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Kasumeat posted:It's good for reds in the (historically) poorest of sites--the quality of $12 Bourgogne Rouge and Toscana Rosso is well above normal--but when it comes to fine wines, I'd argue as a whole it's the worst vintage that most of Europe has had in decades, if not ever. Whites are atrocious: insipid, flabby, alcohol typically over 13.5%. Reds hardly fare better, especially in the Northern Rhone. I've had countless 2015 Syrahs that had no red fruit or meatiness, instead just pure blackberry jam. 2015 is a vintage where making mediocre wine has never been easier, but great wine has never been harder. FWIW we were comparing the 2015 of the Xavier Gerard to mostly 2010s. I'm by no means a N Rhone expert, but I understand that 2010 was a classic vintage. So Kasumeat to your point it might be that 2015 helped tip a more marginal terroir (i.e. the Xavier Gerard) over into being competitive with great producers in a great year. I have not have other vintages of the Xavier Gerard
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Apr 27, 2018 21:03
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Furious Lobster posted:Highlights were the '10 Dolium and a '07 Gonon VV that's not in any of the pics Actually I liked the 2010 Allemand Reynard a lot but then I have rather modernist tastes. I also liked the 2010 Juge, which was in some way its opposite e: I'm the SQN grenache that doesn't belong in the 1st pic got off on a technicality fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Apr 27, 2018 |
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Apr 27, 2018 21:48
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Professor Shark posted:My partner and I enjoyed an excellent bottle of champagne this weekend, however I noticed the cork was funny: It's creeping me out, whatever it is. I've never seen this before
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Apr 30, 2018 02:51
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Comb Your Beard posted:Where do you get such a crazy tasting? 
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May 1, 2018 05:28
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If your palate is anything like mine you're going to love the Dominus, which straddles Bordeaux and Napa v nicely. I've had the '94 a couple of times and it was excellent, even if the '91 remains my all-time Napa favorite I'm v envious of all the lovely Burgundy at this tasting, none of which I've tried e: can you please post a note on the 2001 CB when you taste it? I have a bottle sitting in the very special occasion bin and would love to hear your thoughts on it got off on a technicality fucked around with this message at 19:05 on May 4, 2018 |
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May 4, 2018 18:50
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Disinterested posted:Forgive me if I missed the (probably lots of posts) but is there a consensus good place to order wine from online in the US? K&L's already been mentioned, as has Kogod, but I would also add Benchmark and Flatiron Finally you could also sign up for Envoyer, which is more of an email list where you respond to offers, many of which are pre-arrival (i.e. months away), but that's more for the patient collector
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May 4, 2018 18:56
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From our mutual friend? I quite liked it when he poured it blind at that dinner, although I admit my first thought wasn't Burgundy but rather Rhone because of the fatness / lower acid. Then again I'm a terrible blind taster
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May 12, 2018 02:04
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De Fargues, owned by the Lur Saluces family, which used to own Yquem before they sold to LVMH Also consider older Rieussec, which can be quite affordable. I suggest 1983, 1986, 1988
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May 24, 2018 04:45
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Trimson Grondag 3 posted:This is pretty much what I've been doing To the above point it's probably worth your while to taste through Sauternes vs. Barsac as they're pretty distinct. I personally much prefer the former (Yquem, Rieussec, Fargues), which tends to be heavier and richer, whereas the latter (Climens, Coutet) is a zippier, more refreshing style. I also suggest looking for some Huet Moelleux to compare, though I'm not a fan myself Trimson Grondag 3 posted:I brought home some VDP Auction 2015 Prum on the last trip to Europe, now I just have to wait 20 years. Nice; attending the Grosser Ring auction is on my bucket list
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May 28, 2018 16:42
