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No mention of this flaming bag of dog poo poo? http://www.portlandiavintners.com/wines/pinot-noir/
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Jul 11, 2015 00:30
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How could you say such things about a wine that has received 90 points from the unimpeachable Beverage Tasting Institute!?!?!
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Jul 11, 2015 01:44
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Speaking of 'beverage tasting institute' I think it is difficult to see through all the ratings that wines are getting, mainly because no one is advertising any rating below say 85. At the same time it seems like it is highly inflated. Reading ratings is like walking down brick lane in London and trying to chose an Indian restaurant based primarily on what the signage says - it seems like there's no restaurant where the chef hasn't at least won a specialized Bocuse d'Or (perhaps so specialized that you can only be eligible for it if your name is Ranjeet and you are working at brick lane 22). Is there, actually, any raters that are trustworthy to such an extend that those are the guys that you actually should listen to, and what is the difference between a 91 and a 92 (taste wise it can be immense - I know), but quality wise it may not be.
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Jul 11, 2015 06:56
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Robert Parker himself wrote that his own ratings are now irrelevant. When he started, the European wines coming into the US were scant, spurious, and expensive. He claims his rating system was initially to let Americans know how well or poorly made a wine was. Then of course it all became a measure of how much he liked the wines. I always found his actually review more helpful, but in some cases he was giving 98 or 99 points to wines and only spending 1-2 sentences on the review. Overall, I have always and still do consider numerical scores to be hogwash. I think this is pretty well-trodden ground in this thread. However, it's interesting how much popular attention has totally vacated score-based reviews. In a way, dumbasses like the "Beverage Tasting Institute" (which I have from a reliable source is a strictly pay-to-play) have flooded wine drinkers minds and retail shelves, washing away any coherent voice, as if there was one to begin with. We can dive down the rabbit hole of "what is quality?" for quite some time, but to me the less qualitative and more quantitative aspects of a review have always been more interesting to me. What sorts of flavors it presents, how grippy it is, how high the alcohol is, etc, these are the things I want to know about because they will speak to my own experience should I get to taste this wine. I think some comments about quality are welcome, but only from a strictly technical standpoint: does the wine have VA, does the alcohol interfere with the more delicate aromas, is the oak pervasive, etc. I do not think that there are raters whose ratings themselves are worth too much attention. I feel that for some prominent reviewers (like Eric Asimov) scoring has become a vestigial obligation. There is one thing I will say in favor of scores. I worry a bit about laypeople and what drives their decisions. I've probably talked to thousands of people who just want something nice to drink and I've found that they are often quite conceited about their approach to wine. A score may be a work of fiction, but I know that when imploring them to branch out and try something new, a score would help me. Now I wonder if people are staying in their shells more now that there's no one to hold their hand.
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Jul 11, 2015 14:31
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Wine scores can be useful if you find a critic with a similar palate to your own. Other than they're pretty much trash. Critics will give the same wine wildly different scores on different days. You may as well ask people to rate a painting on a 100 point scale.
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Jul 11, 2015 19:53
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I think so too - having tastes much more complex and pleasant wines with lowish scores from small houses, where they have blown larger houses with higher scores out of the water. I do, however, always trust a wine with top marks from the beverage tasting institute which is unreproachable in their objectivity. They sure do taste beverages!
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Jul 12, 2015 18:14
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If you asked me to compile only 5 pieces of advice for any new wine drinker, in order of importance, #1 has always been and always will be this: Stop worrying about drinking bad wine. It'll still get you drunk. I feel like ratings play into the childish fear that drinking something you don't think is excellent will make your head explode or some poo poo.
