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A recent dinner out with friends visiting from LA included the following wines: 2006 CHAMPAGNE de VENOGE LOUIS XV BRUT ROSE- I’ve seen this very unusual shaped bottle on shelves in wine shops a few times and often wondered what was in the bottle and could it merit the high price tag affixed to it? ...

Kris Patten wrote: ↑
October 12th, 2019, 9:01 am
Thanks for notes Blake. Having sold Sette Ponti for years I'd have trouble arguing with someone if the told me they'd prefer to have 3 Crognolo vs. 1 Oreno, the little guy is so good.

I'd go for that deal as well Kris.

Our dinner group returned to one of our favorite local restaurants, Olio e Limone for another fabulous evening of fine wine, superb cuisine and revered fellowship. Olio is as good as any Italian restaurants in the world IMHO and I’ve dined at many top notch ones across the globe. And, they keep gett...

Our lunch group enjoyed another fine luncheon at The Santa Barbara Club with a wine theme of world wide Merlot. Most were decanted. Chef Humberto prepared a much appreciated special menu to compliment the wines: First Course Mushroom Bisque Second Course Tournedos Rossini with truffle-potato puree, ...

jeffruggels wrote: ↑
October 7th, 2019, 7:45 pm
Blake -

thanks for sharing notes. Just purchased some MONTEE de TONNERRI based on your note, sounds right up my alley and a very attractive price. Heres hoping i wish i purchased more!

Jeff,I trust your bottles will be as good as the one we had. Please post notes.

M. Meer wrote: ↑
October 6th, 2019, 2:16 pm
Olio e Limone, YUM!
Must have been a blast

And just today, I get the invite for our next wine dinner group`s outing next Tuesday at......... drum roll.........
Olio e Limone.

I really enjoy the Bruno Giacosa Arneis. What's your opinion on Carizze? Worth the tariff? I had a long discussion with a tasting group recently about this classification of Prosecco. Some really like the style and think its lightness / freshness goes unmatched while others prefer other sparkling w...

Good write up, BB. I'm familiar with the M-C Concordance, as I have had about 1/2 dozen of them. I've struggled with the Concordance a few times, although the most recent bottle of it was much better than a few that preceded it. The Resonance and for sure, the Eloquence bottlings, are far better. H...

Three buddies went out for dinner to celebrate our friendship and enjoy some fine Italian food and wine. We drank a little of a lot: NV VILLA SANDI VIGNA LA RIVETTA PROSECCO di VALDOBBIADEN di CARTIZZE BRUT- this Italian sparkler was crisp and refreshing and a good place to start the evening; on the...

Clendenen and Tolmach started ABC with very little. As late as 1985 producing vineyards in this area could be had for $5000 an acre ... sometimes less. I d have to work on this more carefully but I think you could start a wine project for less than $200K The secret is in selling wine quickly Quite ...

2) I have a memory [in the last few years] of reading about someone who was trying to grow grapes again out on Santa Cruz Island - I have a strong feeling that there was a thread about it here at Wine Berserkers - but my Google-Fu doesn't seem to be up to the task of finding that old thread. PS: Is...

BTW, Michael and Richard Sanford were more in the hippy mode than anything else during this stage of their lives and did not have much more other than a lot of passion and heart. Money, not so much. I have a couple of wines they made in the 70s that I`ll share with Richard when the occasion arises, ...

Interesting article, Blake. Thanks for posting it. I was puzzled by one thing, though: Putting two and two together, Benedict developed a model for an ideal vineyard environment with the marine layer influence. Armed with that information, he set off on a mission: to find a similar environment in w...

Great article

https://fortune.com/longform/sanford-an ... alifornia/

During. a recent trip to NW Arkansas to visit some dear fiends, we had some pretty stellar in home dinners with fabulous food and wines. On one of the evenings, we drank a couple of special Cabernets, both decanted shortly before pouring: 2000 STAG`S LEAP WINE CELLAR S.L.V. CABERNET SAUVIGNON NAPA- ...

I am generally a fan, but we opened a bottle of the 07 the other night, and an overwhelming skunky smell met my nose. It sort of blew off, but I have to say we finished the bottle out of duty rather than enjoyment. Never had that experience in any CdC including many 07`s and have to think that was ...

alan weinberg wrote: ↑
September 28th, 2019, 9:10 am
. . . count me as a “wait on eight” Tait lover.

