In honor of spring, this month’s Virtual Tasting wine is the 2009 Charles Smith Kung Fu Girl Riesling. This wine retails for $12 and is widely available. The tasting takes place tonight from 7-9pm Pacific Time.

What you need to do to participate is:

1. Buy the wine from a local retailer or from the winery

2. Post your comments/tweets on the wine tonight between 7 and 9pm. For those on Twitter, follow me @wawinereport. I will be using the hashtag #WAwine during the event.

Look for regular updates to the blog and comments from virtual tasters starting at 7pm. Hope you’ll join us.

Note: Several earlier references to the wine mentioned the 2008 vintage. The 2009 is the current release.

7:05pm Update: And we’re off. For those on Twitter, we will be using the hashtag #WAwine.

Some background on the idea behind Kung Fu Girl Riesling from a recent Chicago Tribune article. “Who else would be watching the final scenes of Quentin Tarantino‘s ” Kill Bill” with his label designer, Rikke Korff, and start to visualize a riesling bottle emblazoned with a faceless Kung Fu girl in full battle stance?”

To the wine!

7:20 Update: But first, some background. Regarding the Charles Smith label, the website describes it as follows: “…Charles Smith brings you his latest revelation. Charles Smith Wines: The Modernist Project is a response to how people generally consume wine today, that is immediately…as in immediately after being purchased at a market, restaurant or bar, to be drunk straight away. Wine in this category is typically ether simple, or is a wine that would be much better a few years down the road. ‘Modernist Project’ wines are about putting as much into the bottle as possible. The intent is to create wines to be enjoyed now, but with typicity with regards to variety—that is merlot that tastes like merlot—and to the vineyard—wine that tastes like where it was grown. The wines are full of flavor, balanced, and true to their place of origin.”

8:00 Update: Popped and poured this screw cap wine. Very light lemon yellow in color. Some on Twitter were reporting seeing very tiny bubbles on the wine. I did not see any in mine. The nose is marked by a lot of fruit including pear, apple, and melon. The taste is very dry and tart with a blast of acidity. Very enjoyable but the finish comes up a bit short. Needs food to truly show itself.

8:20 Update: The winery describes the wine as follows: ” THIS GIRL IS SERIOUS! Aromatic, smooth, vibrant and tasty. Think tangerine, apricot, wet stone, key lime, clove, and nectarine. Now stop thinking and start drinking…..’CAUSE KUNG FU GIRL KICKS ASS! “

The wine is 100% Riesling from Evergreen Vineyard. This vineyard is located in The Ancient Lakes area of Columbia Valley AVA. The Ancient Lakes area is currently under review to receive it’s own AVA designation.

8:45 Update: From CellarTracker: Average 88.3 pts. and median of 88 pts. in 10 notes.

Final Update: Thanks to all who participated tonight including those folks on Twitter – @nancyfeasts, @heyjenk, @nectarwine, @mykrro, @yakyakwine, @mmwine, @WAWineman, @KSyrah, @Sturat, @artpredator, @clivity, and @tlcolson. Apologies if I missed anyone. We’ll do it all again next month.