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caberham posted:I didn't like it. It didn't have that Burguny finish and just had that sharp tannin taste without any other notes that I could pick up. Great nose though. Perhaps it was not decanted properly? I don't know, It tasted better when the wine hit the bottom or maybe I just got drunk and didn't care. It was 600 HKD for 2. 300 HKD (38 USD) and I think it tastes like generic Cab Sauv table wine. Givry wines tend to be riper, with higher tannins. They can take an extremely long time to open up. They're quite different from their neighbors to the north. If you want that lighter, more elegant style Pinot look for village level wines from the Cote de Beaune - Volnay, Aloxe-Corton, maybe Pommard.
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Dec 24, 2013 20:10
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Crimson posted:Givry wines tend to be riper, with higher tannins. They can take an extremely long time to open up. They're quite different from their neighbors to the north. If you want that lighter, more elegant style Pinot look for village level wines from the Cote de Beaune - Volnay, Aloxe-Corton, maybe Pommard. I would have added village-level Morey-St.-Denis but my god, there's no such thing as a cheap MSD any more. It fits the style, though. There are some villages without the cost-inflating effect of a Grand Cru present that I really like. Like for instance St. Aubin. I really like whites from here, but I've had a red or two that was very good.
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Dec 24, 2013 20:25
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What cloths do people use to dry the hard to reach places of decanters?
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Dec 31, 2013 06:34
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To dry? Just drain the decanter upside-down until it's dry. If you require it absolutely spotless, you can buy a decanter-brush that doesn't work very well for like $50 or just use a standard polishing cloth wrapped around a coat hanger.
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Dec 31, 2013 06:55
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The upside-down trick hasn't been working. A fair amount of water droplets seem to remain inside for a long time using that method. I'll give the coat hangar method a try.
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Dec 31, 2013 07:28
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I've never cleaned a decanter but I have cleaned a saxophone. A musical (wind or brass) instrument cleaner might work.
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Dec 31, 2013 07:30
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I bother not with fancy decanters. A 2L Erlenmeyer flask is very functional and easy to clean because of the wide mouth. Hell, you could even put it through the dishwasher.
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Dec 31, 2013 07:56
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Espresso machine cleaner works wonders for removing stains from the bottom of a decanter. But yeah for just water spots get a nice polishing cloth and jam it in there like he said above. Those brushes suck.
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Dec 31, 2013 08:09
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So whoever when I asked about orange wine you recommended coenobium rusticum, thank you! It was a huge hit among this NYE party group that aren't all even wine drinkers. It reminded me a lot of a really good lambic.
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Jan 1, 2014 04:43
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This last Sunday, I basically had the greatest liquid of my life, and since it was mentioned in the OP it's worth a re-mention from me (an admitted wine-idiot, so pardon me if I fail to describe properly). The wine itself is a 1993 Chateau Pajzos Tokaji Esszencia from Hungary, also known as "Golden Slumber". This close to the event, I'm at the level of saying everyone should put it on their bucket list, but we'll see if that stands after I find a way to try it again. As I recall, it was: - Very sweet. I had about 12 different wines, and this felt an order of magnitude sweeter than any of them. - No alcohol burn. Apparently due to the nature of this wine it's only around about 7% ABV. - It somehow still felt like it had a "wine-like" texture and mouthfeel, just with ultimate smoothness and sweet flavors. - Fruity flavors included a strong note of citrus. Seriously though, of the 4 people at our table, everyone from my wine-obsessed mother and grandmother to my non-drinking wife we're floored. I back the OP's recommendation in this regard 100% and want to try some of the other (less than 750 Euros per liter) wines of this style and region to see if it's universal or if I got really lucky.
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Jan 1, 2014 05:25
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crazyfish posted:So whoever when I asked about orange wine you recommended coenobium rusticum, thank you! It was a huge hit among this NYE party group that aren't all even wine drinkers. It reminded me a lot of a really good lambic. You're welcome. Happy New Year!
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Jan 1, 2014 09:45
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bigwoody posted:This last Sunday, I basically had the greatest liquid of my life, and since it was mentioned in the OP it's worth a re-mention from me (an admitted wine-idiot, so pardon me if I fail to describe properly). Those wines are delicious and any others you find will be similar in style, although the quality may not be the same as the one you tried because 93 was one of the best vintages in Tokaj since the end of communism. There are quite a few similar sweet wines made using different techniques from the same region so you'll have fun learning what all the different names mean.