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IMO wine can vary greatly in terms of sensitivity to storage conditions. Champagne, which you mention is 40% of your drinking, is the most sensitive. I am ultra ocd about storing champagne for that reason, but will have no qualms about leaving a Napa cab at 70F for a week or two. I even won't buy champagne from stores that keep them unrefrigerated Anyway you might find that a little locker (10-15 cases at ~$30/month) coupled with 3-6 bottles kept in the regular fridge could work for your use case. If you still end up getting a wine fridge I suggest picking one with a proper compressor, not a thermoelectric model
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Jul 9, 2018 23:08
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I've never had trouble with bottles from the '70s and '80s with my regular ah so so I've never felt the need to buy a Durand 
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Aug 2, 2018 04:50
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Ola posted:Oh that's fascinating. Had a Amiot-Servelle Les Amoreuses 2004 at a tasting a while back, it was really vegetal, like cooked beetroot. Yeah it appears to be a widespread thing; I was blinded, a few months ago, on an astonishingly green & unpleasant wine that turned out to be a '04 Pousse d'Or Corton Clos Du Roi. There's a theory that Leroy declassified their entire 2004 into villages + bourgogne because of the ladybugs
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Sep 29, 2018 20:00
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Also if you can indeed get 2004 it’s a pretty good year, and old enough that it might show some mature character
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Oct 10, 2018 06:18
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Kasumeat posted:Veuve is fairly overpriced, so I would recommend avoiding it if possible
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Oct 10, 2018 06:22
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Kasumeat posted:You really need someone who knows their poo poo if you hope to find a bottle of "classic" Bordeaux these days, and the same is true of many other styles.
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Dec 8, 2018 22:23
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obi_ant posted:Also on another note, my wife doesn't drink and I don't have many friends that are into wine; they're mostly craft beer drinkers. Is there something better than a stopper in terms of preserving my wine so I can drink it another day? I really don't want to polish off a whole bottle and if I'm comparing two bottles, I might not make it into work the next day. I've seen cans of air that I can spray into the bottle, do those work? Biomute posted:If I wanted to get a book on wine, what should I get? The main contenders seem to be: The Oxford Companion to Wine, The World Atlas of Wine and The Wine Bible.
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Dec 10, 2018 06:25
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Kalenden posted:Lobster salad
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Dec 13, 2018 04:29
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Bape Culture posted:I’ve been drinking a lot of 2011 Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru with some friends who are a lot richer than I realised. I can not afford to be drinking it myself at home so where should I be looking for something at about 1/10th of the price with a similar vibe? Bape Culture posted:Also surprised to see people above enjoying krug more than Dom. I’ve always, always been disappointed by krug and swore off it last time I was served it up at The Man Behind The Curtain. Whereas 90% of the time I’ve been delighted by Dom. Would rather have a pretty basic taittinger than a krug tbh. My cheapy go to is taittinger 2005. Highly recommend. I also like Taittinger more than Krug or Dom - one of my top wines in the past year was a 1970 Taittinger (not CdC just the basic bottling)
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Jan 5, 2019 23:56
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Biomute posted:Managed to get my hands on another two bottles of Cedric Bouchard Blanc de Noirs. Going to try to hang on to one of them for a while maybe. Are there any other producers like him in the <$70 range?
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Jan 6, 2019 01:39
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Kasumeat posted:Domaine Roulot's Aligote isn't Chardonnay but tastes a drat lot like it and for my money is dollar-for-dollar the best great "white Burgundy" out there. Since we're talking about aligote I would also look towards the Domaine de Villaine Bouzeron; it's made by Aubert de Villaine (of DRC fame)
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Jan 7, 2019 01:08
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Biomute posted:I guess I mean zero-dosage-ish champagnes with a certain type of complexity? After the citrus/fruity/floral opening to these wines there seems to be a depth of earthy/yeasty/mineralic characteristics that sets this apart from other champagnes that I've tried. It's not so important that they're vintage, single variety or single vineyard, but I'm sure a similar "eccentric wine-maker doing his thing" story helps.
