Comments at wine tastings are usually fairly decorous, so I was startled to hear a trio of tasters at a recent event exclaiming loudly, “Awful!” “Horrible!” “Atrocious!”

Naturally, I made a beeline for the wine under fire. It turned out to be a Fenn Valley Pinot Grigio 2004 ($10) from, of all places, Michigan, a state which makes me think of cherries, not grapes. I’d just read Lettie Teague’s account in the current Food & Wine of facing “humiliation and scorn” from sommeliers during a month of drinking pinot grigios by the dozens in search of “some truly good wines.” Pinot grigio gets little or no respect from “serious” sippers. As a fellow wine journalist, I was now ready to share her pain.

Surprisingly, this Fenn Valley Pinot Grigio, to my taste, wasn’t a bit bad. In place of inviting fruitiness, it had a bitter nut core, and it was on the thin side. I daresay that Italians lunching at a cafe on the shore of Lake Como would be happy to wash down a squid salad with this wine grown on the shore of Lake Michigan. They might never have noticed that it wasn’t one of their own.

All the wines at the tasting, sponsored by Tasters Guild New York and held at the Shelburne Hotel ballroom, had won gold medals or double gold. But the biggest bonus was that Tasters Guild had ferreted out wines that, like the Fenn Valley, come from places where wine doesn’t normally originate. There was, for example, a lively and beguiling Stone Hill Steinberg White ($7) from Missouri and a Chaddsford Pinot Noir 2004 ($14) from Pennsylvania. One of the best at the tasting was Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Finger Lakes Gewirtztraminer 2004 ($18), mingling pepper and rose-petal aromas and flavors with a very long aftertaste.

Kudos to Tasters Guild New York, headed by Ron Kapon and Vivian Tramontana, for bringing together wines from unbeaten paths.

AMBITIOUS WINE FROM VIRGINIA Strolling up Madison Avenue on a sultry Wednesday two weeks ago, I noticed a flurry of activity within Sherry-Lehman in what should be a dead season at the Upper East Side’s toniest wine shop. Behind the counter, pouring samples of two wines from Kluge Estate in Albemarle County, Virginia, was vintner Patricia Kluge herself. Formerly married to Metromedia billionaire John Kluge, Ms. Kluge must be the richest person ever to be on duty behind that counter. At her 1,900-acre estate down the road from where Thomas Jefferson tried his hand at viticulture, she is sparing nothing to make top-tier wine. Even Bordeaux-based wizard Michel Rolland is among her cadre of consultants.

With a steady hand, Ms. Kluge first poured her bubbly into my plastic cup. This Kluge SP blanc de blancs 2002 ($30), made in the manner of champagne, was well-bred and pleasant enough. I did find myself wondering whether a world already awash in bubbly needs yet another brand. More intriguing was Kluge Estate’s first New World Red ($45), a blend of the estate’s cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and cabernet franc. The Rolland touch was all over this wine. It was beautifully balanced and utterly ripe, with a creamy core of medium dark fruit. This is an excellent approximation of what the British would call “fine claret.” That such a wine can spring fully formed from Virginia soil is startling. While Mr. Rolland’s input properly raises the ante, I do think this New World red could be priced $20 lower.

BARGAIN BURGUNDY Covet fine red and white burgundy but hate to pay the price? Flying home from London any time soon? Super sale prices on impeccable Burgundian bottlings are offered until August 31 by Berry Bros. & Rudd, the venerable London wine merchant, established at 3 St. James’s Street since the 1690s.What makes this promotion doubly interesting is that BBR will deliver your wine “in bond” to one of its four Heathrow Airport shops for pickup free of VAT. Fifty wines are on sale at case prices only. They can be selected and ordered in advance from the shop’s user-friendly Web site, www.bbr.com.

Despite competitive prices at New York wine shops, I doubt that you could find pricing as good as the Meursault 2000, Domaine Michelot at $17.75 a bottle. Or, at the same price, Nuits-St.-Georges 2001, Domaine Jean Chauvenet, or Gevrey-Chambertin, Domaine Lucien Boillot et Fils. The Chambolle-Musigny 2000 from hotshot winemaker Nicolas Potel is priced more like that of a good basic Bourgogne at $20.70.

Berry Bros. & Rudd has tax-free shops at Heathrow terminals 1, 3, and 4, with a new one at Terminal 2 slated for opening this month. While each American citizen can bring home a liter of alcohol duty-free, the excess is subject to customs tax.

WEB DEALS If you’re not passing through Heathrow, how about Scarsdale? The best deals at Zachys can only be found in the Friday e-mail bulletins from shop vice president Andrew McMurray. Last week, for example, a batch of highly rated wines was offered at half-price. Bruno de Montalcino Banfi 1999 was cut to $32.50, Graham Vintage Port 1994 was offered at $62.50, Hermitage Guigal 2001 went for $32.50, Gloria Ferrer Brut NV was a giveaway at $7.50, and the Grgich Hills Estate Grown Napa Valley Fume Blanc 2004, a standard-bearer for this white, was just $13. There’s also the intense, new-wave Allende Rioja 2001 at a never-before-seen $12.50.

Mr. McMurray’s sale prices last only a few days, so you’ll need to jump on the wines you want. To get on his bulletins, e-mail him atamcmurray@zachys.com.

ENCYCLOPEDIC MAGAZINE Wine Spectator’s current number bears an ambitious title: “Encyclopedia of Food.” And it does deliver the goods, providing basic information on all major categories of foods, cooking tools from sifters to screwpulls, and appliances from microwaves to espresso makers. Most useful to the wine buff, however, are the wine-matching tips and counsel scattered throughout. It never occurred to me, for example, that “spaghetti holds less sauce than penne and therefore requires a lighter wine.” Or that “Many spices strip the mouth of saliva, so it’s best to avoid tannic or high-alcohol wines when eating spicy food.” As for corned beef and pastrami, the guide acknowledges that “tradition demands a Dr. Brown’s or Cel-Ray soda, but we flout tradition by opening Champagne.”

Once read or skimmed, most magazines get pitched in the recycling pile in my house. This edition of Wine Spectator, dated September and costing $5.95, is a keeper.