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Jan 1, 2014 21:53
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gay picnic defence posted:Those wines are delicious and any others you find will be similar in style, although the quality may not be the same as the one you tried because 93 was one of the best vintages in Tokaj since the end of communism. There are quite a few similar sweet wines made using different techniques from the same region so you'll have fun learning what all the different names mean. Any recommendations for a vintage affordable by mortals, but still good? The dinner I had this at was more or less a bucket list dinner, I was swinging above my pay grade.
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Jan 1, 2014 22:05
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96, 99 and 2000 and 2005 were all quite good. I still have a few bottles of those kicking around, just looking for a good time to drink them.
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Jan 1, 2014 23:15
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I don't know anything about wine. Can I please get a recommendation for a decent, romantic french wine that is pretty easy to find and not that expensive ($30 tops?). Basic idea is to pair it with croissants after dinner.
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Jan 3, 2014 23:03
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reflex posted:I don't know anything about wine. Can I please get a recommendation for a decent, romantic french wine that is pretty easy to find and not that expensive ($30 tops?). Basic idea is to pair it with croissants after dinner.
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Jan 4, 2014 02:03
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Just the pastry, possibly chocolate croissants but most likely just regular butter ones.
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Jan 4, 2014 02:45
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I'm guessing you'll want a wine on the sweeter side. If it has chocolate, I'd go for red, but with a butter croissant I'd say white. I'm not that good with pairing wine and food, though, so I'm going to defer to others here.
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Jan 4, 2014 04:29
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If it must be French, presumably for the appearances, just look for something from Bordeaux and 2009. That'll almost certainly be easy to drink and pleasurable for non wine folks, and you'll likely be able to find a label which is suitable. It's also something you could go to a supermarket and find, whereas recommendations of specific Chateaux will rarely be available in a store you'd just walk into, and you'd end up either mail-ordering something expensive or buying an alternate with poor preparation.
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Jan 4, 2014 07:30
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It's my dad's birthday (69yo), he is retired and studying oenology for fun (3 years already). I'd like to get him something related to wine. Option include: - a weekend at a bed and breakfast that also happens to produce fine wines (Pomerol etc) - a book or two about wine such as "Wine Grapes: A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties", "The World Atlas of Wine", "Adventures on the wine route"... other ideas ? - hard to find / unusual (here in Europe) wines that he can drink right now: Viader red Napa Valley 2000 and Proprietary Red H Block Arietta 2003 specifically. What do you think is best ?
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Jan 4, 2014 10:57
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For books you can't go past The Oxford Companion to Wine and The World Atlas of Wine. They'll last longer than any wine you can buy and provide info and enjoyment for many years. If he's studying oenology you could get some academic books like Principles and Practices of Winemaking (Boulton) or The Handbook of Enology Vol 1 & 2 (Ribereau-Gayon) but those are really expensive.
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Jan 6, 2014 02:16
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I'd second Principles and Practices of Winemaking if he's studying enology. It's a lot more useful than "Wine Grapes: A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties".
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Jan 7, 2014 17:15
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Anyone else here subscribe to Garagiste? I'm fairly new to the mailing list, but so far I'm liking the wines I've bought and I find myself agreeing with Rimmerman's descriptions of them. I'm still hesitant to be fully on board with it, just because I've tried so few wine offerings at this point, but it's looking promising.
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Jan 11, 2014 05:33
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that Vai sound posted:Anyone else here subscribe to Garagiste? I'm fairly new to the mailing list, but so far I'm liking the wines I've bought and I find myself agreeing with Rimmerman's descriptions of them. I'm still hesitant to be fully on board with it, just because I've tried so few wine offerings at this point, but it's looking promising. Rimmerman can be kind of shady, though. There was a "Mystery Wine" offer on an Oregon Pinot that he flat out lied about the details of. Given that people buy those wines sight unseen based on the clues and details he gives, that's incredibly lovely. Even worse was the way he blew people off when they called him out on it even though he was clearly in the wrong.
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Jan 11, 2014 16:42
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I've been really liking wines from the Fass Selections list recently. Lots of really serious stuff from lesser known producers. Though the text is almost as florid as Rimmerman's, which is somewhat a turn off. I still bite on a couple Garagiste offers, though.
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Jan 11, 2014 22:00
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Case of Domaine Baud's Cremant de Jura Brut Sauvage just arrived. As good as I remember. Perfectly balanced, and more autolytic character and complexity than most Champagnes that'll cost you more than twice as much. Can't recommend it enough. There're a lot of affordable alternatives to the lighter, more elegant styles of Champagne, but this is one of the few that do a good respectable Roederer impression.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:31
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At this point in the state of affairs in Champagne, I'm not sure even Roederer can do a decent Roederer impression.