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Jul 12, 2015 19:54
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Professional question for the somms, floor people, and other industry peeps - what's standard practice in managing open bottles for your BTG list, and what kind of info should I let buyers know if I'm offering wine for their BTG program?? I'm making wine in a minimal intervention/natural/whatever the gently caress way you want to call it these days. Basically whole-cluster, foot-stomped, ambient yeasts, and sulfured only upon bottling. I want to work a little more reductively this year, because gout de souris is definitely something that happens with no-sulfur wines and definitely something that I don't like. My wine is perfectly happy to pop n' pour, and happy to hang out for a few hours, too. If I drink half the bottle and slap a cork in it and leave it on the counter it's still good the next day but does fall off a little, at least to my taste. Two days is too long for that kind of treatment, though. I don't gas half-bottles at home, but I'm going to see how a gassed partial bottle holds up vs an ungassed partial this week. I have a friend who runs a wine bar, and he was saying buyers aren't gonna want BTG wines that can't hold up for 2-3 days - has this been true in your guys' experience? This isn't weird natty juice that takes off in a VA rocketship and falls apart into mousy cheese curds as soon as it hits the air, but it also isn't indestructible juice of a thousand tannins that can hang out on the counter for days and days. It's fresh and drinkable and delicious, though; I think it'd fit in great on plenty of BTG lists and I think I can price it with enough flexibility (prob ~$13/btl) to make BTG work for many San Francisco restaurants. Any advice?
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Jul 13, 2015 08:25
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I'm not in San Francisco but where I am, I wouldn't sell a $14/btl wine that couldn't hold up for 3+ days at anything less than $14/glass. Don't know what wine by the glass usually looks like there but here in NC that's on the really high end
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Jul 13, 2015 08:35
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What are you doing to get your wines to hold up for 3 days, though? Gas them every night, fridge them overnight, stuff like that? Short of like, badass Cornelissen poo poo I just can't imagine leaving many wines out for 3 days and them being in a sellable, drinkable state. In most $25+ entree restos in SF red btg will be something like $12-17, at least in my experience as a diner. I don't think $14/glass would raise many, if any eyebrows.
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Jul 13, 2015 09:05
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Shouldn't you base all your wine purchases on how classy the label looks?
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Jul 13, 2015 13:55
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Affi posted:Shouldn't you base all your wine purchases on how classy the label looks? You'd think, but the true connoisseur knows that the heavier the bottle and the deeper the punt, the better the wine.
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Jul 13, 2015 16:33
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idiotsavant posted:Professional question for the somms, floor people, and other industry peeps - what's standard practice in managing open bottles for your BTG list, and what kind of info should I let buyers know if I'm offering wine for their BTG program?? 3 days of service is what I would expect from a glass pour, which means approximately 20 hours unrefrigerated for reds and the rest in a fridge. For this reason, and their tend towards higher acidity, whites tend to hold longer than reds. Now, one philosophical decision that varies from program to program is where you draw the line at "gone off." For me, as long as I'm still enjoying the wine, I'm OK with a little evolution. It's a natural process that's part of what a wine is. Others, however, feel that noticeable evolution is unacceptable. So YMMV there. I'm not intimately familiar with the SF wine scene, but from what I understand, $13 is going to be coming in at the low end of most BTG programs, which is generally going to mean high volume, where shelf life will be less of an issue.
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Jul 13, 2015 17:14
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Kasumeat is exactly right, $13 would be on my low end, and 2 days should be fine at the price point because it'll sell. Obviously varies by restaurant style. Honestly I've never had someone even discuss the shelf life issue, I wouldn't be bringing it up. That's on them to figure out. Winemakers are typically much more sensitive to the wine falling off than the average lay person. Also, I run a wine program in the financial district, come pour me some wine! Truthfully I cater to businessmen and tourists so natural wines aren't necessarily up their alley, but I do include a couple off the beaten path types on my BTG. I am pouring Donkey & Goat's Five Thirteen right now.
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Jul 13, 2015 20:47
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2002 Bordeaux Superieur: how long to decant? Worried it might fade
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Jul 14, 2015 04:18
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honky tonk de blanc de blanc
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Jul 14, 2015 04:37
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himajinga posted:2002 Bordeaux Superieur: how long to decant? Worried it might fade Should be fine for an hour or two. I would try to keep it closer to an hour.
