Blends rock, as this week’s Liquid Assets presumably makes clear. Below this post you’ll find my favorite whites, and here are the reds:

There are great options in the under-$15 realm no matter what your palate favors. Two widely available blends that tend toward the more acidic Old World style are the La Vieille Ferme from the Rhone region of France (made with grenanche and syrah) and the Falesco Vitiano Umbria from Italy (cabernet, merlot and sangiovese).

Also from France, the Languedoc to be exact, Plantation 1905 proves that 23 grapes are not too many; not surprisingly, I guess, it tastes “grapier” than most other wines and has a layered finish.

For those who tend toward more fruit-forward wines, three swell oines from California in the $8-$12 range are the robust, jammy Marietta Old Vine (zinfandel, petite sirah, carignane, gamay, syrah and cabernet), the spicy, dark-berry-laden Folie a Deux Menage a Trois (zin, merlot and cab), and the full-bodied, fulfilling Cline Oakley 5 Reds (merlot, alicante bouschet, zinfandel, mourvedre and sangiovese).

California blends tend to fall in one of three categories:

Bordeaux-based: Often labeled Meritage or Claret, these admixtures generally are cab-heavy and wallet-unfriendly. You can have Opus One; I’ll take the Steltzner Claret or St. Superys “Elu” for one-third-to one-half the price. (In general, there’s more value in Washington blends such as L’Ecole 41, Col Solare and Bookwalter.)

Zin-based: Duckhorn’s Paraduxx, the Marietta Angelli Cuvee. Orin Swift’s “The Prisoner” and  Robert Biale’s Zappa provide a good bit of bang – and a LOT of jam – for the buck in the $25-$50 range

Syrah-based: Shafer’s Relentless and Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel are quite simply two of the tastiest, most interesting wines coming out of California, in my view,

Syrah is also a part of what I consider the best red blends going, the Chateauneuf-du-Papes of the Rhone region. Alas, the prices on these puppies have tripled in the alst 10-12 years, but they still are more reliable buys than most wines in their price range ($50-$100). Clos des Papes, Chateau Beaucastel, Le Vieux Donjon, Vieux Telegraphe, Domaine de la Vieille Julienne and  Bosquet des Papes.

And hey, if you’ve got the bucks, the “Super Tuscan” meshing of cab, merlot and sangiovese is beautifully embodied in the likes of Sassicaia, Ornellaia and Tignorello. Spectacular stuff, that.

I love blends, as this week’s Liquid Assets hopefully makes clear. Here are some of my recent favorites on the white side (reds posted tomorrow), working up the price scale:

From Italy, the Primo Amore “Juliet” ($8, made with garganega and moscato) is a crisp, effervescent delight, like Sprite with a bit of alcohol and almost too quaffable. At some point Le Poule Blanche ($10; chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and viognier) will be a Wine of the Week, but I hate waiting to share the good news about a great bargain. A fabulous bouquet foretells the plush, complex flavors, which in turn belie the price point.

That wine is not to be confused with another tasty French blend with a chicken on the label, Le Vieille Ferme ($8-$10, grenache blanc, bourboulenc, ugni blanc and rousanne). Or another critter-labeled offering from South Africa, the light and lively Goats Do Roam ($10; chenin blanc, clairette blanc and riesling)

The Hedges CMS ($10-$12, chardonnay, marsanne and sauvignon blanc) provides a lot of oomph for the price. Those grapes are not often blended — which is even more true for the Rosemount Traminer Riesling 2008 ($10; gewurztraminer and riesling), but this offering is a clean and pleasant danger, in that it’s easy to guzzle.

Two other fabulous wines that have the grapes in their names are the Amano Fiano-Greco Puglia ($14), a splendid, minerally and citrusy delight from southern Italy, and the Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier ($14), in which the floral and fruit aspects of both grapes, grown most famously in France, mesh for a distinctive tropical delight. Those who might not be familiar with, or crazy about, any of those four grapes should check these puppies out.

My first wine of the Week was the Zuani Vigne ($22; friulano, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio), a stone-cold knockout from Friuli, wonderful without food and even better (and amazingly versatile) with it. Another Mediterranean delight is the smooth, melon-y Do Ferreiro “Rebisaca” Rias Baixas ($22; albarino and traixadura).

