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

Newer Harlans since at least 2006 are more elegant and structured, with less overt ripeness. Peak ripeness for Harlan was 1997, in my view. Honestly, I adore the 1993-1996 Harlans that still had a nice chunk of Merlot in them. Same with the Lail until 2002. I little Merlot goes a lonnnnnng way to m...

The largest flaw in the petulant Ms Smeltz's premise of wine enjoyment is that affluence and appreciation are mutually exclusive. As one who is definitely not affluent, it seems to me pretentious to assume that because of the size or value of what one has, that discounts the possibility of using th...

SANTA CLARA VALLEY AND ITS RESOURCES (1896) The Santa Clara Valley Vineyards section starts at page 257. Fun quote from the intro: "It is a fact that a large part of the California wine shipped abroad finds its way back to this country and is sold under a French label." https://books.google.com/book...

Ironstone makes one, which I see at grocery stores for around $11. It's been a long time since I tried one, but it seemed like a nice simple cross between the two parents. A summer sipper with minor interest. Musky character toned down to a good tolerable level, and some gris texture. It seems like ...

Abreu and Araujo-era Eisele wines are worth the tariff. Do you think Araujo's style changed since the takeover? They aren't Araujo, since that family kept their name. Chateau Latour took it over and it's very much their style. They sell more of it in France than the U.S. Very classic, structured, a...

It's on the consumer to seek quality and reward quality, and reject the superficial. Have some self-confidence, listen to your own pleasure, relax. It's funny that a restaurant hub like San Francisco there's a broad demand for high quality. You can't survive with the mediocrity that was the norm dow...

Late Harvest Riesling?

TomHill wrote: ↑
July 2nd, 2020, 12:04 pm
The link to Alpine wines/areas seems a bit of a stretch, though. There's nothing like walking a vnyd and seeing to Dolomitis towering in the distance.
Tom

Yes, quite a few differences, but you can still see why they're good sites to try those grapes.

K Kl@dder wrote: ↑
July 1st, 2020, 4:07 am
Check out Fred Scherrer’s cabs.

That was my first thought. Next is I. Brand. Then look for other good recs from Sonoma, Santa Clara Valley, Monterrey and San Benito Counties.

One word of caution: when you generalize about winemaking and winemakers, you're invariably wrong. There are so many different choices to make, people are going to make different ones and get different results, esp with different grapes! Who knew? Absolutely. And you can figure out what practices m...

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the aroma, but I frequently find a lovely sweet tobacco note in red wines outside of Bordeaux too, like in Brunello, and some Chianti. In my case it is not, to address Mel's point above, a euphemism for leafy/stemmy, but very much like a sweet pipe or rolling tobacco. Us...

Some retailers, wineries and wine clubs deliver locally. Moreso now, such as Ridge, since they have a large number of local customers who would normally pick up. They operate that out of their Saratoga office. K&L does scheduled deliveries, with the fee varying by proximity zone and order size (enou...

Russ, It's been my habit to look for wines I'm interested once. Almost always Sunday night, sometimes Monday. I'm sure that's true of many regular customers. I'd suggest if you do a late add to get them in before some deadline, then send out some opt-in email reminder linking us to just the late add...

I think there are probably several compounds at play, and that to some extent different people are talking about different things here. I only get what I think of as tobacco or cigar box notes on Loire Cab Franc if it's old or Rougeard. To put it another way, I don't get it in any young Loire CF (t...

Oak does contain pyrazine. With all the variables of source, drying, cooperage, it's not a surprise some barrels impart significant pyrazine while others don't. I tried looking for such information, but couldn't find any. Do you have any sources for this? I can imagine green parts of oak could cont...

I did a Google search on this, and several sources mention the sweet tobacco leaf note may be just pyrazine character and more from just Cabernet Sauvignon not achieving full ripeness. If that's the case, why do I not pick it up with CA cabernet in which the winemaker isn't picking to make super ri...

I've never seen a funnel filter "spray" wine. I'm trying to imagine how that is even possible. The wine shot out sideways out of 4 spouts, hitting the sides of the decanter. A lot of pressure from not that much volume. Not so different in appearance than how commercial bottling line fillers spray w...