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Jul 14, 2015 04:56
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Crimson posted:Also, I run a wine program in the financial district, come pour me some wine! Truthfully I cater to businessmen and tourists so natural wines aren't necessarily up their alley, but I do include a couple off the beaten path types on my BTG. I am pouring Donkey & Goat's Five Thirteen right now. For sure! Send me a PM and I'll bring you a bottle full of barnyard animal poops
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Jul 14, 2015 07:43
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I had an old"roomie" who taught me how to make wine in our toilet bowl dang to this day that has helped me
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Jul 14, 2015 17:37
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himajinga posted:2002 Bordeaux Superieur: how long to decant? Worried it might fade I wouldn't worry about the wine "fading". There's much debate over decanting in the wine world, but my vote is for it. Decanting really helps the wine breath and smooth out. The flip side to this is that with very old wines (i'm talking 80's and earlier) some thing that decants spoils certain super subtle aromatics. Personally I decant ever very old wine and taste it to see how it progresses. My oldest Bordeaux I aged was a 1988 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild that my father bought and layed down for me. We decanted this wine and it took hours to open up. My best sips were the next day. So my advice would be open your wine and decant. Taste it as soon as you've decanted it. Leave it. Check an hour later. If you are ever in a pinch and don't have a decanter readily available, just pour a bigger 3oz taste for yourself and there will be more space for the wine to open up in the bottle. I'm new to SA, but work in wine as an aspiring sommelier. Cheers
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Jul 15, 2015 14:00
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This is going to sound crazy, but has anyone ever heard of an adverse reaction to sur lie wines? I've always had a bad reaction to cloudy Belgian style beers (generally manifested as a moderately intense pain/inflammation where my esophagus meets my stomach) and I had a Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine that was sur lie last night and had the same sensation. I've similar mild reactions to yeasty Champagnes as well.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:50
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I know yeast allergies are a thing (and must suck since yeast is everywhere) so that wouldn't surprise me at all. I've never heard about it manifest itself in drinks but maybe that's because people with severe allergies don't drink in the first place. Have you talked to a doctor? On a related note, holy poo poo are most doctors totally ignorant about wine. I was talking to my new-ish doctor and he clucked at me when I told him how much wine I drank. I asked him if he thought I had a problem and he said, "Yeah, with all that sugar!". I asked him how much sugar he thought wine contained and he told me that he had learned that the average glass had 25g of sugar in it. That'd be about 166 g/l which is very much on the super sweet end of things. I told him this and he didn't look like he believed me. I told him that lots of wine reports RS in their tech sheets and he still didn't look like he believed me.
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Jul 15, 2015 21:56
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himajinga posted:This is going to sound crazy, but has anyone ever heard of an adverse reaction to sur lie wines? I've always had a bad reaction to cloudy Belgian style beers (generally manifested as a moderately intense pain/inflammation where my esophagus meets my stomach) and I had a Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine that was sur lie last night and had the same sensation. I've similar mild reactions to yeasty Champagnes as well. Yep, sounds like a yeast allergy. It's not rare.
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Jul 15, 2015 22:01
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I guess I should count my blessings that it's fairly mild/specific as I drink tons of wine and beer and eat and bake more bread than is probably healthy, and only sur lie and unfiltered beers do it to me. It sucks because Muscadet is awesome and I live in one of the best oyster regions in the world 
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Jul 15, 2015 22:10
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Well since your reaction is mild it's almost more worth it to talk to your doctor since the stuff that treats heavy allergies preclude you from drinking. Maybe there's something that treats mild ones that still allow you to drink. Also, were your parents especially fastidiously clean when you were growing up?
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Jul 15, 2015 22:13
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Overwined posted:Well since your reaction is mild it's almost more worth it to talk to your doctor since the stuff that treats heavy allergies preclude you from drinking. Maybe there's something that treats mild ones that still allow you to drink. Yeah, that's definitely worth looking into. My parents weren't neat freaks, and I am not a germophobe in the slightest, and besides showering regularly and brushing my teeth twice a day I'm kind of laissez faire when it comes to things like washing my hands before eating a sandwich if I've been in the yard etc. and partially credit it with the fact that I only get sick around twice a decade.
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Jul 15, 2015 22:23
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Looking for some recommendations for good 1er cru vineyards and/or producers specifically in Chambolle-Musigny, Chambertin and Vosnee-Romanee; I've been reading Morris' Cote de Nuits book and while it's definitely informative about almost all of the grand & 1er cru vineyards, at the end of the day they are just one man's opinion and only has depth for the few 1er that he deems to be exceptional. I have a fair number of Chambertin grands and some Cote de Beaune but I am pretty lacking when it comes to 1er experience & bottles.
