If you like wines from The Rocks, that means you are not averse to, and probably even like, funk. Try Cab Franc from the Loire - Baudry, Breton (esp the Franc de Pied), Guion, Olga Raffault, Thierry Germain/Domaine Roches Neuves, Hureau, or, if you are a big baller, Rougeard. These wines can range from $10 (Guion) to well over $100 (Rougeard).
Loire Cab Franc is an acquired taste, so taste widely before buying in significant quantity. But it is damn good stuff IMO.
Haha definitely not a baller, but I do love the funk! Not too long ago I had a bottle of DOMAINE ANTOINE SANZAY Saumur Champing and really enjoyed it. I did not know anything about it going into it but it was a fun and funky wine!
Nick, youâre going to get a lot of feedback and plenty of avenues to chase cool things. Iâve run your chase and itâs fun, and youâll find some great things (speaking of the French side of things, as I own little Italian still).
From the chase I ran, and where I have landed, I found two things that really excite me:
Champagne. Extra Brut mainly. I buy this all the time, drink it as often, and years back, I didnât own a bottle, although I did own a lot of ignorance about how good this stuff is. You didnât ask for this type of wine but for me, I cannot in good conscience not post this for someone who is asking about French. ![[highfive.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/db21b9263a9105e51f6f8b11e61dd4de095611f9.gif "highfive"){kind=small}
Chenin Blanc. Secs mainly, although some around here will say Demi-Sec is good, and it is for those who like sugar, I do not. Dry chenin blanc can be really powerful, balanced, beautiful.
Cote Rotie. Drinking this stuff when it is on, itâs amazing. But, itâs starting to get expensive so maybe buy a few and try them. Take the plunge on a nice one and then find a soft place to land when you pass out from the sheer pleasure!
Have a fun journey, but watch your wallet and credit cardâŚthe chase can be expensive so build wisely!
My advice is to taste as much as you can before you start throwing down a lot of $ especially in burgundy and Bordeaux. If you like Washington cabs you may find Bordeaux a little lean.
Nick, Iâd go down to Pike and Western and ask for recommendations. Theyâre very nice, have a good old world selection, and I guarantee the wines will be available locally.
Michael
Iâm surprised nobody has pointed out looking at magazines and reading books to get some sense of what you want. Answers can be all over the place, and itâs not about what we want, itâs about you and your palate, not ours. Like others have said, tell us what youâve liked and maybe youâll get better answers.
I am in a position similar to Nickâs. I have a cellar of about 500 California zins (Bedrock, Carlisle, Scherrer, Ridge, Biale, etc.).
But I have decided to not branch out into European wines. As I have noted in these pages previously, I seem to be buying faster than I consume. (No, please donât knock on my door and ask to help with the consumption.) So I have made a carefully-considered decision to stick with what I like, provincial though that may sound.
Look at it this way: if I branch out, one of two things will happen, and both of them are bad: if I branch out and donât like the wine, I will have wasted my precious money. And if I do like the wine, I will have increased the wines that are crying out for me to buy them, and I donât need any more of that.
Inaction is the answer. Pass me the corkscrew.
Phil Jones
Thanks Michael, thats a great idea, when I finally have a free weekend Iâll plan on doing that. Any other shops youâd recommend?
I know it is about what I want, and I will determine that over time, I am just looking for suggestions and what wines you guys like, so I can see what wines to taste and determine just that!
Another option is to friend some folks on Cellar Tracker and see what they have accumulated and continue to add to within your categories. Sometimes I expand my horizons by reading the thread âwhat is YOUR most recent wine purchase?â Then I check CT notes.
So I have made a carefully-considered decision to stick with what I like, provincial though that may sound.
Phillip - that is what most people on this forum do. Itâs not provincial, but IMO it can be limiting. Itâs also why you get the easy dismissal of some wines or types of wines. Itâs not better or worse than exploring widely. And if you only have wine a couple times a week, it may be quite enough adventure anyway.
I know people in France who started out drinking Bordeaux and never moved much beyond that. And people in Greece who stick to the local wines and donât even look at the stuff a few hills over. I think it was more common in the past than it is today when so many wines are so easily available. Remember, the monks in the middle ages werenât tasting every available grape and deciding what would work best in their regions - they just focused on what they had and hoped to avoid the monsters on the other side of the woods.
Branching into the âold worldâ is saying that youâre getting wines from someplace other than the US, but it doesnât mean much otherwise. Thereâs stuff from every country in Europe that tastes like it came from California or Washington and thereâs other stuff that youâre never really going to find in the US, although Iâm increasingly dubious about that.
