-kabob Lamb
4. Provençal Rosé with Skewered Chicken
5. Italian Chianti with Marinated Pork Chops
6. Australian Shiraz with Barbequed Spare Ribs
7. Rhðne Valley Syrah with Grilled Pepper Steak
8. Argentine Malbec with Herb-Rubbed Chicken
9. Californian Zinfandel with Grilled Hamburgers
10. German Late Harvest Riesling (or Spätlese Riesling) with Roasted Marshmallows

The gallery below offers a single selection for each pairing most often highlighting wines with scores of 90 or above. Enjoy!

We've been seeing more and more wine companies considering plastic wine bottles as a greener alternative to glass. The bottles are lighter and 100 percent recyclable. One Australian producer, Wolf Blass creates a line called "Green Label" that uses these lighter bottles. But a new study which was commissioned by the plastic bottle manufacturer Portavin shows that while the bottles might be better for the environment they are not so good for wine over the long haul. While wine stored in plastic or glass taste similar at first, after eight to 12 months the taste changes. The PET bottles let air in, oxidizing the wine. The cheaper, lighter bottles should be used for more inexpensive wine which will be consumed quickly.

These days finding a great wine is as easy as heading to your iPhone or Blackberry. There are apps that offer wine information, ways of tracking your cellar and finding out what wine to drink with what food.

One of the most interesting wine pairing apps comes from noted wine author Natalie MacLean. Her Drinks Matcher from Nat Decants doesn't just tell you whether you should choose white or red wine. Her app is far deeper and lets you either start with the food or with the wine. You've got to love an app that includes pairings for over 200 cheeses and over 100 desserts. Ever wonder what goes best with roasted marshmallows? The answer is a German Late Harvest Riesling.

The app also includes pairings for other drinks including beer, coffee and tea. It also links to the mobile version of her website so you can access wine reviews and other information. Overall there are over 380,000 pairings, with new ones added daily. The app sells for $2.99 for iPhone or BlackBerry.

Two things we love, motorcycles and wine, are together at last.

Famed motorcycle connoisseur Arun Sharma (GM of MotoCorsa) used to describe himself as "not much of a drinker," but repeated trips to Italy on bike business converted him.

CorsaVino is the name of Sharma's new company, which bottles wine from Pacific Northwest vintner Rich Cushman's acclaimed selections (Sharma lives in Oregon). Cushman and Sharma share a passion for motorcycles, and each bottle has a motorcycle theme. They've released four wines, two Columbia Valley Cabernets, a Viognier, and a Syrah, in extremely limited quantities -- one of the cabernets is already sold out. The bottles are a highly reasonable $25-$30, and make a great Father's Day gift for a motorcycle-loving dad.

Visit CorsaVino's to order, and as they say on the website, "Enjoy the fine things in life."

Vinfolio Marketplace is set to go live on July 1, 2009, solving a problem with which many wine collectors struggle. This online platform was designed to make it easier for collectors to put their bottles up for sale, creating a more fluid marketplace for this, um, fluid. Founder Aaron DeMello believes it could become the world's primary spot market for wine.

Currently, the wine sales platform has a virtual inventory – thanks to participants – of nearly 12 million bottles, with a value of approximately $2 billion. Most participants are located in North America. The market inventory will be supplied by more than 53,000 private wine cellars.

DeMello's goal is to create a place where buyers and sellers can come together easily to complete their transactions. The ancillary effect, of course, would be the real-time valuation of different wines, as you see in securities and commodities markets.

Va de Vi is the latest wine from the Gloria Ferrer winery in Sonoma. The new méthode champenoise sparkling wine is a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with a trace of Muscat. The wine has aromas of ripe apple, Asian pear and Bing cherries with flavors of peach, Meyer lemon, fresh berries and vanilla. The cuvée ferments in stainless steel tanks and the spends a year and a half aging on the yeast. It sells for $22.

Nothing says summer like a nice cool glass of something sparkly. Well, now you can make anything bubbly!

The SodaStream is a DIY home carbonating machine with no electrical parts, nothing too tricky or messy, and a small splurge price of around $100. The Fountain Jet Start-Up Kit, with which I had the pleasure of experimenting, is currently on sale for $89.99 (normally $139.99) -- and it's perfect for both you and your dad for Father's Day.

How it works: You get the lightweight Fountain Jet, two BPA-free bottles, and a 110-liter Carbonator which makes approximately 110 liters of seltzer. You can select from a number of flavors for sparkling water, or buy their syrups in all kinds of varieties: cola, diet cola, root beer, orange soda, diet grapefruit, tonic, and more.

You put cold water in the bottle, then the bottle and the Carbonator in the Fountain Jet, and press the button on the top to infuse the water with seltzer. Like sparkling water? You're done. If you want soda pop, you add syrup -- which I can honestly recommend; it truly tastes like root beer, cola, or whatever it says -- and you have soda pop!

Not only is it fun to make yourself, but their syrups have no high-fructose corn syrup or aspartame, and you're also doing the planet a favor by not adding cans and bottles to landfills -- and the servings come out to pennies-per-glass.

So what's luxurious about this? You can use it on anything -- turn your whites and even reds to sparkling cocktails or make the most alcoholic gin and tonic ever (by mixing a little tonic syrup into sparkling gin). Look through the gallery to see, and click here to shop for a SodaStream.