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Jul 31, 2015 22:56
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Kasumeat posted:3 days of service is what I would expect from a glass pour, which means approximately 20 hours unrefrigerated for reds and the rest in a fridge. For this reason, and their tend towards higher acidity, whites tend to hold longer than reds. Now, one philosophical decision that varies from program to program is where you draw the line at "gone off." For me, as long as I'm still enjoying the wine, I'm OK with a little evolution. It's a natural process that's part of what a wine is. Others, however, feel that noticeable evolution is unacceptable. So YMMV there. I'm not intimately familiar with the SF wine scene, but from what I understand, $13 is going to be coming in at the low end of most BTG programs, which is generally going to mean high volume, where shelf life will be less of an issue. I have a different take on this and how you should approach places you are looking to get on BTG. Don't worry about how the wine holds. It's not your responsibility. You make the wine, you sell the wine. They educate their customer and serve the wine. It's not your fault if a bottle doesn't show on day 2, but it's the business's for not factoring this in to pricing and daily service. Some wines don't even hold over night. It's important for the somm / bar tender to taste or at least put his nose on everything that was open from the night before that wasn't refrigerated over night. In the same gasp, it's important for whoever is closing down the bar the night before that they either gas the wine (with argon or similar) or use the vacuum machines to suck the air out of the bottle. As a somm / bartender I know which wines hold and which do not. Most bars who have an intelligent buyer will make deep enough buys for staff to get used to each product and how it shows along the stages. If i know a bottle doesn't show properly the next day to give our customers the experience they should have I pour it off to customer or staff at the end of the night for free. Customers love getting hooked up and staff learns more about the wine. .
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Aug 3, 2015 13:52
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Furious Lobster posted:Looking for some recommendations for good 1er cru vineyards and/or producers specifically in Chambolle-Musigny, Chambertin and Vosnee-Romanee; I've been reading Morris' Cote de Nuits book and while it's definitely informative about almost all of the grand & 1er cru vineyards, at the end of the day they are just one man's opinion and only has depth for the few 1er that he deems to be exceptional. I have a fair number of Chambertin grands and some Cote de Beaune but I am pretty lacking when it comes to 1er experience & bottles. I had a bang on Domaine Faiveley Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru d'Orveau last week. 2010. Sadly it was a pricey option (130 in NYS pre tax). I also have a few bottles of Patrice Rion Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Millesime 2006 left over with some life left in them. I got a really good deal on a half case, but google shows these going for 80 bucks now. Sadly these wines are just not very price point friendly but thus is burgundy. A fun comparison along the way is to open up some Willamette along with your burgundy. Willamette, poor mans burgundy.
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Aug 3, 2015 13:58
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bsummmit posted:I have a different take on this and how you should approach places you are looking to get on BTG. Don't worry about how the wine holds. It's not your responsibility. You make the wine, you sell the wine. They educate their customer and serve the wine. It's not your fault if a bottle doesn't show on day 2, but it's the business's for not factoring this in to pricing and daily service. I get where you're coming from, but as a fine wine distributor, I think it IS very important to worry that the consumer perceives this wine as positively as that wine should be perceived, that is according to its own intrinsic quality. Not based on how cheap/lazy an account is. There's obviously a wide spectrum here. I've been to "high end" places that exist solely as a cash grab (I think we've all been familiar with places like this) that doesn't have the ability to sell something more off-the-beaten-path at a decent rate and doesn't have the conscience or care to toss unused wine that's obviously turned. I've been at (and worse, serviced) restaurants that do "table service BTG" (where they bring the bottle over and pour in front of you) where I could clearly see the open date in black magic market and it was 7+ days old. I trust savvy consumers to make the distinction and not let that cast a shadow on the wine itself, but they are the minority. More often they will taste a wine that they will assume that that's how it tastes and never return. Worse yet is when a wine is sort of stretching it's useful date (let's say 4ish days open) so the wine tastes mostly okay, but the oxidized/vinegar tinge is enough to make people think it's not flawed, but they hate it. The fallout is often silent. I put a wine into a place, train the apathetic staff, then the wine rots. A few weeks later I talk to the buyer and he or she says "this doesn't sell" and we move on down the row to the next victim. The wine is ultimately hurt by this through not fault of its own.