I only like to do this if a cork crumbles a lot and ends up in the bottle. For sediment you can usually just pour slowly and/or decant. If it's stirred up a lot then the stuff that will not settle out in a couple minutes probably isn't big enough for you to notice anyway. If you're worried, don't d...

The argument in favor of screening. 1) A few times we've had wines with our tasting group that were dramatically different - much better - from the later pours. This is where bottles have been stood, then carefully poured into all the glasses without bringing the bottle upright. Maybe that was from...

I love that cigar box and tobacco leaf complexity. I’d be disappointed if it disappeared completely due to ML in barrel being done everywhere. But Brian’s 2016 Cantemerle was showing it. Maybe at too young an age for pyrazines to do the aging magic? Did that wine do ML in barrel? If so there must b...

A friend swears by using muslin cloth for a sediment filter. I use the metal screen filter like Victor mentions, but it does not get the finer sediments out. I once had a wine decanted by cheese cloth at a restaurant and thought it changed the character of the wine, so never again. Cloth and paper ...

Some wines have some pretty nasty stuff around the sediment, where you really need to decant to avoid. You should be able to find discussions here about it. Most typical (but not 100%, I have a '64 counter-example) with very mature Barolo. I've had it with a '68 CA Cab that got jostled, settled for ...

Italy is so exciting these days. There's a lot of fantastic, singular wines at daily drinker prices. (Oh, get a copy of "Native Wine Grapes of Italy" by Ian d'Agata!) Italy is fascinating and a bit daunting to navigate IMHO. I agree there's a revolution in quality and "unusual" native grapes. I've ...

If it was mostly the barrel, wouldn’t we have this note in just about every red wine made, at least those that see oak? It get your point if the note was cigar box, but what about tobacco leaf? I read Mel and Wes to be saying that some barrels are more conducive to this than others. Yes, Wes’ posts...

There's a huge amount of disruption. Restaurants are purging their inventory for cash flow. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some retailers who've lost sales, and therefore wouldn't be buying for that same reason. More often, I'd expect sales to have shifted, so a retailer doing fine sales-wise ...

Pyrazines. With the right barrel treatment they are able to transform from bell pepper to tobacco. (That transformation can also happen in bottle over an extended time, but not necessarily.) Of course pyrazines are a factor of canopy management, or sometimes a very cool site like Chaine d'Or Vyd in ...

Interesting conversation! Marcus - your PN's I can say I'm not tired of. Nor Ceritas, Patricia Green or Kelley Fox. They have a racy, acidic, lean style to them that invokes in my mind what a good European PN should taste like. Tomas Costa gave me a recommend for Alicante that I now bought and will...

Wine is as diverse, exciting, compelling, soulful and so forth as music. "What is the meaning of your music hobby?" That's an absurd question. After we're born and take our first breaths, what is the meaning of our breathing hobby? Please don't be defensive trying to devalue it. You're scratching t...

I have gotten this question many times over the years but twice in the past week. My normal advice is, "Don't. Having to earn money from it is a good way to ruin the fun." For the last two, I said, "Well, they'll be competing with thousands of out of work restaurant wine directors and sommeliers, s...

Could it transfer to cork and then the wine? It won't get into the wine, but it sure can migrate (as the wiki notes). Get rid of the contaminated material. Imagine taking a bottle to a restaurant and noticing that awful smell coming from the bottle.....and your hand from touching the bottle. Imagin...

Wine is as diverse, exciting, compelling, soulful and so forth as music. "What is the meaning of your music hobby?" That's an absurd question. After we're born and take our first breaths, what is the meaning of our breathing hobby?

Holy moley! I looked at mine by producer and Ridge is #1 at 12%.

'06 Alesia Syrah Fairview Ranch '06 Stefania CS Uvas Creek Vyd '09 Harrington PN Wiley '76 Calera Zin Essence '76 Ridge Monte Bello Cab-Merlot '08 Stefania PN SCM (Woodruff, undisclosed) '05 McHenry PN Estate '79 Martin Ray CS Howell Mtn '10 Harrington Nebbiolo Paso Robles '86 Ridge Monte Bello I do...