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Jan 7, 2019 01:10
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A friend brought me a few skin contact whites from Georgia and they just don't do very much for me. I'm all about crisp acidity and delicate aromatics, but it's all just too much for me with 'tea leafy' tannins on top of that On the other hand, it would be nice to someday escape the black hole that is white Burgundy
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Jan 21, 2019 01:58
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Wow this is amazing. $5-6K for 2 weeks of work is equivalent to making six figures. I suppose he can also buy bottles of Dujac / Leroy / Roumier / Rousseau to go with the DRC? Or can he only buy one bottle? I just want to taste a Romanee Conti once in my life so I can get over it forever (or perhaps I won't, which would be tragic)
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Jan 25, 2019 19:23
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That's amazing that you got to attend a tasting with multiple Montrachets and a Romanee Conti for ~$2K. Have you seen the prices for La Paulee 2019? They're asking $2,900 for a Mugneret-Gibourg Echezeaux dinner  Crimson posted:The Montrachet, on the other hand, is pure sex in a glass even young. I'm not going to ask if it's worth paying for, because it's just fermented grape juice and on some level it's insane to talk about $6-8K wines, but would you say it is clearly / consistently better than others (say Bouchard Montrachet) Ola posted:If you want to taste it and don't find any accessible options, perhaps we can find 8-10 people in this thread. You can come on holiday to Norway and we can visit Park Hotel Voss and buy one. $1200/head. It's tempting. Maybe when I turn 40 - which going by average goon age these days isn't very far in the future
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Jan 27, 2019 03:57
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Kasumeat posted:- Grenache-based wines from France, particularly more expensive and aged examples
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Jun 27, 2019 06:39
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Kasumeat posted:$150+ wine is not typically a good recommendation for an alternative to a $20 bottle, but if money is no object, sure. I see Domaine Tempier Bandol on sale all over winesearcher for low $40s and available in Australia for low 50s AUD 
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Jun 28, 2019 01:04
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Crimson posted:Too many rely on pairings to move stagnant product or to move things that get them fancy hipster allocations that they can post on Instagram. But man, there's nothing better than a perfect pairing.
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Jul 23, 2019 19:07
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anakha posted:Awesome. Thanks for providing some additional perspective. I was already starting to dip into the rabbit hole of wondering if I needed to get a wine chiller. May I suggest two completely different kinds of wine, both of which will age decades no sweat, cost in the mid-20s, and be enjoyable young and old: i) Riesling Kabinett from the Mosel (try Markus Molitor) and ii) Chinon from the Loire (try Olga Raffault Picasses and Baudry)
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Aug 1, 2019 06:14
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A third category that is horribly unhip these days: Sauternes (try Climens and Doisy Daene). I spent the first 18 months of my wine drinking life consuming Sauternes with just about everything, and this stuff goes well with anything except dessert
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Aug 1, 2019 06:17
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PT6A posted:I've never seen a good wine list in Spain tilted as far to, say, Rioja specifically, as restaurants around here seem to go for Napa Valley stuff specifically. It's largely Spanish wine, yes, but even the places I've been to in Spain that absolutely refuse to serve non-Spanish wine entirely tend to have representation from diverse regions. Well that’s a pity. Whereabouts are you referring to? These days, on the west coast, I don’t see that much focus on Napa in most restaurants (unless it’s a steakhouse) Which is a good thing because Napa is so mediocre (even stuff like MacDonald) and so drat expensive these days
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Aug 3, 2019 17:38
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It’s possible that the steakhouse was forced to take the Napa chards in exchange for favorable prices on the Napa cabs. I think it’s rare that a restaurant somm has the financial freedom to put what they want on a list. Which is why one of my favorite restaurants in the world is owned by a somm who has been collecting cool poo poo for decades at reasonable pricesOla posted:This is a good answer. A long wine list isn't necessarily a good wine list. Agreed
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Aug 4, 2019 16:42
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Trimson Grondag 3 posted:Leads to a lot of pink, orange and white purchases if it’s a newer place. (I haven't found an orange wine I enjoy yet  )
