Wine Berserkers - international wine social media, online community, and discussion

GregT

Agreed. But seems like today you have to sell stuff.

GregT

Hey it's smart marketing. You get two top 100 lists! One for whites, one for reds. And then you get the super duper top of the top 100 list - the best off both lists. Not that it really matters. It's almost a random list. Some of the wines are pretty good IMO, some not so much. I guess everyone has ...

GregT

Why leave them wrapped at all?

GregT

The only thing that is certain is that what they were drinking was nothing at all like those made today. One reason is that today they're usually done in stainless steel, which didn't exist then. As Ken mentioned, ours was about 20% skin fermented. That was sort of out of necessity. It's a late rip...

GregT

Like others, I get it through miles or the $2 renewal. And I don't understand the scorn either. Seriously - if people read have the posts on this forum, they read a lot more pretentious drivel than they would in the WS and they would read and find answers to questions just as dumb as those addressed...

GregT

Greg, I’m looking for any advice on what type of racking to buy (ie how many diamonds, how many large format, etc) and how to place what where. I edited my OP to hopefully better clarify. Aha. Diamonds are nice in theory but a pain in reality. They are an efficient way to store bottles if you build...

GregT

Anything is a great replacement for that soap dispenser that nobody ever uses!

This looks like something that's a cute solution to a problem that doesn't exist, i.e. rinsing your glasses.

GregT

Kent - you had two and you're founding a fan club? Easily influenced are we?? Anyhow, I like the stuff. As with most of those ancient grapes, there are a few clones. One is the Flegrei and I can't remember the name of the other, and I think there are a few more. It was almost extinct except for a sm...

GregT

I don't get the question. Normally you'd put the bigger things on the bottom, as well as whole cases. Those are almost the exact same dimensions I had except my door was on wall 2 and the cooler on wall 4. Then I lost a few inches to insulation on all walls since I used extruded poly, and I built sh...

GregT

Why would cork allow for secondary and tertiary character that screw caps wouldn't? If there's some science that can answer the question, you could just engineer the screw cap to mimic those properties. And then manufacture them in the millions. I'm aging some B-H Syrah just to see how it turns out....

GregT

I agree. You're not going to spend hours in there looking at racks are you? Its purely for function, so just get the least expensive. As to mahogany, it's true that a lot of what is sold as mahogany is not really mahogany. However, that doesn't mean it's bad for racking. Most of the tropical hardwoo...

GregT

Brandon - are you talking about tasting notes? I rarely post them but will keep my own records. But I agree with the comments above. For me, Meiomi is most assuredly undrinkable. It's not flawed. It's specifically made to taste like shit. Same with that Mer Soleil.

GregT

She just may have been clueless - it might not have been the policy of the restaurant. But as the others said - you made out. I usually have to tell them that we will be pouring our own wine. You did good!

GregT

But did you detect any naughty bits?

GregT

Agreed. I don't think it's a characteristic of all wines from the state. Some are super oaky, like Quilceda Creek, others not nearly so much.

GregT

That's why I was wondering about the name. Are they still calling it RP's Wine Advocate? Not quite. They're not using the possessive. AFIK it's "Robert Parker Wine Advocate". No punctuation of any kind. Forbes: Michelin Guide becomes sole owner of Robert Parker Wine Advocate and speaks about the pla...

GregT

For me "undrinkable" means undrinkable by me. Same as some of the others have said. Doesn't mean that the wine is flawed in that it's corked, bretty, cooked, etc. Just that the wine tastes like crap to me and I don't want it in my body. And there's a lot of wine like that. Usually it's because the w...

GregT

Question - if you're hosting lots of people frequently, or you sell wine and folks are coming by to taste, I can understand it, but otherwise why put them in a dishwasher at all? When I re-did our kitchen I didn't include a dishwasher and in other places I've lived, I've never actually used them. We...

GregT

That would be the most sensible approach. But then why did they name that brand with four words?

GregT

Yeah but Frank Prial is a perfect example. I didn't know he was still living. He had the clout of the NYT and was a big force, but today who cares? I used to read him. Some of the NYT food writers too, who no longer matter. And Frank Schoonmaker is an even better example, since he was one of the fir...

GregT

Yes!

It's the influencers!

Get out there man and post some hot selfies and stuff on Instagram!

More seriously, and sadly, a lot of people in mountainous and cold regions are noting that they're having warmer vintages more frequently. I've heard it from Spain and Austria as well.

GregT

Max K wrote: ↑
November 23rd, 2019, 8:13 pm
$950 for the gala dinner. $6200 for the all access.

How many people attend and actually pay those prices? Why not just fly over to Piedmont?

GregT

Mel - people who drink wine tend to forget that for the producers, it's a business. And as for those grapefruits, I thought better yield management, crop thinning, canopy adjustment, row orientation, and climate change have contributed to smoother, less tannic, ready to eat grapefruit that finally r...

GregT

But they won't be Calvin Klein who put his name on everything. They would still be making Barolo in the Barolo region. Moreover, by that logic, they should be weeding out the producers who aren't top flight right now. They don't have surplus inventory because all of the unsold wines are superb and w...

GregT

I get the idea of having some history, but the people who know Parker know he's no longer involved and a lot of younger people have no idea who he is/was. How much longer will the Parker name be meaningful? Michelin probably overpaid but they do get a fairly good group and have the resources to turn...

GregT

The entrenched are trying to protect themselves. They may end up with surplus. But it's a dumb move anyway. If a producer feels that "Barolo" is generic enough that some schmuck can come in and compete that easily, then maybe that producer shouldn't be in business himself. And if they're worried abo...

GregT

During the press conference, we will also be unveiling a list of our reviewers’ top ten wine discoveries of the year, highlighting our continued efforts not just to cover famous names and benchmarks, but to tirelessly seek out the new next-big-things and under-the-radar bargains. I don't get the Mi...

