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Kasumeat
Nov 18, 2004

I SHOULD GO AND GET FUCKED
Cono Sur Bicicleta Pinot Noir is widely available and perfect. Cheap, shockingly drinkable, and softly structured.

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Ola
Jul 19, 2004

Thanks for the tips. Cono Sur Bicicleta is available here, but not Pinot Noir. I'll go for something similar light in tannins at around $12-13, which is about as cheap as a sound bottle of wine can be in Norway. Also good tip with honey, going to try steeping raisins, then add honey as required.

idiotsavant
Jun 4, 2000
Glogg or gluewein or mulled wine or whatever is for when it's freezing out and blasting rain and wind and snow in the middle of winter and you put a pot on the cast-iron wood stove and fill it with literally the cheapest red boxed wine you can find and some honey and some cinnamon sticks and cloves and star anise and maybe just a little allspice and a sliced up orange or lemon and just let it stew there while everyone goes and refills their cups over and over. Add cheap brandy if you want to give it more of a kick. Don't worry at all about tannins or oak or whatever. The wine needs to be a) red and b) cheap.

Ben Nevis
Jan 20, 2011

idiotsavant posted:

red boxed wine

Any good widely available boxwine?

Azhais
Feb 5, 2007
Switchblade Switcharoo

Ben Nevis posted:

Any good widely available boxwine?

Bota box Zinfandel has been recommended to me

idiotsavant
Jun 4, 2000

Ben Nevis posted:

Any good widely available boxwine?

Jenny & Francois imports the From The Tank label, they do a red, white, and rose for something like $35-$40 for a three liter box and it's great for house wine.

For mulled wine though it has to be red wine and it has to be in a box. Get it at Trader Joe's, Costco, Safeway, whatever as long as it's dry red wine and it comes cheap.

Comb Your Beard
Sep 28, 2007

Chillin' like a villian.
Had some Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages that retails for $15-$16 over Christmas, and honestly it tasted like Duboeuf Nouveau to me. Not in a good way.

I much preferred the way cheaper Beaujolais I got at Trader Joes I can't remember the name of.

What gives? Did the first bottle need more age?

Also between Korbel, Prosecco, and Veuve Clicquot the Veuve was probably my least favorite. Go figure.

Overwined
Sep 22, 2008

Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
Age isn't going to fix that problem. For roughly the same amount of money you can get a smaller producer and get a much better wine. Beaujolais is like the Mosel in this way. You have either the mega-producers getting maximum yield or the quality estates, torturing a vine to get those precious 5 clusters and no more. And never the twain shall meet. I generally look for a Beaujolais Villages from a producer that has an appreciable reputation for Crus. Case in point: http://www.domaines-piron.fr/en/presentation

Kalenden
Oct 30, 2012
I have two potential options for a dessert wine.
The dessert is a creme of chocolate, with yogurt, a crumble of coffee and a berry jell.
The two options are:
(1) A Barbeito Tinta Negra Colheita, Madeira, http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-552844-0001-barbeito-tinta-negra-colheita-madeira-portugal
or
(2) a Red Grenache, LA VINYETA SERENO 2009 http://www.vilaviniteca.es/shop/en/la-vinyeta-sereno-2009-0-50-l.html
Are any of these two wines suited? If not, what else would you recommend? I have limited access to both cooled strong drinks and more strong liquor as brandy.

Kasumeat
Nov 18, 2004

I SHOULD GO AND GET FUCKED
Jadot is dollar-for-dollar one of the worst Burgundy producers in the world. Unless you're familiar with their tiny handful of decent bottlings in their massive range, I'd avoid them at all costs. That said, if you can find it their Chateau St Jacques Morgon is actually quite decent and at $20 only a small jump up from the Villages.

As for the dessert wines, I'm not familiar with the latter bottling, though the producer is good. I would expect both to pair quite well, with the Madeira showing a little more complexity and a fair bit more acidity and freshness.

idiotsavant
Jun 4, 2000
Banyuls makes for pretty good chocolate wine if you can get it, too.

Kalenden
Oct 30, 2012
No Banyuls unfortunately.

But would the Madeira be suited? I can try to go for a Banyuls but if the Madeira is a very good match, it would be silly to buy a new bottle.

pork never goes bad
May 16, 2008

I love Madeira with chocolate desserts, but a large part of that is loving Madeira. It can be a somewhat challenging flavor profile to people who don't expect it. I don't want to put you off, though, loads of people love it, especially if you preface with a brief explanation.

