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

GregT

And in the European Union, a "dry" wine can contain no more than 4 grams of sugar per liter. I must point out that in this you are wrong: there is a special definition in the EU wine law that says a wine can be up to 10 g/l in residual sugar and still labeled as "dry" as long it...

GregT

Raul Perez did this, as did a few others as I recall. The key is that you need to make sure the wine isn't at a level where the exterior pressure is greater than the bottle pressure because you will get saltwater infiltration. Other than that, it's more or less a gimmick. If in fact the temperature ...

GregT

It's the same argument we have trouble with in NEB. Some argue that the greatest Nebbs only come from Barolo/Barbesco. So why try any from Val d'Aosta/Valtelline/AltoPiemonte/ Calif/WashState/Virginia?? Maybe....just maybe...great Nebb can come from those mentioned regions? But those folks will nev...

GregT

That Meinklang is a pretty good wine for the price. There are a lot of people who say that the grape will never make a top notch wine. I don't know if that's true or not but one of the people who told me that was Weninger and he actually made a pretty good one. One of the very best I've had was from...

GregT

Michael David Freakshow Cab 2018 Meiomi Cab 2018 Josh Cellars Bourbon Cab 2018 That's the problem Erika. Those wines are all made to be soft and to appeal to a mass market. Michael-David wines are made from grapes that are picked really ripe and then they may add color. They make the wines to be sof...

GregT

Haven't heard ramify used in a long time. Decent article. Obviously, wine is made somehow. What you want to call it or do with it will be where the arguments lie. Thanks Markus. I can't believe I remembered this from forty years ago! It was a rejoinder to Robert Frost's 'Nothing Gold can Stay' Seed...

GregT

Arv - which Mazuelo? There aren't a lot of them but I've seen a few recently.

GregT

Often laughed about Rioja as a beginners wine driven by sweet oak but I agree with the topic starter, often surprises me and almost always pleases me. And In addition to the above mentioned questions: In order to understand Rioja better, does anyone dare to take a shot in categorizing Rioja in a fe...

GregT

Posted twice.

GregT

Look to the south Rhone. Not Cabs, but more like Daou than a lot of Bordeaux. Although there's a lot of Bordeaux these days that would remind one of ripe CA Cabs. It's been a while since I tasted these, but from some random notes, these would probably work. - Château Valandraud would be a start. - P...

GregT

Looking for wines that show significant graphite under $50? Any suggestions? We can go over by a reasonable amount... Do you mean lead pencil aromas? If so, the characteristic scent of pencils is really the cedar that's used for the pencils, not the lead. Graphite is odorless and its use as a descr...

GregT

You'd like the Cinsault too and I know you'd like the rosés. Next time I see you we're having one. Or two.

GregT

Has anyone else ever suddenly realized that a nice Rioja reserva fills the bill about 80% of the time? I laugh because I routinely spend far more on California and French wines I end up liking a whole lot less! Cheers. champagne.gif Suddenly? No. For about thirty years. And that's why I don't over ...

GregT

Didn't say it was artificial at all. I've visited many dozens over the years on several continents. And a good act or a good story can help sales. People not in the business tend to think that wine makers are spending days tasting wine with fans and hanging out and they forget it's business. They ha...

GregT

WS had a Zoom w Peter Gago today. I just found out a few minutes after it ended. Would have liked to ask him about it.

GregT

And just in from Reuters: Australia's Treasury Wine to overhaul business, sell assets as Chinese tariffs bite Treasury will reorganize into three divisions: Penfolds, Treasury Premium Brands and Treasury Americas. Treasury will sell low priority brands and other assets. The restructuring was unveile...

GregT

Yes but this seems on a grander scale. They make the wine, the label, the website. They purposely create a false sense of scarcity and include that fact in their marketing material to online retailers. Just seems deceptive to me. or at the very least not honest. I'm going to stick to estate grown a...

GregT

Well Larry, I agree with some of the others that it's very likely due to the perception of the taster. Most tasters just aren't that perceptive. If they really know a wine, they should be able to identify it blind with no trouble, just as they identify their friends and families. But most people can...

GregT

Shocked this hasn’t already appeared on the board, or maybe I missed it... I generally agree with Asimov on this topic, so I’m probably an outlier here in that I rarely use vintage in making purchase decisions, leaning much more towards region/producer/varietal. Thoughts? https://www.nytimes.com/20...

GregT

Treasury is sitting on Berringer and Sterling assets which are terribly under performing. So tell the Penfolds guys they can do whatever they want with the fruit and "launch" Penfolds as a California label. As for the pricing, which is silly, they will sell some but not a lot. Maybe they ...

GregT

https://robbreport.com/food-drink/wine/penfolds-california-collection-1234596893/ They cast aside unwritten traditions, combining superior Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley with primo Australian Shiraz to create a new designation, an international blend Penfolds calls “a wine of the world.” They ...

GregT

Nice work Arv. It's amazing that they're consistently able to put out a wine of that quality in the numbers they do.

GregT

I'm storing about 150 bottles in my crawl space. It's at ~8000 ft in Colorado. The temp seems pretty constant around 63-5 (heating pipes run through it), which I understand is on the upper end of the temp range. But the humidity is at ~35%, which is much much lower than anything I've seen recommend...

GregT

Since everyone knows you need to have really old vines to make great wines A lot of people would disagree with this. A vine needs a sufficient root system. That takes a few years and after that, you don't necessarily get additional benefit. It depends on what gets done to the vines. There has been ...

GregT

The Terroir de Granit St. Joe. Not a lot of overt fruit, has a nice spice note and it's pretty tannic for St. Joe. Great job of Syrah.

