Subject: Wine, Wine, Wine
Posted by: Lochalsh
Date: Mar 09 10
Do you drink wine? What type do you like best? Is there one label you prefer above the rest? Do you drink wine by itself or with food? Do you think one country dominates over others in the quality of its wines?
I have many attachments to Spain, professional and otherwise, and I choose its red wines practically every time.
Posted by: Lochalsh
Date: Mar 09 10
Do you drink wine? What type do you like best? Is there one label you prefer above the rest? Do you drink wine by itself or with food? Do you think one country dominates over others in the quality of its wines?
I have many attachments to Spain, professional and otherwise, and I choose its red wines practically every time.
198 replies. On page 7 of 10 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
lesley153
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Happy birthday Daver! and good health. *slurp* Reply #121. Mar 26 12, 8:38 PM |
turbotude 
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Sounds like a great wine, Daver! Happy belated birthday to you! Reply #122. Mar 27 12, 5:43 PM |
daver852
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Bordeaux is too expensive. Period. Hopefully, the Euro will collapse and become worthless sometime in the near future, and prices will return to something reasonable. In the meantime, one must search for bargains. The 2008 vintage in Bordeaux wasn't great, but it was okay, probably on a par with 2004 and 2006. I recently purchased several wines of this year, and have drunk them with pleasure. Since 2008 is overshadowed by the great vintages of 2009 and 2010, there are some bargains to be had. Chateau Rollan De By is a Cru Bourgeois from the far northern part of the Medoc. The 2008 was one of The Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of 2010. This is a very austere, "Old World" type of wine. Not much fruit, but silky and elegant. I preferred the Chateau Pontac Monplaisis 2008. From the Graves region, this wine is a very fragrant, assertive wine with lots of dark fruit, oak and earthy undertones. Rather rustic in character, it makes up for its lack of complexity with depth of flavor and a naive charm. Both of these wines are available at the Saratoga Wine Exchange for less than $20. Reply #123. Apr 12 12, 8:08 PM |
| daver852
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The price of Bordeaux has literally gone through the roof in the past few years. Those of us without deep pockets have had to really scramble to satisfy our hunger for this, the best of all wines. Sometimes this means seeking out the better wines of lesser vintages, sometimes it means finding small properties that produce exceptional wines that have been overlooked by masses. One way to go is to try the "second wines" of the best estates. Tonight I popped the cork on a bottle of Pagodes de Cos 2005, the second wine of Chateau Cos d'Estournel, a second growth from the commune of St. Estephe. This wine is - in a word - wonderful. It contains more Merlot than the primary bottling, so it is more approachable, and ready to drink now. 2005 is one of the best vintages of the past 50 years; a bottle Cos d'Estournel 2005 will set you back $200 - $300, but you can drink this "baby brother" for about $50. Sure, that's expensive, but this wine is worth every penny. Soft, lush, bursting with fruit and incredibly balanced and satisfying. I rated this wine at 92/100, and that may have been too low. It's that good. Reply #124. May 23 12, 9:02 PM |
tezza1551
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We live on the edge of the Mount Barker wine region in West Australia, and I'm told there are some really nice wines from there..but as I don't drink the stuff.. However, I did find a lovely citrus liqueur near Denmark (WA) recently, which I could become quite addicted to ! Reply #125. May 23 12, 9:18 PM |
turbotude
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Aw, c'mon, Tezza....why not take a chance and SAMPLE some of the fine wines from your region? You just might like them! Reply #126. May 24 12, 12:09 PM |
nautilator
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Are non-grape wines any good? I've seen a few and been tempted to try them. Reply #127. Jul 27 12, 11:54 PM |
| daver852
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In my ongoing, desperate search for something decent to drink, I headed over to Food Mart on Saturday to check out their wine. While browsing their "5 for 19.98" selections, I noticed a few dusty old bottles on a bottom shelf, without price tags. Most were garbage, but one was a Vina Ardanza Rioja Alta Riserva 1996. I asked the owner how much he wanted for it, and he said $8. When I got home, I looked it up on winesearcher.com, and, as I expected, it's a $100 bottle. It's now resting nicely in my "good rack." Rioja, like, good Bordeaux, lasts for decades. I felt just like one of those people on Antiques Roadshow! Reply #128. Aug 06 12, 10:49 AM |
| daver852
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The barbarians have struck again. They have redesigned my favorite online wine site, cellartracker.com. The old site was great. The new one is terrible. Much harder to use, and no improvements at all that I can see. Why do people do this? When I was in the Navy, we had a saying that has always stood me in good stead: if it's not broken, don't ___ with it. I am truly ticked off! I have no proof, but I am willing to bet that a woman is behind this. Reply #129. Nov 28 12, 11:54 AM |
| daver852
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Last week I had a wine that was simply stunning. It's called Gaia Assyrtiko Wild Ferment 2012. I'm not a white wine drinker, but this was so good it made me sit up and take notice. It sells for around $20, and is better than most wines costing five times that much. It comes from the Greek island of Santorini, the one that many people believe was the source of the legend of Atlantis, when it was partially destroyed by a volcanic explosion several thousand years ago. Reply #130. Aug 21 13, 8:13 AM |
| daver852
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Surely we have some vinophiles on this site! I will try to breathe new life into this old thread. Recently I was gifted with a bottle of wine by a well-meaning friend. It was a 19 Crimes Cabernet Sauvignon 2015. This is an Australian wine, It is probably some of the vilest swill I have ever tasted. It tastes like watered-down Cherry Nyquil with a dash of Everclear. Do not buy this wine. Has anyone else had any bad wine experiences lately? Reply #131. Sep 18 16, 8:39 PM |