+1 as with many other 08`s especially Cristal.

2007 Taittinger Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne - France, Champagne (9/28/2019) A fresh nose of white peach, green melon, aniseed and citrus blossom. It is compact in the mouth and acidity whilst present has a relative softness. It is creamy with bakery notes and finishes with go...

Happy you had a great bottle. Love the 96` Salon and evidently have had good fortune in opening only stellar bottles, early on and more recently. Over 5 years ago, I held a Grandes Marques champagne event and we had 2 of them in addition to many other great ones including DPs, CdCs, Krugs, SWCs and ...

CJ Beazley wrote: ↑
September 23rd, 2019, 1:40 pm
Great notes as always BB, but why does the beautiful lady have to sit in the corner, what gives?

Her choice; usually she's not bashful about sitting in the middle of the guys and we normally have 2-3 ladies.

Thanks for these notes! Interesting about the 2000 Beaucastel. I’ve had it a number of times and it has always been Brett-free, the the point of me even nostalgic for a little touch. As I said, this probably was a bottle variation as I`ve had plenty of this wine over the years and since the days of...

Thanks for the notes, the Rhone is our favorite so it's always nice to see how stuff progresses. It's interesting, based solely on the descriptions in your notes I'd imagine my regular group would probably have the order of preference reversed from yours! I probably should not include the group vot...

2007 FERAUD-BRUNEL COTES du RHONE VILLAGES RASTEAUX- Grenache blend; this wine comes from a collaborative effort by Laurence Féraud {Les Cailloux} and André Brunel {Pegau} of Châteauneuf-du- Pape; The other way round please: Laurence Féraud {Pegau} and André Brunel {Les Cailloux} Dyslexic sentence-...

Our monthly blind tasting group met at one of our member`s home to enjoy another stellar night of fellowship and learning how to be humble and realize there’s much to learn by sampling wines blind. That is especially true for wines that we may be familiar with or have decided is our stylistic prefer...

As a fond appreciator of all things Pinot Noir, I found this toast and just had to share it with you all: He who has wealth and Pinot Noir will always have friends The human heart rejoices in good Pinot Noir May your love be like great Pinot Noir, and grow stronger as it grows older You can have too...

Blake, great notes on another great night of friendship! here's my take on some of the wines: bubbles . . . 2008 Roederer Rose : alive with bushels of expressive strawberries, a savory core, and a lovely finish of anise and rose; vibrant and joyous, wonderful way to start the night whites . . . 201...

I held a small grower tete du cuvee catered rooftop event a few weeks ago and served some righteous caviar for the first appetiuzer. There was 1 tin leftover so it was obvious, another event had to be planned to share this fine caviar and so it came to be. We entertained 2 other couples on our rooft...

Blake, You should try the 2017 Schloss Gobelsburg GV Lamm if you enjoyed the Renner. It is also Erste Lage or first growth. I had this for dinner last night. Incredible Gruner Veltliner. To me very few make better than Schloss Gobelsburg. Nice notes above. Thanks! I`m on the hunt Don. Thanks for th...

I`m amazed by how many folks are familiar with this producer/ label. To the best of my knowledge, this was my first exposure and I've had a few opportunities over a few decades. Here's to more discoveries of superb gems.

Schloss Gobelsburg's wines have managed to wow me basically every time I have tasted them. Already from the entry level, they are remarkably impressive upon release, but they continue to improve wonderfully in the cellar. GV Lamm 2008 at 7-8 years of age still is one of the most astounding white wi...

Five members of our dinner group convened at one of Santa Barbara’s best Italian restaurants, Olio e Limone Ristorante, to enjoy another fabulous meal along with 7 superb wines. The wines were so good, that all stood out as being stupendous and equally so across the board. It was one of those evenin...

Loved these tasting notes, and appreciate you posting pics! These notes were especially fun for me as I've had at least 1/8th of the bottles. Was that Hilliard Bruce's last vintage? Bryan, I do find that they at least produced wines in the 15` and 16` vintages. Here's a link for more info re the pr...

Dennis Atick wrote: ↑
September 9th, 2019, 10:02 am
I have no idea what is going on here.

+1

I was going to recommend any vintage of Domaine Morey-Coffinet Les Pucelles, Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru, but the Dauvissat works beautifully for what you're looking for. Please post TNs after tasting it.