GregT

Mark Livingston wrote: ↑February 5th, 2021, 7:52 am Not opened yet but I think tonight I will open a 2011 Oremus Tokaji Aszu 3 Puttonyos. First time tryin Oremus so looking forward to it

Enjoy it because they won't be making those any more! Oremus has good vineyards and good wine making.

GregT

They're lamb because Americans stopped eating mutton a while ago, feeling that it's too flavorful. I suppose that may change since people are adventurous these days. But last time I was there we had a lot of Spanish wines. In Spain it's not uncommon to have lamb for lunch. But they pretty much go wi...

GregT

As usual, I agree with Seiber.

GregT

Happy Birthday from us as well! Maker of my wife's all-time favorite rosés! Actually probably mine too. And all around great guy.

GregT

Carrying the logic out to it's conclusion, what is the use of having someone say "I like this wine"? Something 90-95 means the person liked it. If it's 95-100 it means they really liked it. Whether they use words or numbers, the message is the same. If anyone cares what someone else though...

GregT

We have become accustomed to tasting notes of the type ‘Began to open up after two hours but was best after seven.’ This extends even to ‘Best the next day.’ It is my distinct impression from reading older books that this way of drinking wine was unknown until the last few decades. It was understoo...

GregT

So I understand all wines are different, and everyone's taste is subjective, but in general, would you say that the time a wine needs to decant to be drinkable is an indicator of having hit the right aging? Hi Tinah - John beat me to it but I would say that the answer is no. Some wines want no deca...

GregT

Hi everyone, 1- Why is it that rosé typically does not age well past a year or two? As Wes said, it depends on how it's made. Some are made by bleeding off some juice for a red wine to concentrate the red. That means the grapes were picked at optimal ripeness for the red, not for the rosé. Some are...

GregT

Brad Kane wrote: ↑January 12th, 2021, 6:43 am Sad news. He was a fixture at the trade tastings here in the city. A nice guy to chat with. RIP.

And he would carry around a filthy glass because the glasses offered were unpredictable.

The very few times I met him briefly, he came across as a decent and unpretentious guy.

RIP Howard.

GregT

Interesting article - but I'm not sure that wax creates an anti-oxidative environment, anymore so than an aluminum capsules does. I cannot find any information that says so. It would be intersting to have his hypothesis tested - otherwise, this is simply anecdotal at best. Cheers. But a wax is just...

GregT

Miquel - sorry to hear about the winery and thanks for the lesson!

Please post more often.

GregT

What I am pretty sure about is that you won't have a lot of precipitation at 45°F. In Tokaj, the temperatures at Oremus and Royal Tokaj and most of the others is a constant 10°C, or 50 °F. They have wines in there going back decades and the temps don't really change at all, winter or summer. Same in...

GregT

Great timing - I was just thinking about those very wines and thinking we should open a Rioja tonight!

GregT

David Baum wrote: ↑January 7th, 2021, 11:57 am My wine cabinets have metal racks that tear labels all the time. I dont sell em so I dont care but label damage is not always a sign of the storage conditions.

This.

Of course, if one knows how you fling the bottles around when you're looking for the paint cans, one might pause!

GregT

Really unbelievable. To think that he actually stopped to help.

RIP Frank.

GregT

No more. BevMo!, the secretly held wine and spirits retailer situated in California, is the subject of a legal claim that guarantees the organization occupied with a sleight of hand estimating system, attracting clients with costs for wine created during explicit years that were not accessible in i...

GregT

Like many others, never met him but felt I knew him from here. RIP.

GregT

Simon - there are few set rules. In the US an importer is licensed by the federal government but distributors are licensed by the states and it is rare to find a distributor that is licensed by every state. Some states require that a distributor has a warehouse of a certain size, other states don't ...

GregT

Steve Gautier wrote: ↑December 28th, 2020, 4:12 pm
Cris Whetstone wrote: ↑December 28th, 2020, 10:48 am Welcome Cathy!
+1 - Don’t be a stranger.

+2

One of my all time favorite Napa wine makers. And not only the Corison label. Last night we had a York Creek Meritage from 1996, which was just wonderful.

GregT

I gotta agree here with Otto’s general sentiment. How much do you think an importer or a retailer can boost a price of a $40-ish bottle of wine that isn’t Burgundy and get away with it (unless it’s a WS top ten, but that’s a rarity)? It ain’t gonna be $100. Argentina isn’t that hot in US markets. T...

GregT

The article doesn't spell out all of the issues though. Here's the Ohio rule on pricing. They're upset because prices are cheaper elsewhere. That's kind of new to me. Other cases were concerned with the simple act of shipping but here they are more concerned with their price fixing. I feel for you R...

GregT

I love the idea of scratch off labels. If I were Usseglio, I know what I'd do. I'd print all the labels as something like 2000 or 2003 or whatever got 98 or 100 Parker points. I guess 2016 was another one, but those weren't Parker points. Then I'd put the current vintage label over that to be scratc...

GregT

Alan thanks for this thread. It works well and I know because my wife has used your technique for years - not because she's worried about spoilage, but because she washes every single lettuce leaf. She's concerned that I might not be meticulous enough and there might be tiny little bugs on them. Onc...

GregT

I still eat octopus. I've eaten dog and whale in the past. I still eat horse (in Europe) and enjoy it. Of course, everyone is free to do as they wish with their diet for whatever reasons they choose. I have come to the conclusion that if if I am not going to go vegetarian/vegan, I don't see much po...

GregT

It kind of depends on the cut - skirt steak can stand more cooking and blackening than some others IMO. But whatever the cut, screw grill marks. I can't why anyone would care about grill marks. To get them you have to cook your steak wrong. The marks have nothing to do with cooking and everything to...

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