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Jan 14, 2014 18:35
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Does anyone feel like talking about how they got into Bordeaux? I've started to greatly enjoy village and 1er cru red Burgundy for the last year or two and feel like I'm missing out. I'm not really sure where to start. Can I spend $20-$50 and get something decent that is ready to drink young, 2-4 years old? Is there a general price/classification threshold where I should be going "okay I should give this 5+ years..."? Do I need to think about that at this point??!?
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Jan 26, 2014 05:41
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Bordeaux really is that bad. It has a great deal of prestige that stems almost entirely from the fact that its geographical position on the Atlantic made it a huge supplier of wine to the British empire. Its collectability and popularity among the Chinese has recently driven prices up even further. The rigid classification system cemented the status quo and ensures that there's as little innovation as possible. Its terroir is completely unsuited to making great wine. And they happened to be saddled with perhaps the worst selection of traditional grapes in any major Old World wine region. There is good Bordeaux out there, but it's so scarce and so expensive that it's just not worth sifting through the oceans of horse poo poo. Not that a 4-figure price tag is any guarantee of quality. White Bordeaux on the other hand, can be quite delicious.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:29
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I had a White Bordeaux and it was terrible. It was also very cheap, which probably had something to do with it.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:47
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Most of it is terrible, but there are also some great bottles out there for less than $30, unlike Red Bordeaux. It can be quite complex at a relatively low price point due to the combination of wood use, lees contact, and blending. It can have a curious combination of richness and greenness which is perfect for dishes with, well, richness and greenness.
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Jan 26, 2014 21:06
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I've had the fortune to try some fantastic red Bordeaux, but never on my dime. If I'm paying, I'll go elsewhere 100% of the time, and I really only expect the QPR of Bordeaux to get worse (not that the quality will decline, but the price will almost definitely go up).
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Jan 26, 2014 21:13
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Kasumeat posted:And they happened to be saddled with perhaps the worst selection of traditional grapes in any major Old World wine region.
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Jan 26, 2014 22:10
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that Vai sound posted:Do you mean other grape varieties would grow better in that region? No. Red Bordeaux varietals are independently poor. 1. Merlot can be good, particularly in Italy, but is largely generic and nondescriptly red winey unless it has a great deal of age (in which case you're not really tasting the varietal so much anymore). 2. I won't argue that Cab Sauv isn't hugely popular among consumers and collectors, but as far as I'm concerned it's the worst international wine grape in the world. Huge alcohol, huge tannins, low acid, and charmless black fruit. Disgusting. Unless it's less ripe, in which case its vegetal character comes through. 3. Cab Franc is so, so hard to make into great wine. Finding that perfect balance of ripeness that gives it delicacy and perfume without being too green is something that's rarely achieved even in its ancestral home of the Loire, although it can be done. 4. If Malbec has even been made into a good wine, I'm yet to try one. Simple and jammy in the new world, unforgiving and black in the old. 5. Petit Verdot is even blacker and more tannic than Cab Sauv. A useful blending partner for characterless wines, but not much else. 6. Carmenere is so disgusting that even the Bordelaise had the sense to rip most of it out. Unquestionably the worst wine grape in recorded history. Tastes like stewed compost. Fun fact, the only reason it's grown in significant quantities anywhere in the entire world is that the Chileans planted a bunch of it by accident thinking it was Merlot. The low quality of these grapes is drastically compounded by the fact that Bordeaux is a terrible place to grow wine. It's a flat, warm, wet swamp. If you had to make a short list of what makes a great site for growing wine grapes, it'd be the following: 1. Steep slopes, particularly those that face south. A steep slope provides drainage which prevents rot and increases concentration, and also provides an optimal angle to capture the warm, afternoon sun. 2. Mineral-rich soil. This can have a wide of effects depending on the specific mineral composition, but as a general rule it increases complexity. 3. Diurnal fluctuation, ie. dramatic differences between the daytime and nighttime temperatures. This allows you preserve acidity while achieving ripeness. 4. A cool to moderate climate. This is more contentious, but I think most people seriously into wine will agree that most of the world's great (still, dry, unfortified) wine comes from a relatively small range of temperature conditions. The best sites in warm climates (Priorat being the best example) are almost always the coolest. The best sites in cold climates (Mosel, Chablis) are the warmest. Bordeaux has none of the first 2 until you enter the $1000+ price range where the tiny mounds of gravel and clay provide the slightest hint of drainage and minerality, and its climate is toward the warm end of moderate. Being right on the ocean, there's negligible diurnal fluctuation. Kasumeat fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 23:07
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Kasumeat, you have very strong (and strange) opinions that many people here do not share. One way or another, I would ask that you take the absolutism that is reeking from your posts and reconsider the impact it may have on the more impressionable readers here. It is in no way appropriate for you to dissuade anyone from trying and exploring any wine region so that they can form an opinion of their own.
