It’s a safe bet that we are not drinking 1990 Saint-Estephe, or for that matter any Bordeaux, at my breakfast table on Sundays at 10:00am. This could be a meaningful oversight, but we just don’t. That loose rule was recently broken with some good friends who produced a bottle of 1990 Chateau Le Terme (which […]
Connecting Intellectual and Palate Learning: Tasting Two Sakes and California Cabernet
An insatiable hunger for discovery and wine education is rewarded every time I taste wines in peer groups. Without the chance to examine lots of wines every day over an extended period, even frequent tastings of one wine per sitting lays down hurdles to thorough assessment most easily cleared via contextual, side-by-side tastings. The most […]
Tasting 1982 Bordeaux: Vieux Chateau Certan and Les Ormes de Pez
Having missed the 1982 Bordeaux futures market bonanza by two regrettable years, any evening I can taste two or more clarets from this historic vintage, side by side along with good people and tasty food, transforms into a trademark “good living” moment. A few weeks ago, my friend Jacques suggested we head over to his house […]
One Enthusiast’s View on Wine as an Investment Vehicle
I always buy wine with an intention to drink it….someday. For me, enjoying wine requires popped corks. Unlike paintings, sculpture, or antiques that can be enjoyed without harming value appreciation or resale opportunities, wine is a consumable whose value remains elusive until it swirls in a glass under nose, eliminating any possibility for future valuation. […]
Questioning the Sensibility of Bordeaux’s New Found Irrelevance
Eric Asimov helped me feel old, out of the loop, and crusty today simply because I prefer Bordeaux. Please do not crucify me en masse, and allow me to cling to a hard earned 51-year-old point of view that many of the world’s finest wines are products of Bordeaux as you join me on a visit […]
Blind Tasting Series Report Part II: 2000 Bordeaux
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 […]
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 […]
Open Offer to Taste My (Malcolm's) 1982 Vieux Chateau Certan
I consider myself “wine fortunate”, acquiring wine and friends over the years that fuel hedonistic and intellectual wine passions. One of those friends is Malcolm. I don’t see Malcolm regularly, yet each year for the last 15 we manage to find opportunities to get really silly and drink ridiculously excellent wine together. It was great to see […]
Perennially Crystal Quail
Regulars know it’s not possible to completely describe the transcendental experience of a Crystal Quail evening. After the ritual pilgramage through the back-est of Center Barnstead, New Hampshire country roads and arriving in the middle of nowhere to find a small 18th century farmhouse glowing in the setting sun just twenty yards uphill of the rear over sized garden whose bounty is being prepped at […]