The lip-smacking complexity of those two wines reminds me a bit of a longtime favorite, the Conundrum ($25, less at sales). This five-grape amalgam (sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and muscat canelli, with small doses of sémillon and viognier) bounces between lush and lean and has been one of my Thanksgiving staples for a while, playing off the wildly ranging dishes splendidly.

There are some superb options at higher price points as well, including three from California. I love love love the rich, harmonious Au Bon Climat “Hildegard”  ($35; pinot gris, pinot blanc and aligote) and the spunky, rustic Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel  ($40; rousanne, Grenache blanc and picpoul blanc).And if you’re in a restaurant that carries the Turley “White Coat” (prices vary wildly; marsanne, rousanne and viognier), do yourself a favor and order a bottle.

It’s all about the Twin Cities today:

 *Either my head or my liver would explode were I to try to attend all of the great wine-soaked events that pop up at this time of year.Aside from several stellar happenings that I wrote about here, (scroll down to second half of the posting), there’s a Fair Trade chocolate and wine event this Friday at one of the Twin Towns’ coolest venues, Minneapolis’ Old Arizona Theater & Café. Minneapolis-based Etica’s wines will be poured; call 612-871-0050 for more info.

Meanwhile, under-new-ownership Forepaugh’s is starting a series of regular dinners in the refitted Victorian mansion it calls home.

I strongly recommend the event on Oct. 27, for two reasons: the spectacular wines of La Spinetta from Tuscany and Piedmont and the evening’s host, the ever-droll and ever-wise Lou Spector. The restaurant also has slated a sake dinner on Nov. 7 and a meal featuring the tatsty wines of Gemtree Vineyards in Australia’s McLaren Vale region on Nov. 12. Call 612-978-8241.

And why are these events suddenly so prevalent? Well, I recently learned a wine-biz acronym: OND. It connotes that 40 percent of wine is sold in October, November and December, so that’s wine sales reps are at their busiest and winery poobahs are hottong the road to promote their products.

 *Speaking of gifted promoters, the indefatigable Galen Struwe reports two bits of good news for his Sacre Bleu wines: The Sacre Bleu pinot noir is now available at Haskell’s, and he has forged a partnership with Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promotion company, to have Sacre Bleu wines poured at Live Nation venues.

 The Sacre Bleu wines are made in France, but Struwe and his mates conceived the idea here in Tundraland and import and promote the brand with a focus on younger wine drinkers.

As usual, I wasn’t able to work in everything in today’s story on harvest day at Saint Croix Vineyards. Some interesting (to me, at least) material that didn’t make the cut:

 *Peter Hemstad and Paul Quast started the winery in 1992. Paul was friends with Chris Aamodt and had worked at Aamodt’s Apple Farm as a kid. The Aamodts had a bit of extra land and space in their buildings. Their farm had opened to the public in 1948 and was immediately popular, but the average purchase went down, basically from bushels to bags, so they had “extra storage and cooler capacity,” Peter said.

*There were only three wineries in Minnesota at the time, Peter said; now there are 27.

*In Peter’s job with the Univeristy of Minnesota’s grape-deveoping and -growing program, he had naturally developed an interest in winemaking. “I made a lot of wine but little batches, 5-gallon carboys and 1-gallon jugs.” But he had another motivation: “There were a lot of naysayers at that time, people who would come out [to the Arboretum] for tours and say ‘no one can make a good wine here.’ ”

*Both men intend to keep their day jobs — Paul’s a corporate attorney — for a decade or so. But they love the winery work. Paul said that when talking to friends inquiring on the romanticism of owning a winery, “I tell ‘em that they’re right, that there are a lot of fun, really intriguing aspects to it. But you can’t be afraid of hard work … It’s more work than I expected, but if you’re enjoying what you’re doing, hard work is fun to take on.”

*They love the location, a few miles east of Stillwater. Peter explains: “It’s a really a nice topography, a glacial river valley. It has good air drainage, which is critical to have some way for cold air to slide off. The colder air settles 50 feet downhill. The No. 1 factor is to be on high ground … If we could start from scratch in the whole state, I don’t know that I could do better than here.”