As others suggested, maybe you can suggest some wines that youâve really liked and ask for similar kinds of things. If you like big, ripe wine with lots of fruit, you might want to look to the more southern parts of Europe but then you might run into something like Aglianico or Bobal, both of which are tannic along the lines of Petite Sirah, and nothing like a Zin.
And then thereâs the fact that something is made from Cab or Merlot may not be so much like the Cab and Merlot youâre used to but something else might be more along the lines of what youâre used to or what you want.
Anyhow, good luck. And donât overlook the opportunity to just randomly pick up some stuff.
Where do you live? Vif in Fremont is a fun shop with a perspective, lots of hipster wines. McCarthy and Schering has a similar selection to Pike and Western, but I think a bit less interesting (and less inviting). I donât go to many other shops in town. If youâre starting out, getting to know a merchant is going to pay more dividends than taking random bottle advice on a wine board.
Michael
+1 on Vif. They have a very interesting, albeit small selection, with things you canât find elsewhere in Seattle. It skews Old World, but they have interesting New World wines that are worth exploring (e.g., Paetra, Bow & Arrow, etc). Sign up for their email newsletter to learn about tastings. They have some interesting winemakers drop in from time to time (e.g., Texier).
Personally I think Bordeaux is a great place to start. I think there are values at all levels of the hierarchy (of course there are some bad values too) and, because theyâre generally high volume and have been collected for years, itâs pretty easy to find well aged examples with good provenance. Also, if you ever have a palate shift, you can sell the wine in a pretty liquid market. For drinking now, vintages like 98, 01 and 04 are all drinking nicely and are not as pricey as the very best vintages. I generally prefer left bank wines but itâs worth looking at examples from different appellations from both banks. Brian suggested a good few to start with - Iâd add Pichon Lalande, Lynch Bages, Pontet Canet and Calon Segur as reliable wines worth laying down.
Champagne definitely shouldnât be forgotten about - theyâre terrific. Burgundy is great - itâs the main region in my cellar. That being said, it takes a lot more time to learn about and explain than I could offer in one post.
Enjoy the journey.
I am on the Eastside. Sounds Vif would be an interesting stop if nothing else! Thank you for the recommendations.
Nick: First, great job asking a massively broad question without overthinking it. And Iâm serious about that. And thank you to all who have replied for replying in good spirit rather than dismissing it as too broad or being snarky. Nick, this is a cool departure, and it sounds like you are potentially style omnivorous as a drinker (at least of reds) so youâll be doing a lot of experimentation. Four thoughts from my perspective:
Hereâs a really important thing that is implied/mentioned above but should be highlighted. Donât find something you like and buy a ton of it. Just buy some here and there. Your palate may change considerably over this process. Iâve made the mistake of loving something, overbuying, and then regretting based on either space or changing taste.
Decide whether you really just want to explore France and Italy or if what you really want to do is just experiment. If you are looking to experiment but just old world, certainly add Spain (tons of regions there for redâŚRioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat among many others). Or if new world (non-US), you may find out that you love Malbec and Mendoza Argentina is your new best friend. Or Carmenere from Chile. Or Tannat from Uruguay. Or whateverâŚ
One specific: Iâm really liking Beaujolais right now, but if on current vintages know going in that 2015 is notably riper than most vintages, and an outlier. A better judge for classic Beaujolais in a good year is 2014 so for purposes of knowing whether you will like it down the road, 2014 will be a better choice than 2015.
For you, based on your $120/bottle cap, looking for really good stuff, but assuming you donât want every bottle to be $120, hereâs what Iâd do. Get recommendations on a great local wine shop with old world selection (looks like some above) and tell them to use $800 and build you a mixed case of old world reds that are really good and representative of their respective regions (not style outliers). Youâll save some money off the mid point on the Beaujolais and Cornas, for example, and spend more on Burgundy and Barolo perhaps. Then do it again in a few weeks with different wines. That should dial you in to start picking a directionâŚ
Your OP stated red wines, but are there any whites you like? If you havenât tried any aged Riesling, thatâs a category which may interest you. There are Berserkers who have a ton of experience with these wines and some age well.
I am not much of a white wine drinker, I like them on occasion but not enough to dedicate any real resources to them.
Hey Sean thank you very much for the advice! And I will make sure to try some 2014 Beaujolais!
I love the wines of CdB as you know, but I find the wines to be tough when young and only really come alive with age. How about Hudelot-Noellat villages Vosne Romanee or Chambolle Musigny for around the same price.