Kabinett

The 1992 vintage of German riesling is the moral equivalent of the film "Pretty Woman."It's fluff. Fun fluff to be sure, but fluff nevertheless. Overall, Germany's 1992 crop resembles a great vintage the way Julia Roberts resembles the typical hooker. This is not necessarily bad. Serious German wine enthusiasts have had their way consistently in recent years. We enjoyed an excellent year in 1989, followed by a bona fide classic in 1990. We found plenty to like about 1988 and the underrated 1991s.

Over the decades, much has been written about fine German wines by some of the finest minds in the business.It's too bad so much of it is nonsense.Consider the words of Hugh Johnson, perhaps our finest living wine writer, on the subjects of German wine and food in the 1974 edition of his book "Wine.""The immediate and most noticeable difference between German and French wines is that German wine tastes weaker. . . ."Wine like this -- delicate in body, fresh and balanced and scented like a garden of flowers -- is a different matter from the savoury and appetizing white wine of, say, Burgundy, which goes so well with food.

Most Americans didn't know anything about Austrian wine until they learned it was toxic.It isn't, of course. For the most part it never was. But for almost a decade Austrian wine might as well have carried a skull and crossbones on the label. To the marketplace it was pure poison.The destruction of the export market for Austrian wines came suddenly in 1985, when a small number of unscrupulous wine shippers were found to have sweetened their wines with diethylene glycol, a coolant used in air conditioners.

Marriages of wine and food are a lot like marriages of men and women. Many are compatible, many are incompatible, but precious few are truly idyllic.Ham is especially challenging to pair up. Every year around Easter it goes around with a kind of a sweetly glazed look. That's not exactly easy for a wine to relate to, but it's not an insurmountable problem.Sensing the calendar creeping up on Easter, we recently decided to play matchmaker for a meat. Armed with a modest wine budget and a 5-pound glazed ham, we spent every night for a week in search of the perfect mate for the traditional Easter main course.

Two days before the big wine-tasting, Terry Theise called with important advice: Go out and buy some Sensodyne toothpaste and start preparing your teeth to play with pain.He should know.Mr. Theise is the country's leading importer of German wine -- only 39 years old, he has tasted his way up the Mosel River and down the Rhine dozens of times.He loves it. German wine is his passion. But even he will admit that tasting 220 young, highly acidic German wines over a two-day period would be a form of torture -- albeit a most exquisite one. Mr. Theise says that before a big round of wine-tasting he starts using the desensitizing toothpaste five days in advance.

Out of some 65 wines tasted in a hunt for the best summertime indulgences, these stood out -- not only as fine wines, but as appropriate for the time of year. Wines are listed in rough order of preference. Some prices are approximate.WHITE WINES* 1992 The Williamsburg Winery Governor's White ($7, Virginia). This wine is the very soul of a summer wine. The two next wines are slightly more complex, but this gave the most exuberant dose of pure unbridled pleasure in the tasting. Electric flavors of honey, peach, pear and melon seem to leap out of this crisp, off-dry wine.

One bad day on the street and Mike Suznevich concludes that there's something wrong with human kindness: Not enough of it to go around. What can I tell you? The guy drives for a living -- he drives mainly sedans-for-hire -- and he hasn't been doing this for very long. "About a month and a half," he says in a New Jersey accent that makes him sound tougher than he really is. Two incidents in one day left Mike smarting from a compound fracture of his faith in mankind.Last Wednesday morning, he stopped the car he drives for On-Time Sedan Service at the corner of Light and Pratt, near the Bell Atlantic building.

As markets shift and currencies fluctuate, the best sources for fine wine at reasonable prices change. The challenge for the consumer is to remain flexible and informed.You don't need to spend four hours a day studying wine magazines. Just remember what you like the most and ask a good retailer to come up with something close in style. You might find something you like even better.These are some of the ways to go in the search for good value. Wines marked with an asterisk (*) represent especially good value for the quality.

Farewell, summer. You certainly sprinted by in a hurry.For sun worshipers and schoolchildren, the first breezes of autumn might be an ill wind. Not so for wine enthusiasts. For us it is the vintage -- the best time of the year.As the summer's heat ebbs, serious wines regain their full appeal. Chardonnays and rieslings hit their stride. Bordeaux and California cabernet sauvignon taste impressive rather than oppressive.For those who keep wine cellars, it's a good time to take stock. Take note of those wines that are fully mature.

Fidelity is a virtue in love and war, but when applied to wine it doesn't make a lick of sense.American wine consumers, particularly those of us who live in major urban areas, are blessed with the widest choice of wines the world has ever known. The shelves of our wine shops are a virtual United Nations of libations. Our choice of varietals stretches from aglianico to zinfandel.Still, incomprehensibly, some wine consumers latch on to one brand, one varietal or one region and cleave to it as faithfully as if it were a spouse.