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Aug 3, 2015 20:30
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bsummmit posted:I had a bang on Domaine Faiveley Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru d'Orveau last week. 2010. Sadly it was a pricey option (130 in NYS pre tax). Looks like d'Orveau is rare by itself regardless of the price point; also, I'm not trying to find great deals necessarily on burgundy and will expect a certain amount because that's reasonable. I'll keep an eye out for Rion's stuff, I see that he covers pretty much all the more higher recommended Chambolle 1er Crus so he could be worthwhile to keep a tab on. I just purchased some 2011 1er Cru Faiveley Clos d'Issarts and Confuron Les Suchots so I'm looking forward to trying to piece together some sort of baseline. In regards to Willamette, do you have any recommendations on what wineries to focus and compare? I'm pretty clueless when it comes to most non-Californian New World wines.
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Aug 3, 2015 21:49
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If you can ever get your hands on anything Cameron makes, buy it. He does not distribute his wine outside of Oregon, but I had a Pinot Noir called "Clos Electrique" from the mid-90s or maybe even late '80s and it was the single best Oregon Pinot Noir I have ever tasted. EDIT: Dick Shea himself told me that Cameron's biggest clients are usually other Willamette Valley winemakers. I think that alone speaks volumes, especially considering the source.
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Aug 3, 2015 21:52
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Cameron makes it out of Oregon, I have it on my list in the Bay Area. And you're right, those wines are so god drat good.
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Aug 4, 2015 00:57
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I picked up a couple of bottles of Cameron at K&L and I guess I'll drink them side-by-side with a young Gevrey 1er. Thanks for the direction!
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Aug 4, 2015 04:07
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Anyone use delectable? I just joined, but it seems like half the fun is actually having people to follow.
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Aug 6, 2015 08:06
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I need to get a Barolo for the "Wines of N. Italy" Great Courses series tonight but I have a dilemma. From what I understand, Barolo isn't really supposed to be consumed young. Since I didn't realize I'd be doing this 10+ years ago I don't have a properly aged bottle from a classic producer. My choices are: buy a young bottle from a classic producer (2010 Vietti Castiglione probably) or an older bottle (2005 Villa Lanata Lo Zoccolaio of some stripe most likely) from a slightly lesser producer. Thoughts? Help me obi-wine-kenobi you're my only hope himajinga fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 16:02
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A 10 year old Barolo poses zero risk of being over the hill. In fact, it's finally now in a good but not great drinking window. Also, what makes you sat that it's a "lesser producer"? Vietti is p good in my book, but I'm curious as to what your metric is.
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Aug 6, 2015 16:21
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Overwined posted:A 10 year old Barolo poses zero risk of being over the hill. In fact, it's finally now in a good but not great drinking window. Also, what makes you sat that it's a "lesser producer"? Vietti is p good in my book, but I'm curious as to what your metric is. I think you might be misreading my post, I'm saying I'm worried 5 years past vintage is too young to understand what Barolo is about and 10 years is probably better. I literally know 0 about Barolo other than "lay that poo poo down forever", but I googled "top Barolo producers" and Vietti was definitely on there but not Lanata, I was just wondering if a younger (bad) Vietti (good) is better than an older (better) Lanata (less good) to get an idea of what the wines are about. himajinga fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 16:24
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I'm just curious. I understand you're question. You're asking "is young * better producer > or < older * less better producer". I was just curious as to where you got your information and how you were processing it. If you ask for my opinion, it's "<" in most cases where the lesser producer isn't some super-cheap bargain basement Barolo (these exist though they are getting rarer).
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Aug 6, 2015 16:27
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| # ? May 17, 2024 13:04 |
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Overwined posted:I'm just curious. I understand you're question. You're asking "is young * better producer > or < older * less better producer". I was just curious as to where you got your information and how you were processing it. If you ask for my opinion, it's "<" in most cases where the lesser producer isn't some super-cheap bargain basement Barolo (these exist though they are getting rarer). Oh ok, I see, thanks, didn't mean to be argumentative  . Yeah I'm absolutely 100% ignorant about Italian wines, so google, plus me liking Vietti's label aesthetic, plus it being available to buy on short notice was my only metric. I'll totally opt for the older bottle in this case then 
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Aug 6, 2015 16:31
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