Todd Hamina wrote: ↑
September 9th, 2019, 7:32 pm
Glad you enjoyed the Tribute.

Todd, it was as much a tribute to you as it was for Gary. Love the wine and others you have made.

Sanjay Nandurkar wrote: ↑
September 6th, 2019, 2:42 pm
I had a 2000 CHATEAU PAVIE MACQUIN last week. A bit too smooth and a touch 'glossy'. But a nice drink nevertheless.

Sanjay, I've never had a problem with a wine being "too smooth". Kind of like too smooth in fact. Glossy, not so much.

Anton, Todd and Don, thanks, much appreciated. Great to hear from you Don.

[quote2012 NEWTON UNFILTERED NAPA CHARDONNAY- extremely rich and powerful, this had a touch of toast in the nose and a sense of oil; the taste was more of honeyed, dried, burnt toast peach and apricot with some flint coming in late; I did not know what to make of it as to CA or FR and called it CA;...

Just realized this was a two year old thread that was resurrected, but wanted to chime in that the two bottles of 2011 Forman Chardonnay that I have had in the past year have been outstanding! Similar experience to what Blake described in 2017. Cheers! Steve I too just realised the age of the threa...

Nice to see a note on Clos Saint-Julien. I have a few of the 2006 and I'm enjoying them a great deal. I think cab franc makes up 50% of the blend. Cheers. Agreed. I hesitated to take it since this group is pretty much high end stuff with name recognition awareness, but I wanted to find out where it...

Our blind wine tasting group held another monthly event this time featuring Pinot Noir from California and Oregon. One of our members hosted it at his home and arranged for some very fine Italian food to be catered by one of our best local restaurants. He provided a very nice starter palate prepping...

I bought a case of this at auction and have opened one bottle. I think it is an outstanding champagne and I intend to spread it out one bottle per year for a decade, by which time my palate will be dead. Still young at 13 years old. There's some yeasty depth to it and the dosage is just enough to t...

Laurent Gibet wrote: ↑
September 5th, 2019, 5:53 am
Blake,

I see that you have corrected the Ausone vintage.

You text should also mention "Le Prieuré 2003", not 2013.

Thank you, thank you, I'm obviously not so good at editing typos, auto corrects and misses. I appreciate the corrections.

Andrew Kotowski wrote: ↑
September 4th, 2019, 12:40 pm
You do realize you're sending Blake into total meltdown mode; he's likely checking his calendar on the hour to see if it's October yet.

Hi Andrew, As the ole adage says, "You got that right".

Went to Cafe de Klepel yesterday. Had a wonderful time there. EBEFDAF0-05A4-4887-8348-2CED8C026057.jpeg B3E87C0F-7D2C-4C04-8334-53777EC91AD2.jpeg They have some hidden gems on the cellar. Like a 79 meursault by Ramonet Job not there anymore. He openes his own place now. Nick gave me his new place a...

Our dinner group enjoyed another fabulous evening out, this time dining at Convivo Restaurant & Bar, a self proclaimed novel "Nomad Italian" restaurant. 14 of us enjoyed the fine cuisine and 22 bottles of wines we shared which featured a theme of champagne, white Burgundy and Right Bank Bordeaux. Ou...

As you said, "great lunch"! Question: did you have the 2014 Ceritas PMR or the 2017 you have pictured? With the Ceritas Chardonnays, those 3 years can mean a lot in regards to how it drinks. And in my opinion, the Ceritas Chardonnays are well worth the tariff. Those Roederer vintage roses are aweso...

Nice tasting, Blake! We went to one of the annual K&L Champagne tasting events a few years ago and the 2008 Roederer Brut Rose was one of the standouts. So much so that my wife gave it her highest praise, which was 'buy'. We bought a half dozen and still have a few left. A wonderful champagne! Chee...

BB, great notes as always. I hate to put you on the spot but based on your shortish note, would you consider the Ceritas worth the tarrif? CJ, sorry for the late reply. I did not know this is a $70+ wine and now that I do, I can answer by saying based upon this one time exposure, I don't think it i...

A recent lunch at Ca Dario, one of Santa Barbara`s best Italian restaurants, featured some of the best showing of wines I’ve had at one sitting in some time. This could be appropriately called Wine Appreciation Day, a different spin on celebrating what’s in the bottle, because each and every wine sh...

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