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Manhattan Beach, which is an ex-funky, now very yuppy beach-front place just south of LAX, has a gem of a wine shop.

Instead of blinding you with regions, varietals or arbitrary categories, they just say:

Crisp – Smooth – Rich – Bubbly – Fruity – Bold – Mellow – Nectar

No wonder they call it “Wine made simple”

But I looked in vain for the “Yech” category.

There must be one – the Wall Street Journal tested 70 under-$20 chardonnays and had 64 of them in the “OK” and “Yech” zones.

They said…….

If we had to sum up the taste, overall, of inexpensive American Chardonnay today, we’d say the single most notable smell and flavor is pineapple, with syrupy sweetness, some acetate or nail-polish remover, far too much alcohol and a bizarre overlay of un-integrated acidity, as though a big sack of industrial-strength acid mixture had been dumped into the tank at the last minute to compensate for the lack of natural acidity (which gives wines life and makes them food-friendly).

If none of that sounds very attractive, well, yep, that’s right.

I think I’ll stick to beer……