Kalenden
Oct 30, 2012

pork never goes bad posted:

I love Madeira with chocolate desserts, but a large part of that is loving Madeira. It can be a somewhat challenging flavor profile to people who don't expect it. I don't want to put you off, though, loads of people love it, especially if you preface with a brief explanation.
Thank you. We do like Madeira and especially love different tasting profiles (in food and wine, I like the recent trend of other types of alcohol during dinner). So this sounds good. Other opinions still welcome of course!

Another question as well, for the same dinner.

I'm looking to pair a bottle of red wine with a first course mi-cuit foie gras and second course pheasant, dauphine potato, chicory and parsnip. Hoping you guys have a good suggestion from my options. If none of the options are especially well-suited, what would you recommend?

My options are:

2006 Domaine Dublere Les Poutures, Pommard Premier Cru, France
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-56401-2006-domaine-dublere-les-poutures-pommard-premier-cru-france

2009 Grupo Bodegas Olarra Clasico Reserva, Rioja DOCa, Spain
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-154339-2009-grupo-bodegas-olarra-clasico-reserva-rioja-doca-spain

2008 Chateau Labegorce-Zede, Margaux, France
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-123-2008-chateau-labegorce-zede-margaux-france

2010 Vignobles Rollet Chateau La Fourquerie, Cotes de Castillon, France
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-83897-2010-vignobles-rollet-chateau-la-fourquerie-cotes-de-castillon-france

2009 Chateau le Puy Cuvee Emilien, Cotes de Francs, France
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-282503-2009-chateau-le-puy-cuvee-emilien-cotes-de-francs-france

2006 Sylvain Cathiard Aux Murgers, Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru, France
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-1689-2006-sylvain-cathiard-aux-murgers-nuits-saint-georges-premier-cru-france

2006 Chateau d'Arsac, Margaux, France
http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-38696-2006-chateau-d-arsac-margaux-france

Furious Lobster
Jun 17, 2006

Soiled Meat

Had the above wines last night and thought the 08 is drinking the best right now - it has a really nice lithe palate with the floral delicacy that Fourrier has now. The 06 has more potential than the 08 but needs a little more time before it hits its stride.

Saddamnit
Jul 5, 2003

I have brained my damage.
Anyone here have a wine cellar? I recently converted some space under our stairs into a wine cellar which can store about 150 bottles.

The cellar walls and ceiling are lined with vapor barrier and insulated with R13 insulation. However, one wall is cement cinder block which makes direct contact with the earth, so I left that and the cement floor uninsulated for natural cooling. It's winter here right now and we keep our basement at 66 F, with the wine cellar maintaining 60 F with natural cooling.

I think we'll be in good shape for the winter and spring, but I think we may need to install a cooling unit when summer rolls around and the house warms up. Anyone here have any recommendations for cooing units? What about humidification? The cellar humidity was somewhat low (about 43 percent) so I put a small humidifier on the floor and set it to maintain 65 percent. Do I need to purchase a humidifier made specifically for wine cellars?

Furious Lobster
Jun 17, 2006

Soiled Meat
Not that we have a wine exchange thread but if anyone here as any vintage of Juge Cornas or knows an individual who does and is looking to part with a few bottles, send me a pm since trying to find it is really tough.

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

This seems like a good thread and I look forward to reading the rest of it. I worked a casual job during uni helping manage a big (16,000ish bottles) vintage wine collection for a private collector. In addition to a very extensive collection of Burgundy (plenty of Henri Jayer) and Bordeaux as well as Italian, American, Australian and New Zealand wines, it was cool to see and handle some historic bottles, like a 1945 Chateau Margaux. He also had some old madeiras by Henriques & Henriques which were vintage 1848. First bottled around 1901 or something and then re-corked in the 1950s. I understand from Google there's a few of them floating around for any of the madeira lovers in this thread.

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

Octy posted:

This seems like a good thread and I look forward to reading the rest of it. I worked a casual job during uni helping manage a big (16,000ish bottles) vintage wine collection for a private collector.

I'm probably the only person in the thread who doesn't know, but what does managing a collection like that involve?

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

Subjunctive posted:

I'm probably the only person in the thread who doesn't know, but what does managing a collection like that involve?

