Clos Rougeard 2007- A Wine List Automatic

Tweet Pouring over wine lists before meals is the ultimate public foreplay.  In advance of fine dining reverie, the hunt for favorites, values, rarities, ultimates, and classics is my secret little indulgence.  It’s a moment of truth that determines the tone of an evening’s meal.  I remember the same jittery excitement stepping into Coney Island’s [...]

Erpacrife Nebbiolo-Best Sparkling Wine Ever?

Tweet Rarely do the polarizing forces du jour swirling around wine’s combustible circles, like new world vs. old world, traditional vs. modern, or natural vs. unnatural(?), create radically new standard bearers overnight. Each corner in the world of wine is too steeped in history, nature, method, and skill to be knocked out in a single round. So [...]

3 Reasons Puech-Haut Prestige 2009 Is Top Holiday Wine

Tweet Imagine the convenience of someone delivering two cases of one very perfect red wine to your front door every year at the start of the holiday season.  Not 100 point and $6,000 a case perfect, just perfectly versatile, delicious, and affordable red wine for all the usual and familiar holiday situations. Something to serve at [...]

Calvet-Thunevin Hugo On Turtle Creek Mansion List

Tweet Once again I found myself staring at a classic wine list, this time at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, that was deep in severely marked up classic Bordeaux, Burgundy, and California Cabernet.  Looking for an after dinner bottle to enjoy with some colleagues did  not call for $300 California Cabernet, $600 Burgundy, [...]

De Forville Nebbiolo 2009 – Another Rosenthal Wine Value

Tweet Neal Rosenthal Wine Merchants was table #2 and (*** $20) 2009 De Forville Langhe Nebbiolo was wine #3.  Rosenthal was one of nine importers and distributors showcasing 45 wines in total at the 8th annual Ball Square Fine Wines Grand Tasting. Without too much surprise, Rosenthal’s portfolio offered exciting moments at another chock-a-block event where [...]

Roagna Paje Barbaresco 2003 and Grindhouse Burgers

Tweet Last week I paired a really ugly hamburger with an indisputably pretty wine.                       The burger was just as delicious as it was ugly.  The wine, on the other hand, was as graceful, balanced, and pretty as folks have come to expect from a Luca [...]

Monbousquet 2000: Right (Bank) Hook to Selling Bordeaux

Tweet When you turn Bordeaux seller like me, a once covetous disposition for hoarding claret evaporates like morning dew in an afternoon sun. Selling first growths for ten times original investments at $1,000+ per bottle can be disorienting.  A plethora of exciting alternatives to rock your palate and backfill the cellar are sympathetic enough to this profitable culling and [...]

Grace Connects Wine & Winemaker

Tweet I do not know Angela Osborne personally but we have had a few email exchanges and I have tried her A Tribute to Grace Grenache from the Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard. The wine literally shook my senses and turns out to be unlike any other US made Grenache I have ever tasted.  The 2008 vintage example [...]

Discovering 2008 Schiopetto Friulano

Tweet There would not be any reason to look beyond the (**** $29) 2008 Schiopetto Friulano that sat on Woodfire Grill’s wine list. I had finally made it to Kevin Gillespie’s (master of flavor intensity and popularized on the “Top Chef” TV show) Atlanta restaurant and all I could think about was getting my nose deep into a [...]

A Tribute To Grace Tops Wine Blogger Conference Wines

Tweet On a weekend in Charlottesville, VA with scores of  domestic and international wine pouring sponsors, ballroom wine fests, fleets of buses covering area wineries, half a dozen restaurant wine lists, and countless treasured bottles transported by wine bloggers from their personal cellars, I had the prettiest and most compelling wine poured for me by [...]

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