It was deja vu all over again at W.A. Frost this afternoon. For the second time in just over 24 hurs, someone I trust mightily in the wine trade presented something new and exciting for my consideration. Same wine both times.

It was easy to see why they were so pumped. The wine is delicious, with layers of pear and citrus flavors, fresh and vibrant through and through. As summer wines and versatile food matches go, nigh onto perfect.

But what had all three of us really geeking out — and I don’t think I’m mischaracterizing Bill Summerville, Chuck Kanski or myself with the G-word — is the wine’s provenance. It’s a white tempranillo, made from Spain’s most prominent red grape, the source of most Riojas and other Iberian delights. In other words, a blanc de noir table wine, made from the flesh with no skin contact.

Summerville has made the wine, Pagodel Vicario Blanco de Tempranillo, the first bottle listed (at $33) on his fabulous list at the new Sea Change restaurant at the Guthrie. Retail is about $20, and Kanski’s Solo Vino already has it in stock; the Cellars and other stores should have it on their shelves soon.

This is a wine for everyone, not just those of us for whom the G-word is appropos.

I’m having a space-cadet kind of week (OK, not a totally uncommon occurrence, to be sure).

I meant to do a blog post Wednesday to call attention to an article  in the Home & Garden section. It appeared there rather than in Taste because it was about collecting, and they have regular features on that theme. I figured — and have since had confirmed — that a lot of wine folks don’t always look at our Home & Garden section and missed the package.

I interviewed three women wine collectors, who are much less of a rare breed than they used to be. It’s interesting stuff because I tried to get out of the way and let these women tell their own stories. Among the cool quotes that didn’t make it in there:

Lynne Alpert: “Margaux I find interesting but I don’t find it to be great.  I’m also not that crazy about Cheval Blanc. … A lot of the memorable times were these encounters with quirky winemakers, Jacques Reynaud [of Chateau Rayas] and Joe Heitz.  I also had an opportunity to have lunch at the café with Angelo Gaja. … The one winery that I wish I had collected was Henri Jayer.”

Nancy Norling: “My next dream, I want to become a wine goddess like Heidi Barrett or Helen Turley or Mia Klein of Dalla Valle.”

Diane Rucker: “We started off [sampling wines that were] mostly French, because we had the theory that French wine was good wine. We found that that actually wasn’t something we liked at the time. So we switched to Australia, and that worked really well for new wines to try. That gave us more of a ‘here’s the fruit, do you like it or not?’ Then we moved to California.”

OK, I’m having a really crummy week, accuracy-wise. The gruner veltliner post below originally contained my second sloppy error of the week. (I had referred to Castle Rocke as Chimney Rock in today’s column.)

Anyway, I had written that the two wines were available only at Surdyk’s. Wrong. Both gruners, for example, can be found at Bacchus Wine & Spirits in Shoreview (one of the north metro’s very best wine stores).

The Ecker, meanwhile, also is sold at Chicago-Lake, Ken & Norm’s and South Lyndale in Minneapolis; Solo Vino, Thomas Liquors and the Wine Thief in St. Paul; Haskell’s and Star Liquors in Plymouth; the Wine Shop in Minnetonka, Tournament Liquors in Blaine, On the Rocks in Hugo, Rum River in Anoka, Spirits of Nisswa and MGMs in Bloomington and Vadnais Heights.

… in a wine’s flavor profile, there’ll be my wife/way better half, moaning like Homer Simpson at a doughnut factory.

I mentioned awhile back that since she had quit smoking last August — happy near-anniversary, darlin’! — she had developed a real ardor for smoke-laden wines, mostly syrahs.

Well, she just took a swig of the 2006 Meek Family Estate syrah, from a winery owend by the Twin Cities’ own Michael Meek, and came up with a descriptor that would serve Robert Parker quite well:

“Essence of Marlboro.”

We’re starting to see more gruner veltliners on local shelves, and that’s never a bad thing. My Wine of the Week is a fantabulous bubbly made mostly with gruner. This varietal is also the subject of Eric Asimov’s roundup in Wednesday’s New York Times.

These two both come from importer Michael Skurnick (meaning they’re selected by the estimable Terry Theise): 

Ecker Weinland Gruner 2007 ($13 for a one-liter bottle with a screwcup that strongly resembles a quart of beer): Light, lean and bone-dry, this summer refresher is that rare wine that could handle veggies such as asparagus.

Hiedler Loss Kamptal Gruner Veltliner 2008 ($15) : Very minerally, almost pucker-y in the mouth before some lush fruit kicks in, this wine has the slate-like texture for which certain gruners are known.

The winner: The Hiedler, if you like having some fruit come to the fore at some point. Which I do, American heathen that I be.

It’s folly to try to keep up with all the latest wine Web fodder, but a few items of local note just popped up:

*One of the cool things about working at a wine store is that it generally means sampling a lot of juice. Mike Johnson at Sorella Wine & Spirits is taking advantage of that in a very 2009 manner: tweeting tasting notes (try saying that five times real fast). Check out his 140-character-or-less blurbs here. As he told me in an email yesterday “It’s interesting to see the variety of wines a shop like this actually tastes through.”

*Meanwhile, locally based Sacre Bleu has a vibrant, sexy new website up and going. The youth-oriented operation catches the eye immediately with a salacious photo of France’s most buzz-infested wine figure of the moment, the erstwhile Miss France 2004. She lost her title after posing for Playboy but has gained some respect in the wine world, including a mention from the Wine Spectator (which has a considerably more sedate photo of Mlle. Laetitia Bleger).

*Finally, John Skupny, who went to high school here during a peripatetic youth, gets a well-deserved shout-out  for his wines from Alder Yarrow, perhaps the most respected reviewer in the blogosphere. John’s a wonderful guy, and his Lang & Reed cab francs are seriously yummy. Cool label, too.