One-dimensional wines are boring, but complex ones are pricey. This riesling manages to be neither.

One of the characteristics associated with prestige wines is known in the trade as “complexity.” While the term can sound pretentious to the average drinker, it captures a fundamental truth about what people find desirable in an alcoholic beverage. In much the same way that a plot with no twists makes for a boring film, a one-dimensional wine with no complexity makes for a boring drink. One-dimensional wines are those that have one main sensory thrust with no balancing component, as with wines that are sticky sweet with no balancing acidity or red wines that are bitter and tannic without balancing fruitiness.

This sweet-tart wine from Oregon has enough layers of complexity to outperform many of its peers flavor-wise. It also acquires that complexity in an interesting way.

There are two main paths a winemaker can take in creating a wine that has complexity. One is to grow your grapes in a truly special vineyard where the precise combination of terrain, microclimate, and soil composition known as terroir produces fruit whose flavors contain some internal contradictions once fermented into wine. This is a laborious and expensive proposition where the goal is to produce wines that are not simply light or heavy, sweet or dry, fruity or oaky, but instead manage to contain multitudes.

The other way to achieve multidimensional results is through skillful fruit selection and blending, which is the secret behind this affordable wine’s harmonious complexity. It may be made with 100% riesling, but its vintners aimed for as much diversity in that fruit as possible. The wine’s vineyard sources span the full stretch of Oregon’s coastal valleys, from the Willamette Valley in the north to the Rogue Valley in the south, including a mix of both younger and older vines. Within those vineyards, fruit is picked in different batches at different times to capture both the electric zing of underripe grapes and the liqueur-like opulence of late-harvest fruit to flesh out and complexify those of standard ripeness. Once blended, the wine offers both richness and refreshment in equal measure. Succulent dessertlike flavors of lemon curd and muskmelon sorbet are balanced with drier components — bracing hints of fresh lime, mint tea, and just a thread of stony minerality.

Oregon, 12% ABV

PLCB Item #87013 — on sale for $16.99 through Feb. 1 (regularly $19.99)

Also available at: Total Wine & More in Claymont, Del. ($14.99; totalwine.com), Moorestown Super Buy Rite in Moorestown ($15.39; moorestownbuyrite.com), WineWorks in Marlton ($15.98; wineworksonline.com)