Blind Tasting 2009 Bordeaux Value

The wines hidden inside brown paper bags came from Fronsac, Castillon, and the Haut Medoc. There were two token wines, one from St. Julien and the other St. Emilion.  The most expensive bottle of 2009 Bordeaux in the lineup was $33 retail, insuring that the evening’s foundation would be poured and hardened sans pedigree. Besides [...]

Strategy & Debate for 2009 Bordeaux

Let’s not debate the greatness of the 2009 Bordeaux vintage as the top wines make their way to US markets.  For now, squelch all lamentations over price inflation for first and second growths on the heels of their runaway futures market.  Turn a blind eye to Parker’s very recent The Empire Strikes Back article where he wrote ”this is unquestionably [...]

2011 Wine Highlights Part 1: Wine & Restaurants

While the best wine and food might still appear on my table over the next couple of weeks, 2011 is quickly shutting down like newly bottled Bordeaux and I catch myself reminiscing over the year that was in wine and food. These musings must not be mistaken for a quintessential nor ultimate reminiscence of global [...]

Top Three Wines: Monbousquet, Raquillet, & Mullineux

Top wines this month bring together strange bedfellows including a Southern Hemisphere syrah from the long ignored vineyards in South Africa’s Swartland Cape Winelands outpost, a brilliant Burgundy from the stepchild Côte Chalonnaise village of Mercurey, and Bordeaux from a refocused producer working right bank Saint-Émilion vineyards. Each one of these wines represents strong value in [...]

Some Old Wine Bottles

95% of wines are consumed within a week of purchase.  It’s a fact, but is it vinous genocide? I had a conversation with a notable wine educator the other night who said he preferred young wines and can only recall tasting eight older wines that were worth the wait or more enjoyable to drink older [...]

Bordeaux First Growths Fund Alternative Wines

In early 2006 the Bordeaux price-value line was breached and began its transgression towards complete collapse, erasing all justification for drinking the first growths and other similarly coveted wines that sat in my cellar for decades.  Just look at the blue line to the right, representing relative fine wine price escalation compared to the major [...]

1990 Cru Bourgeois Saint-Estephe For Breakfast

It’s a safe bet that we are not drinking 1990 Saint-Estephe, or for that matter any Bordeaux, at my breakfast table on Sundays at 10:00am. This could be a meaningful oversight, but we just don’t. That loose rule was recently broken with some good friends who produced a bottle of 1990 Chateau Le Terme (which [...]

Connecting Intellectual and Palate Learning: Tasting Two Sakes and California Cabernet

An insatiable hunger for discovery and wine education is rewarded every time I taste wines in peer groups.  Without the chance to examine lots of wines every day over an extended period, even frequent tastings of one wine per sitting lays down hurdles to thorough assessment most easily cleared via contextual, side-by-side tastings.   The most [...]

Tasting 1982 Bordeaux: Vieux Chateau Certan and Les Ormes de Pez

Having missed the 1982 Bordeaux futures market bonanza by two regrettable years, any evening I can taste two or more clarets from this historic vintage, side by side along with good people and tasty food, transforms into a trademark “good living” moment.  A few weeks ago, my friend Jacques suggested we head over to his house [...]

One Enthusiast’s View on Wine as an Investment Vehicle

I always buy wine with an intention to drink it….someday.  For me, enjoying wine requires popped corks.  Unlike paintings, sculpture, or antiques that can be enjoyed without harming value appreciation or resale opportunities, wine is a consumable whose value remains elusive until it swirls in a glass under nose, eliminating any possibility for future valuation. [...]

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