Plenty of fine ideas on this thread. But my cure for regional/varietal exhaustion is Italy. Unbelievable variety and lots of tremendous value everywhere. A fairly large country with so many different wines, almost all food friendly. Imagine driving around the US and every restaurant served some loc...

Larry Stein wrote: ↑
June 23rd, 2020, 2:23 pm
Bummer. I'd love to taste it. They're releasing a Falanghina to the US market?

Eric said they made one last year. Not sure how much - probably too little for ATP. That would mean tasting room and direct order, or possibly a member-only offering.

California Pinot is like if every region of France made Pinot. Plus amateurism and cynicism. But, out of that massive sea of over-hyped mediocrity are quite a few excellent ones. The suggestion of (mostly Spanish ;-) ) "Rhone" grapes hits me sort of like "So, you're tired of American cheese? Have yo...

I'm fairly sure the Pinot is just for the Japanese market. The Falanghina, on the other hand...

What is political about a discussion about someone resigning from an organization because of the mishandling and obfuscation of an internal issue and a questionable commitment to diversity? "Questionable commitment to diversity" is wholly political; that statement carries a ton of assumptions (and ...

Anton D wrote: ↑
June 22nd, 2020, 8:30 am
Actually the Bible commands us to sometimes boycott wine:

Ephesians 5:18: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with spirits."

Blessed be the spit bucket, for it lays at the left hand of The Lord.

Mel Knox wrote: ↑
June 21st, 2020, 3:55 pm
Anton,
This is a big issue for many ,esp in Europe. However, if you refill the bottles with water, you can use them for power lifting.

I'm convinced the really big bottles weigh the same with or without liquid in them.

Denial of service attack? I'd recommend looking at unusual big buyers who may have benefited.

I was there to play. It cost me a couple snipe opportunities, but may also have saved a couple winning bids I had. It surely cost sellers.

I read this earlier in the week and tried to understand the seeming amalgam of the two issues that vex Mr. Betts: the invalidated exam and lack of diversity on the court. Can anyone knowledgeable tell me if the issues are related? My interpretation was that, in his view, both of those issues highli...

Heh. You could put all sorts of effort and money into introducing stuff, but there's no guarantee they would survive, compete or make a difference at another site. Better, would just be fostering a healthy ecosystem in which a complex array of beneficial microbes can thrive. Just like you want a he...

More than that, now. Some of the microbes on a grape's surface may interact with the ripening grape and influence the creation of compounds or precursor compounds. The population on a grape's surface are competing and cooperating, the make-up adapting to the ever-changing conditions. So, you have b...

I think there is a difference between supporting Trump and willfully destroying the environment for financial gain. The latter is a cold business decision. They gain more by destroying the environment than the fine costs them, so they do it. Rhys is not the only winery to do this and I wouldn't buy...

Marcus or William...any thoughts on the conversion rate of modern yeasts versus older/native yeasts causing at least some of the increase in alcohols? Assuming vignerons want to make lower alcohol wines, do yeasts hinder them much? I don't think that's so important, especially as even producers tha...

Andy, don’t hold back. Say what you really think. Send it as a PM if you like. Just say it. "ALL lives matter." This will be my last post on this topic, then back wine. I am definitely no racist. The lives of black persons do matter. I am heartsick about the plight of many black Americans. However,...

Years before this forum existed, way back when people actually used the Wine Spectator Forum, there was a "Who can I Boycott???" threat, where someone was infuriated by anti-shipping laws. There were a bunch of like-minded frustrated responses from other users, including a couple calling out the usu...

Does Cupertino, CA count? Ridge Vineyards is in Cupertino, so... I assume you're really talking about down here in the valley, like 15-20 minutes from some world-class estate wineries, with others just a bit further. Great food scene. Great wine scene. Urban wineries and other wine regions in every...

I'd appreciate a copy/paste to the thread if that's not too political; posting without comment seems to be information rather than politics. I would be surprised if it's much beyond a basic statement of alignment. I was going to, but I deleted it and can't find it in any email trash cans. I don't t...

Search found 3858 matches