The kaleidoscope of quality wine in market channels at any given time serves as decoy and easy distraction from the simple truth of Bordeaux’s classic performance and superior drinking experience. My cellared claret sits ignored and unmoved for long stretches of time while I uncork wines with age-worthiness generating far less confidence. The second flight of 2000 […]
Blind Tasting Series Report Part 1: Viognier
After a several year hiatus, a successful season of reincarnation has passed for the blind tasting series and wine enthusiast group that I am pleased to regale monthly at my home. Each tasting requires hours of preparation including wine acquisition, printed line ups, tasting agendas, room set, food and bread supply, wine prep, glassware provisioning, […]
Chenin Heaven from Vouvray’s Bernard Fouquet and Domaine des Aubuisieres’ 2008 Les Girardieres
Bernard Fouquet is an accomplished and quality Vouvray producer, focused on Chenin Blanc across 25 hectares and and seven vineyards that make up Domaine des Aubuisieres’ fruit sources. All of unique character and terroir, they split into two primary soil types including clay/limestone or clay/flint. His portfolio includes soil specific blends and vineyard specific bottlings. On […]
Languedoc Tasting: Expressive Wines and Multiple Styles
Some things about the Languedoc just don’t seem very French at all. Frontier lands, Spanish culinary influence, Gypsy lore, uncontrolled wine production, and more. In a recent visit to the edge of the region’s northwest Mediterannean shoreline, Camargue, we reveled in almost unlimited sightings of wild white horse and pink flamingo from the comfort of […]
Sherry Tasting: A Fortified Wine Spectrum and Two Shining Stars
There are no Sherry tastings to be found in a twenty-plus-year search of tasting events lingering historically in my personal Outlook calendar. That was until this past weekend when I had the chance to taste a full range of styles at a Dale Cruse hosted Sherry and Tapas onslaught including Fino, Manzanilla, Oloroso, Amontillado, […]
Clos de la Roilette: Age Worthy Gamay from Fleurie
An Easter ham dinner set the legitimate stage for tasting one of several newly acquired bottles of Coudert’s 2008 Clos de la Roilette from Louis/Dressner Selections. Tinged with intrigue and mystery, the vineyard was originally classified Moulin-a-Vent before Fleurie was declared into existence back in the ’20s, causing an angered owner to spite France’s wine market by […]
Leonetti Cellars Merlot Vertical Tasting: Proves Ageability and Quality
In the late 1980’s before the Walla Walla Valley appellation blossomed into more than 100 wineries farming over 1,800 acres of vineyards in a particularly dry region blessed with extended growing seasons, pioneers Gary Figgins and Rick Small slipped onto my developing list of world class winemakers. I made sure their releases beat regular paths […]
Special Wine Alert: 2008 Brewer-Clifton Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir
Tonight, a couple of colleagues and I hosted dinner at Sushi Den in Denver for Chris Mygatt, President of Coldwell Banker Residential in Colorado. Chris was a great dinner companion, and shared some of the really progressive activities he has been orchestrating in concert with the 1100 Colorado Coldwell agents. It is possible to get […]
Bottle Age Challenge: 1985 Lynch Bages vs. 1985 Chateau Montelena
I opened two $20 wines, one from Napa Valley and one from Bordeaux’s Paulliac appellation, for a few remaining tasters hanging around after our challenging 2007 Southern Rhone tasting. Don’t let the retail values throw you; price tags are acquisition costs for the 1985 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1985 Lynch Bages that I […]
2004 Dumol Syrah: A Country Club Wine?
American country clubs and their wine lists are simpatico; boring, nondescript bottles of wine punctuated by a few “has been”, overpriced, tired Cabernet and Chardonnay brands served up to a homogeneous pool of status-subscribing members willing to pay for social standing. Apologies for these harshly extreme generalizations, but my memory banks were recently refreshed at a […]
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