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

I’ve had great luck w/ Coravin ... I purge the needle before insertion, I don’t leave the needle in that long (not because of any specific direction but IMO just stands to reason that the cork will “snap back” both better and faster if the needle is out as quickly as possible) and I always use the s...

I’ve had more hits than misses with WA this year, but tonight I have a definite miss. 2016 Canonica y Ceretto Chianti Classico could be a ringer for a very modern Napa cab. I’ve never tasted so much new French oak on a Chianti. Big, sweet vanilla oak completely obscured everything else that might b...

It wasn’t my intention to throw shade either. I know Winebid to be a legit operation as a buyer and a seller. I was simply stating that as a matter of preference, I would rather buy such a wine from an individual who may have a more detailed provenance history than is often provided with online auct...

Please PM if interested in selling your allocation this year (at cost, ships direct to me) - thanks!

Seems that the Ringer = Bryant’s Pritchard Hill fruit My personal view on the sources for these wines: Ringer -- Bryant Family Commission -- Bryant Family but winemaker is Fayard (per release) Yesterday Oakville -- Bond Matriarch Yesterday Howell -- Dana Estates, Hershey Vineyard, VASO label but wi...

Now that I’m moving to Florida, I’m considering moving on from Domaine due to high cost and mediocre (at best) customer service. Currently I use them because they’re 2 hours from my house in VA and are the closest “serious” wine storage facility. Do any dedicated wine storage facilities check all th...

It’s not so much that TCA reacts with other compounds (it is present in vanishingly small quantities compared to some odorants), but rather that it actually affects your nose’s ability to smell other things. Which is why corked wines often seem muted, even if they don’t smell overtly of TCA. The se...

I had never heard of this bottling. Just saw it on WineBid today and my jaw dropped. It’s not my preference to buy such a bottle from WineBid. I’d rather buy from a WB’er who can tell me more about the provenance than “stored in temperature controlled cellar” or similar. there's a certain cost incl...

Mich@el Ch@ng wrote: ↑January 19th, 2021, 1:23 pm There’s one listing on wine searcher

Had not seen that ... at that price, the bottle had better be pristine (with a great story of provenance) and that one is ~mid shoulder with no listed provenance.

TimF wrote: ↑January 19th, 2021, 12:56 pm I had never heard of this bottling. Just saw it on WineBid today and my jaw dropped.

It’s not my preference to buy such a bottle from WineBid. I’d rather buy from a WB’er who can tell me more about the provenance than “stored in temperature controlled cellar” or similar.

I know this one is hard to find, but have had some luck finding other unicorns here, so why not ... If you have a bottle (or more) you'd be interested in moving, please let me know. Will want to know all relevant details as to provenance (dating back as far as possible), storage, fill, etc. Can do c...

Is it possible to still buy from K&L and have a third party shipper send the wines to WA? Per a thread on the cellartracker forums, they will no longer use third party shippers either. Curious what this means for sales tax on purchases. It’s my understanding that in a scenario where I enlist a ...

Quick peek tells me point values are around 0.5c/ea to 0.75c/ea in most cases. Let’s call it 0.67c for the sake of easy math. So sign up bonus is 75-85k (worth roughly $500-550) + 2 Grassl Glasses. Maybe around $600 or so of value in the sign up bonus. Then BD 6x and normally 3x points on wine purch...

Kinsman is already on a waitlist I believe I’d get on it ASAP ... One of the 16’s just got 100 from Galloni (along with being a top 10 or 20 or something wine of the year for 2020), and that list isn’t going to get any shorter. I got on the list shortly after tasting a Sleeping Lady ‘16 I got in a ...

Argon is a noble gas, meaning it has very low chemical reactivity. I've never heard of issues with argon specifically muting the flavors or aromas of wine. Sometimes people use the coravin incorrectly, for instance by not purging the needle of oxygen before they puncture the cork. If you do it that...

Also, colder temperatures are more difficult to maintain humidity I'm not following that. As the air cools, it has a harder time absorbing the existing humidity, so you reach 100%. I had that problem in a friend's very damp passive cellar. Normally a standard air conditioner would dehumidify a spac...