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Jan 27, 2014 15:21
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Overwined posted:Kasumeat, you have very strong (and strange) opinions that many people here do not share. One way or another, I would ask that you take the absolutism that is reeking from your posts and reconsider the impact it may have on the more impressionable readers here. It is in no way appropriate for you to dissuade anyone from trying and exploring any wine region so that they can form an opinion of their own. I totally second this. Kasumeat, your post almost inspired me to write a long post defending two things I generally don't like: Malbec and Bordeaux. Fortunately for everyone here, it was late and I was tired, so you don't have to read my ramblings. The tl;dr version is that there are some really solid wines being made in Bordeaux for $20 - $30 particularly in some of the lesser known appellations. There is are mountains of poo poo being produced, too, but that is true almost everywhere.
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Jan 27, 2014 18:34
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Overwined posted:Kasumeat, you have very strong (and strange) opinions that many people here do not share. One way or another, I would ask that you take the absolutism that is reeking from your posts and reconsider the impact it may have on the more impressionable readers here. It is in no way appropriate for you to dissuade anyone from trying and exploring any wine region so that they can form an opinion of their own. I very much welcome anybody who disagrees with me to explain why! It's much more helpful to have a discussion between people who are passionate about their opinions than to have somebody explaining facts that'll come up if you google "Bordeaux wine." I'm not in a position of authority here. I'm giving readers credit for being able to read an opinion on the internet without taking it for gospel.
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Jan 27, 2014 21:32
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Kasumeat posted:I very much welcome anybody who disagrees with me to explain why! It's much more helpful to have a discussion between people who are passionate about their opinions than to have somebody explaining facts that'll come up if you google "Bordeaux wine." I'm not in a position of authority here. I'm giving readers credit for being able to read an opinion on the internet without taking it for gospel. Your arguments against the grapes boil down to you simply not liking them subjectively. Also, Cab Saub does not typically have huge alcohol or low acid, and it shows green notes when under ripe, not ripe. I would reserve "huge" alcohol for grapes like Grenache and Zinfandel. If you haven't had great Merlot, Malbec, Cab, Cab Franc or Carmenere I'd either say you haven't been exposed to enough wine, or you simply don't care for darker reds. I'll give you Petit Verdot as a grape that doesn't belong on its own. Even then though, I know people who love varietal PV bottlings...
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Jan 27, 2014 21:52
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Yeah I have to say that it seemed like a somewhat strange attack on Bordeaux. Those wines are a bit over priced in Australia compared to the local Cab Savs (but this is true of every imported wine here barring NZ Sav Blanc) but they are still really nice. All of those grapes make great wine both in Bordeaux and in other regions, both as single varietals and in blends.
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Jan 27, 2014 21:53
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Crimson posted:Your arguments against the grapes boil down to you simply not liking them subjectively. Also, Cab Saub does not typically have huge alcohol or low acid, and it shows green notes when under ripe, not ripe. I would reserve "huge" alcohol for grapes like Grenache and Zinfandel. I acknowledge I used some hyperbole, Cab Sauv indeed isn't top tier for alcohol, but it's right below there. Luxury Napa/Australia/Chile Cab is frequently 15%+, which I consider monstrous when there is RS and low acidity. Bordeaux tends to be around 13-14%, although modern trends and producers are pushing this higher. Regarding acidity, I stand by most New World Cabs being low, with Bordeaux being moderate. If you account for the RS frequently found in these New World wines, its perception certainly is low. You also misread a ton of what I wrote, regarding Cab's greenness, good Merlots, Cab Franc, etc. Once again, I am indeed expressing an opinion, aka personal taste, here. I feel that I quite clearly expressed that I simply don't care for Bordeaux reds, and don't feel I made any incorrect factual statements. I was hoping that somebody who disagrees with me could offer their opinion and explain why they like these wines that I don't. I don't often agree with him, but I learn more from Parker when he says he hates a wine because it's lean and feminine than when he says it's delicious and correct.
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Jan 27, 2014 23:41
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