GregT

Yep, nutcakes and cheese. I'd probably not serve the eiswein at all. As Doug said, those other wines will be palate destroyers and as I mentioned, they suffer after something like the eiswein. But - you can serve it prior to dinner, with some nibbles. No reason it has to be a dessert wine. Something...

GregT

And as far as lasting longer, both will last longer than either you or the wine. Most homes in the USA are built with pine. If you're worried about mold, why not just put a coat of water-based poly on them? That also makes them much easier to clean if you should ever need to. Please don't say that y...

GregT

Todd F r e n c h wrote: ↑
November 22nd, 2019, 8:00 am
Sincerely hope it isn't 'banned' from the market. American Puritanical b.s. has already gone too far, historically

Except that now the puritanical b.s. isn't necessarily going to come from some religious types as much as the social justice types. Either way, it's still b.s.

GregT

You're not overthinking it but maybe overdoing it. The eiswein is not fortified. It's very syrupy and while I haven't had the 1998, that's almost twenty years ago so it may be picking up some caramel notes to go with the citrus and petrol that those have when young. It is usually extremely low in al...

GregT

Nice idea Jay. I'm no longer on the east coast. I suppose you could probably recruit a number of people from the attorney oenophile group Asher had. Potentially you have a good client base of high net worth individuals though. And are there other such groups in other states? That could create a lobb...

GregT

Cool climate Syrah. Bedrock Griffins Lair. Jaffurs Bien Nacido. I would never put Gigondas in this class. More red fruited. I've certainly had lots of dark-fruited Gigondas. That's what I was thinking too. And given the grapes used and the general weather, unless it's a cold summer, that would seem...

GregT

Blake Gray's article on this deal, including some interesting observations on what drove it: https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2019/11/gallo-swoops-for-napas-pahlmeyer Interesting that they bought the name and not the vineyards. It makes sense if the point is to sell brands without relation to the so...

GregT

It seems like there's some serious bottle variation then. We tried the 1996 Meritage a couple days ago. I expected it to be in better shape than the 1997, which was still pretty youthful. It wasn't. Very mature, not quite dead but not long for the world. Those were the two that Cathy Corison made an...

GregT

Donjon has changed more than the others over the past ten years. Used to be pretty funky and stinky. Not so much any more. These days I'd open any of them. They're all good young. They were never made like old-school Barolo that was tannic and hard for years.

GregT

Both diamonds and cubes are a pain if you have different bottles and different shapes. Try putting a few Rhone shapes and a few Bordeaux shapes and a few extreme Rhone shapes into either a diamond or cube. But they're more efficient than individual slots. If you have the space, go for individual slo...

GregT

Not to mention the big conglomerate French and European companies. I get the idea of helping out the little guy but if a big guy still made great wine, I wouldn't hesitate. My problem with Pahlmeyer is that in the 1990s they were spectacular. Then they got bigger and riper and changed some vineyards...

GregT

Or, perhaps you just don’t wanna start a new thread on something that is minor, inconsequential, or gosh forbid, potentially just plain stupid.

Like this thread?

That's how we get thread drift. Much of what we say is just plain stupid, but some is stupider.

GregT

Question s at hand: Are OWC worth storing? What value do they have? Why do they exist? That's several questions. Worth storing? Only if you plan to sell and someone will pay extra for it. What value? See above. Or you can use them to store flower pots and things. They're not much use otherwise as t...

GregT

First Orin Swift, now Pahlmeyer.

It's always the great ones that are eaten first.

GregT

And who exactly is Rachel Monroe who we are supposed to pay attention to because she's written an article that's a decade late? Doesn't appear to know much about wine but someone agreed to pay her to write about it. She did however, point out the absurdity of some of the twits. The wine editor for B...

GregT

So it doesn't matter if you mix varieties, etc., or reds and whites? Then I'd just go with the kind of stuff the group seems to like. If they like big, get some big Syrah or Zin. Or just some good ones - Carlisle for example. If they like leaner styles, then I'd avoid Cab altogether and get some Syr...

GregT

Doesn't have as much to do with the variety as with the wine making. Especially if you don't drink only monovarietal wine.

At various times, we've decanted Albarino, Verdejo, Chardonnay, Arneis, and Godello.

GregT

Yep. But I do understand the thinking. In NYC, there are no driveways in many neighborhoods because the brownstones were built before cars were invented. So they have alternate side parking days once or twice a week. In my neighborhood it was once a week. Tuesday you couldn't park on the left side a...

GregT

Reading about the Amazon fires and then came across a piece on NPR earlier today, a little bit closer to home: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/18/774859696/wine-moguls-destroy-land-and-pay-small-fines-as-cost-of-business-say-activists But it's not a new issue: https://www.kcet.org/shows...

GregT

So with wine, once you define your parameters, you can determine if it's objectively good or bad. But if you don't define your parameters, the conversation has no point. Defining your parameters is pretty much the definition of subjective. But then what is the definition of objective? The Cambridge...

GregT

Perhaps we should get rid of the toaster analogy quickly. It has a very specific purpose, and toasters either do it well or badly. Everything about the toaster can be broken down, and in the end, I think it is pretty easy to see which is the best. (A little harder with a car though.) On the contrar...

GregT

john stimson wrote: ↑
November 16th, 2019, 5:38 pm
Throw in a penny. If disulfide bonds haven't formed, it will often clean up the wine remarkably.

Is there copper in pennies any more? Of course if you have an Indian Head penny, you're good.

GregT

And "tons of" to describe a large quantity is the language of a four year old.

Now freshness is measured by mass? Can you have a pound or two of freshness? If we have the mass, can we determine it's density? Can freshness have the density of lead?

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