Well, maybe 'managing' is a little disingenuous. I should go further to explain that he was selling most of it. My employer was quite old and needed help doing a lot of the physical stuff. We worked out of a commercial wine storage facility and my role was to help organise the stock, make lists of what was to be sold, shift it off to auction houses and other collectors, etc. It was very simple work and I learned a lot about wine, although much to the disappointment of my family I didn't receive all that many free bottles.

Kasumeat
Nov 18, 2004

I SHOULD GO AND GET FUCKED
Some good Twitter beef happening right now between Tim Aitken and Hugh Johnson, the latter of which essentially just outed himself as supporting Trump's immigration ban. :munch:

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Kasumeat posted:

Some good Twitter beef happening right now between Tim Aitken and Hugh Johnson, the latter of which essentially just outed himself as supporting Trump's immigration ban. :munch:

Link?

EDIT: Hardly surprising though. "Old British Man is Racist" is hardly a shocking headline.

Kasumeat
Nov 18, 2004

I SHOULD GO AND GET FUCKED
https://twitter.com/Timatkin/status/825300915578101761
https://twitter.com/Timatkin/status/825773144078163970

pork never goes bad
May 16, 2008

This is what constitutes "good Twitter beef" in the wine world

idiotsavant
Jun 4, 2000
Any of y'all in Cali in either the Bay Area or LA needs to get right out and find some Foxie Spritzer - sparkling collab between Field Recordings and Hoxie Spritzer with a pink peppercorn + pear infusion. I don't care if you want to call it wine or not but it's insane good and it's like 15 bucks and gently caress it just go get some and drink the hell out of it.

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

Has anyone had Chateau de Chantemerle? I picked up a 2012 from my local because it was being spruiked as good while still affordable for a Bordeaux. The only Bordeaux I've ever drunk was an '85 Chateau Canon de Brem which was divine, and I fear my expectations will be dashed by the Chantemerle regardless.

In other news, looking forward to tasting two bottles over the coming days: a Perrier Jouet Grand Brut NV and, closer to home, A By Arras Premium Cuvee NV. It's my birthday on Saturday so I can almost justify spending $85 on the stuff. I was tempted by the slightly more expensive 2002 Pol Roger Brut as I understand it was an exceptionally good year, but I fear it would probably be wasted on my palate for the moment.

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

You'll have a good learning experience then. The young Cantemerle will be tannic and fruity compared to the (probably) fully matured Canon de Brem you had. I suggest you decant it and drink it over 6-7 hours to taste how it changes.

Having a second bottle of a simpler wine in the same style at the same time helps the comparison and prevents a parched or impatient gullet.

Overwined
Sep 22, 2008

Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
I agree. I've had several vintages of Cantemerle and while I never found any of them to be bad, none were epiphanies, either. If memory serves me it's pretty cheaply priced, so I think you are still getting some value here.

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

Is it Cantemerle? I distinctly remember it having an 'h' in the name. Anyway, at $25 a bottle one cannot expect it to be the same quality as a Lafite. :p But there's so little imported wine in Australia it's hard to know what to buy.

EDIT - Google tells me there is Cantemerle and Chantemerle, both from Medoc. The former is a 5th growth wine while I cannot find anything out about the latter and I don't have the bottle to hand. Talk about confusing.

Octy fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Feb 24, 2017

Ola
Jul 19, 2004

Ok, I guess we both snobbishly assumed you meant the one we know the spelling of! The one with an h probably isn't made into the same place in the taste hierarchy of Bordeaux, but I think my tasting suggesting still works, marginally. They might perhaps have been more equal in their youth, so then you can see how much any given bottle of Bordeaux changes in its life.

Overwined
Sep 22, 2008

Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
A few wines I have drunk recently:

Raul Perez Ultreia Saint Jacques, Bierzo, Spain
This is the third bottling of this I've had and let me just say that Perez' wines make me realize how much I've missed not being a Mencia fan from day 1. This is just his introductory bottling, but it's got such a great floral, almost woody acid and herbaceous nose. If you love to Burgundy I think you'll love his wines. His higher end bottlings are more expressive and wilder. I guess he's had it with Ole Imports and is getting a new US importer, so these wines might be scarce for a bit.