The Santa Rosa Democrat reports from the Auction Napa Valley wine auction this weekend and reveals that the news isn't good. As expected the recession took a chunk out of the charity giving for this annual event. The big live auction event on Saturday night only brought in $4.3 million, less than half of the $10.4 million raised last year, a result that is similar to the Naples auction earlier this year. During the four-day event, Napa Valley Vintners raised $5.7 million for a variety of local charities.

The Santa Rosa Democrat article quotes several bidders who said that they were bidding more conservatively because they had either lost money in the past year or had serious concerns about their ongoing financial health. Bids were also lower because competition was less intense and some may have been concerned about appearing too showy. All of the Auction Napa Valley events were sold out, indicating that people still have interest in this event. Even though they did't spend like they did last year and it sounds like a good time was still had by all.

The Napa Valley Vintners pledged back in 2007 that for the next five years the the auction would distribute a minimum of $5 million a year to the charities including Community Health Clinic Ole, Boys & Girls Clubs and Napa Valley Community Housing.

Think that the ZAP Festival is San Francisco's only varietal fest? There is also the Pinot Days event held in the same place, Fort Mason. The event, which takes place from June 24 to June 28 includes winemaker dinners, focus tastings and more. The big event is the Grand Festival on June 28th which hosts over 220 Producers from California, Oregon, New Zealand and Australia and like the Zinfandel festival offers the chance to compare the different expressions of pinot from a variety of places and producers. The tagline for the event is Serious Wines, Serious Fun, a phrase that embodies the spirit of the food-friendly and sophisticated pinot noir. The main tasting is $50.

Stubbs Winery in Petaluma, California, one of Marin's first organic vineyards, is hosting the Schools for Kabul Second Annual Midsummer Party on June 20. The event includes great food, wine, dancing and an auction to benefit for Schools for Kabul, a student-run fundraising group supporting educational development projects in Afghanistan. The rustic diinner will include a spit-roasted pig and local wines from Stubbs Vineyard, Turley Wine Cellars, Messina Vineyards. The auction lots include wines, classes and gift certificates to great restaurants. Tickets are $60 in advance for the outdoor event.

This year's Auction Napa Valley takes place this weekend and some are wondering what effect the recession will have on the lavish affair. After all, this year's Naples Winter Wine Auction in Naples, Florida over the winter brought in just over $5 million compared around $14 million last year. The 29th annual Auction Napa Valley takes place on the lawn at the beautiful Meadowood Napa Valley and features the usual assortment of fine barrel lots, travel adventures and winemaker dinners but one thing missing will be the celebrity auctioneer. Last year Jay Leno did the duty as host and past emcees included Ryan Seacrest and Dana Carvey. Instead, the Santa Rosa Democrat reports that the event will be "loosely emceed" by wine educator Kevin Zraly.

Auction Napa Valley benefits local health, children's and housing organizations, including Community Health Clinic Ole, Boys & Girls Clubs and Napa Valley Community Housing. Last year it brought in $10.4 million but likely won't hit a number quite that high this year as most people have cut back on both their philanthropy and their pleasure spending.

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With the news today that New Vine Logistics, a Napa, California wine-shipping service has closed up shop, it looks like my long-held dream of having Amazon.com deliver my wine as well as my books may be just a little further away. New Vine Logistics has suspended operations after multiple attempts to raise new financing. Wine Business reports that the eight-year-old company stopped processing new orders last week. The company handled fulfillment for direct orders for around 200 wineries and merchants including some big names such as Beringer and Chateau St. Jean helping them navigate the various state laws regarding alcohol shipments. Because wine shipping policies are determined by the state this is often no easy task. New Vine Logistics had a contract with Amazon.com to work on a way to bring wine shipments to Amazon.com

The Santa Rosa Democrat says that one of the company's creditors, Silicon Valley Bank, arrived at the Napa offices Friday and sent around 100 employees home without pay. Wine is being returned to the vintners who now have to find a new way to get their wines to the customers. The company was one of the biggest in the wine shipping business and as the Wall Street Journal mentions, this does cast doubts on the viability of businesses that provide direct shipping of wine to customers. The Journal says that direct shipping is just a small part of total U.S. wine sales.

UPDATE: Wine Business reports that Inertia Beverage Group is working on a deal with Silicon Valley Bank to acquire its debt position in New Vine and to take over the company's responsibilities.

Unlike the west coast which could host a different wine event everyday, the east coast doesn't have as many opportunities to showcase such a variety of wines without having to fly in cases and cases. Sure, the Finger Lakes region in upstate New York has wonderful wines to taste but the breadth of options is far overshadowed by the large tastings that can easily take place in California. All of that is to say if you live in NYC you don't want to miss this tasting event, The Top of the List Tasting, featuring honored wines from the annual Restaurant Awards conducted by Wine & Spirits Magazine.

On June 2nd at City Winery over 100 vintners will pour wine to expand and please your palate accompanied by food offerings from such restaurants as Milos, The River Cafe, and Convivo along with an oyster bar. Tickets can be purchased in advance online for $75 and there are separate retrospective tastings that you can express your interest for on the event's website...the cost of those isn't clearly stated. The Top of the List Tasting is a great excuse to introduce someone to the wonder of wine or just enjoy an evening out with a great purpose. Who doesn't need to sniff, swirl and savor a little wine on a Tuesday night?

[via Vinography]