ainenei
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A well meaning friend gave me an 'aged' NZ chardonnay last week. I am a New Zealander, I've worked in hospitality for 25 years, and it was a damn good wine 10 years ago. Maybe it's aged well, but I'm betting it hasn't. Popping the cork on it in about 30 minutes - wish me luck :-) Reply #132. Sep 19 16, 1:46 AM |
Mixamatosis
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The worst experience I had with a wine, well actually 2 experiences rate a mention, was some years ago in Liverpool. The worst wine I've ever tasted was called "El Morano" (perhaps the name says it all). Someone brought it around to a party we had as students. It was so horrible that even we impoverished and alcohol loving students couldn't drink it. The other incidence was at an Indian restaurant. We'd gone for a meal and ordered a wine from the menu. The waiter said he didn't have it but brought us a substitute he said would be much the same. It didn't taste awful but then we were eating curry at the time. I had half of the bottle and that's all I had all evening. The next day I had such a bad hangover all day with a headache almost like a migraine, I could not go into work. I've never felt so ill after drinking such a relatively modest amount. Unfortunately I don't remember what the wine was. While in Liverpool we used to go to a Greek restaurant and my favourite meal was Aefelia. I developed a taste for a Greek wine with that, called Retsina. It was matured in pine caskets and had a pine flavour to it. When my husband first joined me in London, he took a temporary job in a wine warehouse which supplied restaurants and casinos. It was shocking. They turned white wine red with the addition of chemicals and red wine white using charcoal as a filter. Whatever the order was they would make the supply of wine they had fit order and it wasn't great wine in the first place. When my husband asked how they got away with it (often high prices were charged for the wine in these restaurants and casinos) they told him that there were lots of people with money who knew little about wine and couldn't tell a good one from a bad one. This was in the 70s and I think the public's probably a bit more aware now. At the same time as my husband was doing that job his friend had a job for a casino company that involved tasting and buying wine. An ideal job for some and he got to bring the bottles he'd sampled home. Unfortunately he was made redundant a few years later. Reply #133. Sep 19 16, 3:56 AM |
| Mixamatosis
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A much better memory about wine happened more recently. In 2014 my husband and I were invited to a get together in France of old friends he'd met while studying French there for a year. Some of them he'd not seen for 40 years. It was held at the house of a friend who owned a vinyard and he also had winemaking and bottling facilities in the farmhouse. He'd inherited this from his father. He made his own wine (Bourgueil) and we bought some to take home with us. It wasn't the best wine I'd ever tasted but it was good and it came with good memories. 40 years before when we'd stayed there he'd served us globe artichokes and red wine for breakfast - very bohemian. I was impressed. Reply #134. Sep 19 16, 4:13 AM |
| Mixamatosis
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I think that's probably all I can contribute to this site as these days I don't drink. It doesn't agree with my medication and even when I did drink we'd rarely pay more than £5 a bottle though we always sought the best wine we could find in that price range. Reply #135. Sep 19 16, 4:19 AM |
ClaudiaCat
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Like everything it is a matter of taste and preference for example Dave's wine downer has a 5 star rating ... 19 crimes cabernet sauvignon 2015 "There is impressive concentration with gobs of jammy black currant, boysenberry marmalade, concentrated extracted blackberry fruit — featuring superb balance with the fruit and tannins in complete harmony — and then nicely complemented by minerals and a hint of star anise. The midpalate is a firmly structured and seamless fruit effort with excellent delineation going into the lengthy finish that shows blackberry extract throughout, even hints of sweetness." What to one is cough mixture is to another the elixir of life. Reply #136. Sep 19 16, 4:40 AM |
| Mixamatosis
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Claudia Cat. That may be right to some degree but if you've ever tasted wine that is "corked" i.e has reacted with the cork, I think you'd agree that most people would find it undrinkable. It's why waiters let you taste the wine before you drink it. Also I was warned to stay away from the cheapest wine in French supermarkets, that you could buy for less than a franc (at the time) and which came in plastic bottles because it has chemicals in. Some of the cheapest wines have steriliser residue in (finings?) and some wines used to bring on asthmatic attacks in me though others were fine. Beyond avoiding stuff that will make you ill or harm you in some way - each to his or her own taste. Reply #137. Sep 19 16, 6:06 AM |
| daver852
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You can find good ratings for any wine, even the worst. Believe me, unless you like drinking cherry syrup, you won't like 10 Crimes Cabernet Sauvignon. There are even good reviews and "gold medals" for the horrible swill they produce here in Illinois and have the nerve to bottle and call wine. Reply #138. Sep 19 16, 8:01 AM |
| Mixamatosis
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If you can find good ratings for any wine, how should people know whose ratings to trust? Do you have a tried and trusted source for wine reviews? Reply #139. Sep 19 16, 10:44 AM |
jabb5076
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I've always thought Wine Spectator magazine to be a fairly reliable source, but I really don't know anymore. I normally drink chardonnay, but tend to stick with those I know are very dry. Red wine gives me a headache, except for the locally made reds in France and Italy that lack the preservatives, etc. in commercially bottled red wines. Those I can drink all day! Reply #140. Sep 19 16, 12:59 PM |
198 replies. On page 7 of 10 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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