Olivier Cousins Pure Breton, Vin de Table, France (though it's really Anjou)
You owe it to yourself to look up the story on this guy. He is not the only one, but he is definitely one of the best examples of how bad the EU is loving up French wine law, the system which almost all other appellational systems are based. Basically, the EU wants to kill minor Loire, and other, appellations as well as kill native varietal traditions, like Cabernet Franc, because they don't appeal to our :airquote: Free Trade :airquote: obsessed post-modernist world. Recently whole appellations are disappearing from official records. Appellations like Montlouis, Cheverny, and Anjou are simply being omitted from maps and rule books in the hopes that the producers there, some of whom are several generations rich in tradition, will do something more profitable like more Pinot Noir or some other such bullshit. Cousins was told that his 100% Cabernet Franc from Anjou, a very traditional combination, was not worth AOC status, so they demoted him to Vin de Table. So then he put the words "Pur Anjou" (pure Anjou) on the label. So they sued him. So then he put the words "Pur Breton" (Breton is a local name for Cabernet Franc), so they sued him again. Then, he put Anjou Olivier Cousins on his label (because he's from Anjou, of course). He knew what he was doing because he put the A and the O and the C in huge letters and got sued. So he took it off the label and put it on the shipping box and he's getting sued again. The wine itself is great, wild and funky with wild yeast notes running through it and blackberry seeds and tobacco. It's a great wine to drink while you read up on Cousin's harrowing and hilarious story.

Antonio Macanita Isabella a Proibida, Pico Island, Azores
I had never had wine from the Azores before and this one was wild and well worth it if you can find it. Here again is another example of how hosed the EU is. Because Isabella is a crossbreed between Vitis Vinifera and Vitis Labrusca, the EU forbids you from actually mentioning that varietal. So, in protest on the label is the word Isabella crossed out as if with magic marker. The wine itself is super intense on the nose. If any of you have ever tasted a wild strawberry from a northern climate, you'll get this wine. It's super fruity on the nose, but has that wild gamey note that truly wild fruits give you. On the palate you get a bit of a stemmy/pith note with notes of cranberry, green pepper, and salt (the vineyard literally has a retaining wall holding back high tide) coming in. It has a palette of flavors unlike any I've tasted in any pure Vitis Vinifera wine.

Protest wines are interesting to me. It's a very European tradition for its agrarian people to be pretty radical. There are plenty of examples outside of wine, but inside of the wine world you have these and wines like Borgogno's "No Name" and the guys in Chianti Classico that are now making IGT wines that are 100% Sangiovese because for some loving reason that's not allowed in a DOC Chianti Classico. The latter is a good example of how the stupid tide of European Bureaucracy can turn around at a moment's notice and be all wrong again for completely different reasons. In the 70s, Tuscan wineries declassified their wines so that they could include more "International" varietals like Cab and Merlot. And so they became big business, so the Consorzio moves to make this protest de rigeur. Now suddenly traditional producers who believe in the quality of Sangiovese are marginalized because now you have to blend something in with it.

Kasumeat
Nov 18, 2004

I SHOULD GO AND GET FUCKED
Cool writeup, thanks for sharing, that Olivier Cousin story is awesome. FWIW, both Chianti and Chianti Classico allow 100% Sangiovese wines and have for some time now, it's just that Chianti Classico's reputation is so tarnished by the garbage Chianti of the past that many producers feel that IGT Toscana is more prestigious than Chianti Classico, especially for luxury wines. And the few quality producers outside of the Classico region have even less to lose. Which is a loving shame because IMO they're the greatest wines in Italy: the rare Italian red that's elegant, complex, and pleasurable both in youth and with decades of age, not to mention a hell of a lot more affordable than the other prestige wines.

Stringent
Dec 22, 2004


image text goes here

Overwined posted:

A few wines I have drunk recently:

Raul Perez Ultreia Saint Jacques, Bierzo, Spain
This is the third bottling of this I've had and let me just say that Perez' wines make me realize how much I've missed not being a Mencia fan from day 1. This is just his introductory bottling, but it's got such a great floral, almost woody acid and herbaceous nose. If you love to Burgundy I think you'll love his wines. His higher end bottlings are more expressive and wilder. I guess he's had it with Ole Imports and is getting a new US importer, so these wines might be scarce for a bit.

And it's available in Japan! I grabbed 3 bottles, thanks for the writeup.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane
A good wine I had on the weekend: Leitz Rudesheimer Berg Schlossberg Riesling 2015.