*They make a wine from the Delaware grape, which used to be the most popular in the state back in the 1890s. A lot of it was grown near Lake Minnetonka, Peter said, and Vine Hill Road got its name from those vineyards.

*Oh, and the wines themselves. Besides the Raspberry Infusion, I liked the medium-sweet Seyval Blanc, the enticing Vignoles and the Beaujolais-like “Summer Red.” The Marachel Foch was the best rendition of that wine I’ve tasted, rustic and flavorful. I’m still not a fan of frontenac as a varietal, but the Frontenac Port (not available at present) was delicious, smooth and richly textured.

Saturday’s Food & Wine Rendezvous was one of the best wine events I’ve attended in the Twin Cities. (And the food was none too shabby as well.) The array of wines was fantastic, and the logistics were spot-on. I learned a little and re-learned a lot. Among the day’s “lessons”:

The 2006 Burgundies are somewhere between quaffable and transcendent. No, they’re not as profound as the ’05s, but man are they tasty. All of the reds from negotiant Nicholas Potel were showing beautifully, including the Chambolle Musigny ($67) and Volnay (a steal at $53). Two whites from Olivier Leflaive,  Meursault Vieuils ($61) and Puligny Montrahet ($67), were delicious as well. Local wine savant Annette Peters nailed it as we sipped Potel’s fabulous Beaune ($61), and it sounds like a marketing line, except that it’s true: The ’06s are the ones we’re gonna drink — and throroughly enjoy — while we wait for the ’05s

Argentina is indeed a player in the high-end red world. A dozen years ago, a friend turned me on to Trapiche Malbec, and I’ve been a fan since. But I’d never sampled Trapiche’s single-vineyard offerings until yesterday. Wow. The hard part was deciding which of the two $61 bottles to buy, and after (too) much research, I opted for the Olive over the Orellana. Yum. 

The 20th anniversary of Meritage is being feted nicely. Bordeaux blends from California started bearing that name (which rhymes with “heritage,” btw) two decades ago, and they’re here to stay, even if not all such wines bear that name. Two longtime favorites, the Flora Springs Trilogy ($65) and the Treana Red ($55), were as tasty as ever. And two newbies (for me) were quite impressive: the Opolo Rhapsody ($45) and the spectacular St. Supery Elu ($74)

Merlots rock, when the winemaker knows what he or she is doing. At the Hall table, the pourer actually proffered the pricier cab before the merlot $32), as the latter was deeper and richer. The $28 merlot was one of many swell wines at the Tamarack table, a further indication that Washington is a great home for that varietal (and syrah, and cab, and …). And the lush, deeply structured Stag’s Leap merlot ($52) was one of the Wines of the Day. 

White Chateauneuf-du-Papes are as underappreciated now as the reds were 15 years ago. Now we only have to hope that they don’t skyrocket in price the way their rouge siblings have. Not that they’re inexpensive: the absolute delicious, deeply layered Chateau Beaucastel being poured at the tasting retails for around $50. And not a whole lot of white CDPs get here (if you’re ever anywhere where the La Nerthe is available, pounce on it). A great option that’s more readily available is Tablas Creek’s Esprit de Beaucastel ($37), from a fabulous central California winery partly owned by the same family that owns Beaucastel.

I’m going to Forepaugh’s ASAP. There was good noshing food and stupendous chocolate spread throughout the tent, but the revelation was the perfectly prepared lamb prosciutto and some kind of cucumber thingie from this revamped restaurant. Word, is, the atmosphere in the old Victorian mansion is better than ever.

A sure sign of autumn: The calendar is packed with seriously swell food-and-wine events, starting with Saturday’s Great Mississippi River Wine and Dine Rendezvous.The following weekend will bring to town a wine expert with Midwestern sensibilities. Doug Frost is a Kansas City-based author who was only the second person ever to pass the requisite tests to become a Master Sommelier and a Master of Wine. But don’t look for Frost to be donning a monocle or waving around his pinky finger, as he’s a practical sort with a far-from-snobbish approach to wine.

All of the proceeds (including the staff’s work time) will go to Smile Network International, a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides life-altering reconstructive surgeries to impoverished children and young adults around the world. To purchase tickets call 612-377-1800.