Luckily I have (most of) the original boxes for my Glasvin glasses, but I have about 2 dozen mixed Zalto/GGG with no protection. The moving boxes from Lowe’s + glass packs are basically cardboard dividers with foam sleeves for glasses. I packed my universal Riedels in there because 1) I don’t really...

RE: the choice of 55 degrees ... isn’t 55F also the temperature at which the pressure inside the bottle/headspace neither exerts outward OR inward forces on the cork? I would think that in terms of maintaining a proper seal, the most advantageous temperature (all else equal) would be the one that do...

30 years old Cali and not mountain fruit to me = follow in the glass unless tons of CT reviews tell you it needs to soften. A glass is just a small decanter if you have time...

American and French Bordeaux style wines, American and French Syrah-based wines and Champagne probably represents 75%+ of my cellar. I’m working on building my collection of older (‘65-‘95) Napa which is bringing me a lot of drinking pleasure these days. The rest is mostly Pinot, Chard (again, both ...

I completely agree that investing in decent glasses now is worth every dime you’ll spend on them and then some. Also agree with other posters that you need to decide if you want to now/eventually have multiple different glass types for different styles of wine or if you want to stick with a universa...

Latkes and Champagne is a yearly favorite for me.

Just looks oxidized. I think you've just been lucky previously to never have encountered a wine like this. Which is going to be hard for OP to prove should have been obvious when it was purchased at auction. Auction house may well claim it oxidized in OP’s cellar after purchase (and to be clear, th...

I’m looking into this unit for a temporary housing situation of about 2 years before moving into our home with a dedicated cellar. What would the mechanics of selling this beast look like? Would one need to disassemble and re-build? Do the construction materials lend themselves to being rebuilt? I’m...

Constellation owns Mondavi. The Grand Cru of Napa is To Kalon ... https://www.winespectator.com/video/play/id/0190Hcuv/title/Napa%27s+Grand+Cru+Vineyard+for+Cabernet%3A+Beckstoffer+To+Kalon From Mondavi's own site: 'the To Kalon Vineyard was named ‘Vineyard of the Year’ by the California State Farm...

When I read this I thought about Inglenook. Maybe Grgich Hills too... BV is another option I didn’t think of but does fit.

Holdings would paint a distorted picture. I buy and drink tons of Bojo all year, but as a *collector,* I primarily collect California (older the better), so my holdings will skew USA something like 75+%, but consumption is probably more like 40% France, 40% USA and 20% Italy/Argentina/Chile/Spain/Au...

HK auction provenance during the height of the Rudy era + a seller proactively offering a discount below market both set off alarm bells for me. Assuming these bottles are authentic, any auction house would love to have them. [Seemingly] Not wanting a professional authenticator to take a close look ...

To the OP, I think it's of critical importance that you narrow down your style preferences dramatically. While I haven't had a lot of these wines I think you'd be hard pressed to think that Beringer Private Reserve Chardonnay or Martinelli are remotely similar in style to Rhys or Kutch. The last ti...

I usually do a traditional decant (visually) then filter the dregs through a 300 mesh filter into a separate glass. Why 300 mesh? Because the particle size that can get through 300 mesh is too small for humans to see - so that means I’d miss it visually anyway, and particles of that size probably a...

I usually do a traditional decant (visually) then filter the dregs through a 300 mesh filter into a separate glass. Why 300 mesh? Because the particle size that can get through 300 mesh is too small for humans to see - so that means I’d miss it visually anyway, and particles of that size probably al...

I love old California and was prepared to spend pretty big yesterday given provenance and some unicorns — as well as the winery recorked examples as I’m a drinker, not an investor and wouldn’t have to explain re-corking to anyone. I was involved on the Ridge Eisele bidding, but it got to an absurd p...

Was at Watercolor Wine world last night. Great dinner, but not a great wine selection. Pretty overpriced, nothing of note. Funny - almost ate there earlier this week when we were in town to look at houses ... ended up doing takeout from Perfect Pig. We ate at Wine World a good bit when we were “liv...

cafe 30a, cuvee 30a, pescado for view, shades for sports bar, Terraces (thurs, Fri and Sat only), paradis, Big Bad Breakfast, Back Beach BBQ are some decent food spots. Wine is another story. If it's decent, it's very expensive. Most everywhere will allow corkage. no Known storage facilities. We ar...