Tonight I'm slumming it in comparison and drinking Montes Alpha Cab Sauv 2012. Still a very impressive wine for the price; Chile may not be for everyone, but I remain a big fan.

EDIT: And now a few days later, Marques de Casa Concha Chardonnay 2013. Mid-range Chilean wine is apparently very much my thing.

PT6A fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Mar 23, 2017

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

I love seeing Australian wines in foreign restaurants. I'm in Singapore and the prices are so jumped up, like the 2013 Tyrrell's Rufus Stone Heathcote Shiraz which was at $130 a bottle. It's a good, perhaps unappreciated wine, but one I can get for less than $20 in-store.

got off on a technicality
Feb 7, 2007

oh dear
Huge disappointment from a 2007 Maybach Materium. Despite spells in an ice bucket to keep it below 60F, there was a good deal of unpleasant alcoholic heat. I guess one needs experiences like this to learn to distrust Parker points. The only two CA cabs that have made sense thus far to me: Shafer Hillside Select and Dominus. To make me feel better I'm reminding myself of some notes from better bottles I've had recently:
  • 1995 Chave Hermitage (Northern Rhone, France): black fruit, herby, savory, made me think of sesame (?!), goes down very nicely, in drinking window
  • 2003 La Mondotte (St Emilion, Bordeaux, France): inviting nose, no raisin/roasted character - surprising given the hot year, black fruit and tar, hint of sweetness, elegant & compelling
  • 2000 Roc de Cambes (Cotes de Bourg, Bordeaux, France): black fruit, trace of coffee & savoriness, lush and concentrated, great value. RdC is owned by Francois Mitjavile, an interesting character, and I would recommend seeking out wine from Tertre Roteboeuf (his crown jewel) if you can
  • 2004 Louise Brison Vintage Brut (Champagne, France): mushroomy/leesy on open - blew off after a while, honeyed & concentrated, citrusy acid on the end, great value. K&L gets these direct from the winery's cellar
  • 1989 Pichon Lalande (Pauillac, Bordeaux, France): pencil, blackcurrant, plum, lovely balance, persistent finish, went well with a dinner that was mainly seafood (!)

Octy posted:

I love seeing Australian wines in foreign restaurants. I'm in Singapore and the prices are so jumped up, like the 2013 Tyrrell's Rufus Stone Heathcote Shiraz which was at $130 a bottle. It's a good, perhaps unappreciated wine, but one I can get for less than $20 in-store.

IIRC the import taxes on alcohol are ridiculous but if you stay on the lookout you can find decently good stuff for ok prices. My biggest score was a 1989 Bel-Air Lagrave for ~$75

idiotsavant
Jun 4, 2000
Uhhhh. If you're freezing Napa Cabs because you're sensitive to alcohol levels you might be doing wine wrong.

Edit: like not to say that I love big Cali Cabernet, just that no one is forcing you to drink it...

got off on a technicality
Feb 7, 2007

oh dear

idiotsavant posted:

Uhhhh. If you're freezing Napa Cabs because you're sensitive to alcohol levels you might be doing wine wrong.

Edit: like not to say that I love big Cali Cabernet, just that no one is forcing you to drink it...

Yes exactly; I'm finding the very alcoholic (that Maybach was 14.8% I think) cult cabs increasingly unsatisfying. Oh well, I now know better

You know more about winemaking than I do so tell me if this is right - an excess of fruit/tannin can mask high alcohol levels when a wine is young, but as the wine ages the fruit/tannin recedes and the alcohol comes to the fore. Hence it should be possible for something to taste great when first bottled, but get increasingly out of balance & unappealing as it ages

Overwined
Sep 22, 2008

Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
The alcohol thing is something my friends in the industry and I talk about quite a bit. We all more or less agree, though we will often comment positively when a wine "carries" its high alcohol well. However, I've noticed that casual drinkers rarely get this. I have often thought about ways to preach the gospel of low alcohol, high acidity without being pedantic or condescending.

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pork never goes bad
May 16, 2008

I'm by no means in the industry, but certainly am evangelist for acid and find myself pouring or drinking different things to many of my peers. I find that word - acidity - puts people off in the first place, so emphasizing freshness, or making the comparison between oversweet stewed fruit vs a fresh red raspberry often work better. Talk about how mouth-watering the wine is, how it's light on its feet, elegant, a complement not a competitor to your dish.

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