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Aug 6, 2019 06:21
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Crimson posted:The Morris I bet? Paul's a good dude. Got it in one The last time I was there he found me a 1973 Gattinara for outrageously cheap. Just a tremendous experience
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Aug 8, 2019 00:54
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anakha posted:Using the lemon water as a point of comparison, I think the difference for me is drinking a glass of water with a slice or two of lemon (which I find refreshing) versus drinking a glass that's mostly lemon juice with no sugar - the latter just makes my mouth pucker in a bad way and is not enjoyable at all. The glass I had leaned more towards the latter than the former. I suspect your tastes will evolve to tolerate more and more acidity / tannin over time. These days I cheerfully drink wine that would have been way too acidic for my liking 5 years ago. Many wine drinkers I know started with sweet/fruity Napa cabs, progressed to Bordeaux, and ended up in Burgundy/Piedmont
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Aug 13, 2019 06:21
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Kasumeat posted:Unrelated aside for the Americans here: Are there any producers of Chardonnay in the US that are doing a reasonable impression of the modern, reductive, flinty style along the lines of Hubert Lamy, PYCM, et. al? I was living in Australia for a few months, and was really struck (no pun intended) by the quality of the Chardonnay there. There are producers making Chardonnay going for under $20 that are a mass-produced, more-than-acceptable replacement for white Burgundy. And without hesitation I'd say that there are literally dozens of examples, many priced at $30 or less, that are better than the best American Chardonnay I've ever had. Why is the US so bad at Chardonnay compared to Australia? Are there producers out there I'm unaware of? I've had many American Chardonnays I love, but they're almost always very expensive, and even the more elegant producers such as Hanzell, ABC, Montelena, etc., are still doing the classic creamy and richly-textured style, but simply a more elegant and toned-down version of it. Oregon Chardonnay is right up there. At a recent blind tasting, I got an Oregon producer mixed up with a Roulot ringer that I'd snuck into the flight Walter Scott, Goodfellow, and Evening Land are a couple of names to get you started Having said that, Roulot (also PYCM) is still tops for me. Haven't had any Coche yet so I can't comment there (efb)
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Aug 14, 2019 01:30
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idiotsavant posted:idk if you want to stress your ferments to pull out reductive qualities vs just work as carefully as possible to protect from oxygen and maybe age on the lees. Stressed ferments seem like they'd be a lot harder to control and lead to a whole poo poo-filled cornucopia of bad results. Believe me, learned that through experience. There was definitely a thing in the mid-2000s where excessive sulfur was used on a few bottlings as a result of the premox scare, "trapping" wines in a permanently reduced and distinctly poo-filled state. I want to say it was Leflaive maybe got off on a technicality fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Aug 14, 2019 |
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Aug 14, 2019 15:27
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I agree with both of you but to me it is overly reductive (ha!) to talk in terms of high acid vs low etc etc. I didn't love high acid wines because I'd tasted a bunch of cheap crap over the years that was highly unpleasant. Then I had some great Roulot and was like wow I taste the ripping acidity like citrus lasers in my mouth and it's actually a really enjoyable feeling. I think there can be high acid styles that are universally enjoyable, and many ways to do high acid that are poo poo. It's too easy to blame the uninformed American consumer for their infantile tastes when in fact I suspect stuff that aspires to sophistication can be pretty mediocre
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Aug 15, 2019 21:06
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idiotsavant posted:welp. lodi albarino & garnacha for rose coming in thursday. here we go 2019 x_x How was 2019 as a CA vintage? I trust it wasn’t quite as ridiculously hot as France
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Aug 20, 2019 14:08
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Almost certainly yes and yes provided they've been stored well. But then I like really old poo poo
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Aug 31, 2019 16:51
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Furious Lobster posted:‘14 Hubert Lignier is drinking really quite good right now. The Morey St Denis 1er VV and the same Les Chaffots are fantastic. Our mutual friend posted about your wine experiences; how was the Benetiere?
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Aug 31, 2019 21:07
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