Offer on house accepted, and just like Frank Constanza, we’re moving in lock stock and barrel to Inlet Beach, FL (not quite Del Boca Vista, but what is?). What do I need to know from WBers who may live in the area ... any offline tasting groups, restaurants with good wine service and corkage policie...

Not knowing what kind of mean streets you may actually live on, my guess is that it was more likely mis-delivered by human error than stolen. I’ve had ~5/6 packages in the last 9 months delivered to our house mistakenly and never had a single one in the 5 years before that in our neighborhood. I’ve ...

Also a birth year for me ... If your budget is a soft $1k (like $100-200 above is OK), you could get him a Margaux, LLC and Pichon Lalande (all of which I’ve had and all were exceptional) for your budget and both 1) have a wow first growth bottle AND 2) mitigate the risk of a bad bottle while giving...

I have a local unit that’s 3x5 and full height. I use a pair of these on wheels: https://www.costco.com/trinity-ecostorage-5-tier-wire-shelving-rack-with-wheels-%2c-36%22-x-18%22-x-72%22-nsf%2c-chrome-color.product.11541206.html Lay flat wine boxes or OWCs stacked 2 high per shelf and everything is ...

Interesting now that they’ve posted the lots, a lot of the Cali stuff from Phelps seems to have been recorked by wineries. Any thoughts on whether this is a good or bad thing from an auction value perspective? I would think that anything that makes the bottle “non-original” in any way wouldn’t be go...

2-4 days: Silicone "cork" 2-4 weeks: Repour 2-4 months: Coravin Anything else and I just start to feel like I'm pushing my luck. I would probably transfer into smaller tasting bottles with something super special, but honestly if it's *that* special, it's not making it past night 1 anyway!...

Christian Becker wrote: ↑December 3rd, 2020, 8:46 pm Where are you located ?

Virginia, though most of the wine listed is located at Domaine’s DC storage facility.

Would a $100 USDA Prime Ribeye taste just as good on a paper plate balancing on your lap at a backyard bbq as it would at a white tablecloth steakhouse? In theory, yes. But food and wine is experiential, and I find the same to hold with stemware. If I’m drinking Coors Light and watching football, dr...

Posted before and got some fun offers and made some great trades. Looking for 2010 and before, and even better if you have 70s-90s with good provenance. Looking for wines across all price points (as you can see from what I have posted as available), with a general skew toward higher end bottles -- a...

I've also noticed that W-S either lags real time or just lists the opening bid which further distorts the price difference between "list" price and actual price paid. That said, I usually just hide auctions if I'm trying to get a sense for whether a retail price is good or not. As an aside...

It takes up a lot of space in the DW, but I angle the glasses like so. Then I just make sure nothing is within 1 “peg” of the stems (and if I’m washing >2, that they’re at least 1 peg from each other) and I’ve never had an issue. Regular (non-delicate) cycle with heated dry and they come out crystal...

I think the 2018 basically has to be Harlan if the description is accurate. $1500 is roughly the price you’ll see Harlan sold for at the retailers that get an allocation (thought it’s about 50% higher than even the high mailing list price). Even Dalla Valle’s MDV (only made in 13, 16 and now 18) doe...

I don't know if they have a winery to visit, but Pilcrow is smaller and enjoyable for me. More red fruit and acidity than a huge super fruit bomb of black fruit and oak. Kinsman Eades also comes to mind, but their wine is harder to acquire. Cost of land/fruit being what it is in Napa, I don't know t...

The weekend often offers either an opportunity or an excuse to open pricier bottles, and I always look forward to the right hand side of CellarTracker ("Community Notes on My Wines") on Monday morning when tasting notes from the weekend have been updated. It looks like this weekend in part...

Have been a big supporter of these glasses and thought I’d do a side by side with a Zalto Bordeaux and new Glasvin Expression (went in hard and got 16 for whenever we’re back allowed to entertain again...). The wine I picked was a 2017 “The Bard” by Realm which has been open for 2 days and re-corked...

Almost went in for those Riedel stems but then remembered someone mentioning the absurd shipping costs on those (thank you for the heads up on that btw). Can prob find some good glass deals with free shipping btwn Cyber Monday / year end sales Per stem price on David’s Glasvins are barely more with...

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