Here's one from Uncorked's Better Mousetrap department, and we get to taste a couple of lovely little wines while we're at it.

This happens to me all the time. You too? “I had this terrific wine at dinner the other night, but I can't remember what it was…” someone says. Do you remember the name? No. Grape variety? Country of origin? Look of the label? No, no, and no. My routine suggestion is next time, just scribble it down on a piece of paper. Then I end up guilty of the same omission. What was that fantastic little white blend that went so well with the crab cakes?

Now the people at Australia's Yalumba winery have done it for us, with an ingenious little tear-away memo thingy for all us memory-challenged wine lovers. A new vintage of the Y series wines has arrived in town, two of them focusing on viognier, the everybody-wants-some grape of the past couple of years (and into the foreseeable future).

The Viognier 2005 ($17.99) helped slake our thirst during the long, dry spell that was the Oscars the other night: refreshing, with an easy softness (precisely the sort of thing I like in a Viognier and don't always find), a little bit of lush lemon, and some subtle spice flavours. In short, it's state-of-the-art Viognier, all wonderfully mellowed together in the bottle. This one I like better than the previous vintage from the same label. When you get some, serve it cool, but maybe not quite as cold as you usually serve your whites—it's quite a subtle little number.

The other is a Shiraz Viognier, also 2005 ($17.99). The label talks about the “proven synergy” of blending the big, bold red grape with a little splash of the soft, mellow white wine (or to use Yalumba's language: “the complexity and power of Shiraz with the aromatics and subtlety of Viognier”).

Well, it's nothing too new—quite a few producers in Australia and South Africa are doing it to various percentages and with varying degrees of success. This one works beautifully. No one is giving away the ratio of Viognier to Shiraz but it's absolutely spot-on, showing a lovely, ripe plum-juice softness with a little hint of spice, rich and absolutely delicious. It's one that may well end up in the best-of-the-year box come December. I wouldn't wait that long, though—get some now, keep it on hand, lay some down, it'll just get better for another three, four years.

But enough about the wine. The label, front and back, is what really caught my attention. First of all there's a bright, bold redesign, with a vineyard dog front and centre. It's clean and easy to read. Now turn it over and look at the back. There's a little pull-tab incorporated right into the label, which reads: “To remember—peel here.” And that's just what you do. The tab comes off easily, and there you have it: a little reminder of the wine you've just enjoyed. It's about one centimetre by half that, and can easily be tucked away in a wallet.

Next time you get to the LDB store, you'll have your reminder in hand. This is especially useful when you're standing, blank-faced, in front of shelves of all those other Aussie wines.

There isn't much that comes along that's truly new and improved—the screw cap being about the most recent one. This is by no means on that level, but it is a clever concept and I'm all for clever concepts. Look for it on the Y series of wines from Yalumba. There's also a Cabernet Sauvignon in town, if that's your tipple, same price.

And now a couple from the back yard…

Penticton's Hillside Estate is the only winery in the province that makes a Muscat Ottonel, at least to my knowledge, so it doesn't do them any big favours if I tell you it's the best in the book. But even stacking it alongside other MOs tasted in the past, from other parts of the wine world—particularly Alsace—it more than holds its own.

This is the “real upstart muscat” variety, to borrow wine expert Jancis Robinson's term; bred in the Loire in the middle of the 18th century, most likely having chasselas as one parent and some sort of lesser muscat as the other, it hit its stride in Alsace shortly after that. There, it seems to have reached its apotheosis.

Some South African wineries produce it as Muscadel, and if you ever get your hands on a Romanian model, from Transylvania, hold on tight and let it relax in the cellar for a few years before cracking the cork.

Paramount to an appreciation of the Hillside version is a love of slightly sweeter wines. The current vintage is 2005 ($19.95 in ambitious private wine stores or at the winery), and it is floral and very aromatic. But the surprise comes when it hits the tongue: it really isn't sweet at all, at least not by Muscat standards. It shows an intriguing, gently bitter edge with some apricot flavours and a little clover and honey, but for all that, it's a delicious light wine.

Once we get some warmer weather, it would make a fine Alsatian-style Gewürztraminer - Cup—with cucumber peel and lemon and a splash of marc (a French cousin of grappa)—and it would do lovely service for the first picnic of the season. Five bucks less per bottle would be nice, but when you've got the only game in town, you can call the shots. I'll be paying it anyway, because it really is a lovely wine. I imagine quantities are limited, so don't dawdle.

Two dollars less and you've got a bottle of Hillside's Cabernet Merlot 2003, another Meritage-style wine from the region; this one comprises Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Nice and fat and full and fresh compared with other Meritages from the area, it's a very good buy for the price.