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I agree that Rioja is one of the most age-worthy wines. It's the Eveready bunny of wines. Rob_S will remember an incredible 1964 Faustino I that a mutual friend opened a few years ago. Sublime. I just don't have the time or patience to let my LRAs sit in the cellar for another 40 years, but perhaps ...

I like the Bachelder Ontario Chards, and I used to like Le Clos Jordanne’s wines (but agree that the Grand Cru wines weren’t worth the premium). I bought one bottle of each of the new LCJ releases but haven’t tried them yet. I’m NOT a fan of beet root in Pinot, so I’ll sit on that one for a year or ...

Rioja Alta is always and forever going to be Rioja Alta. If you like that coconut oak, it never leaves and it's always a signature of the bodega. That's not a criticism, just a note that it will be very distinctive. I find the coconut and dill notes from the oak in LRA to be overwhelming and off-pu...

Richard, there’s no obligation to buy anything from their Black Ball club. You just get access to some wines that others don’t. Ross, I’m in the middle with my opinion of PM. I like their Chard quite a bit, but I’m so-so on their Riesling (it varies quite a bit from vintage to vintage) and on their ...

From the WS forum and a contact at Halpern: The lottery has been postponed and no new date has been decided yet. None of the DRC have arrived in Ontario yet.

Cab Franc seems to be a good grape in Ontario. Tawse, Stratus in Niagara more main stream and Lacey in PEC was interesting at the winery a couple of years ago. I’m going to look out for these Morissette wines. Not much makes it to the LCBO. They sell a lot to restaurants and directly to consumers v...

Dennis, thanks for the pricing info on the resto. I honestly thought it was more $$. Everyone I know who has eaten there has loved it. In comparison, a dinner for 2 with wine pairings at Alo in Toronto - probably the closest to PM’s restaurant in quality and style- will run you $550 with tax and tip...

Andrew, Thanks for the menu update - looks like I definitely need to visit Cru. Cheers. The all-in price (meal, corkage, tax and tip) for the dinner was very reasonable and they treated us really well. Added bonus: at the end of the night they gave each of us a $25 gift card to be used on a future ...

And speaking of Dunn, try to find some of Dunn Vineyard’s Petite Sirah. I opened a '92 of this last month, it was pretty good: This needs air as it's very tightly wound in the first few hours of being open. At hour 4 paired with braised lamb it's finally softened enough to decipher what's going on;...

Looks like it'll be 11 am Pacific when they relaunch the offer.

Doug, yes the two 2006s were in a great place - but have years ahead of them. Joel, thanks for the reminder about the Bourgogne Blanc! Jay, the chef prepared a menu to pair with our wines. Extremely reasonable "all in" price (including corkage, tax and tip). Two of us had the seafood option for the ...

And speaking of Dunn, try to find some of Dunn Vineyard’s Petite Sirah. Only produced from 1992-1995. I think you can still purchase at least one of the vintages directly from Dunn if you call them. Randy produced the wine for 4 vintages but didn’t bottle it until considerably later. And now his son...

Adam Frisch wrote: ↑
January 11th, 2020, 5:21 am
I've never had much luck with PS. In fact, the very opposite. What would be a good, fresher, lower alcohol producer in CA?

Retro Cellars. Mike Dunn’s winery. Awesome stuff. And affordable.

The lineup: 2014 Maison Leroy Bourgogne Blanc 2008 Pierre Gimonnet & Fils Champagne Premier Cru Blanc de Blancs Brut Fleuron 2011 Pierre Péters Champagne Grand Cru Cuvée Speciale Blanc de Blancs Les Chetillons 1998 Domaine des Lambrays Clos des Lambrays 2003 Domaine du Clos de Tart Clos de Tart 1971...

Also: about 3 years ago a Toronto tasting group did a blind tasting of about 8 vintages of HM with two bottles of the Napa bottling thrown in the mix. No one at our table could pick out the Napa. I’ll see if I can find the list of vintages and post it here later today. IIRC the Napa bottles were qu...

I believe you can still order a few vintages of the Petite Sirah directly from Dunn if you call them. But they are not cheap.

I’ve gone through many bottles of the 86, 87 and 88 HM and I’ve only had one bottle (of the 88) that was getting tired. I also had the 87 Napa a few years ago and it was excellent, although perhaps a step or two behind the HM. The 87 HM is legendary: without a doubt my favourite vintage. It used to ...

Thanks for the TN. One of my top five favourite producers. Still working through the last of my 1980s HM.

Andrew what is Detert? They are the cousins to another board darling, MacDonald. Their property is next door for the most part. Some of their cab franc offerings are from old vine To Kalon fruit. I’ve got a visit lined up there in 4 weeks, so I’m excited to learn more. I’ve had their cab franc, and...

Glen Gold introduced me to quite a few, but the two that come to mind right now are Detert and Bernabeleva. Thanks Glen.

This one stands out from a pretty great crowd: 1986 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Some others that I recall from various dinners and lunches this year: 1990 Bollinger Grande Année 1959 Drappier Carte D'Or 2002 Bollinger RD 2006 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 2004 Sandrone Cannubi Boschis 2001 Guigal La ...

I've only bid once on an Acker auction but IIRC you will get an outbid email notification. So if you didn't get that notification you can assume you won. Yes, it's crazy that you can't log into your account after the auction ends and see the results of the lots you bid on. And I also recall that you...

A busy weekend: 1 x 2001 Bruno Giacosa Barolo 1 x 2001 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto di Serralunga 1 x 1996 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto di Serralunga 1 x 2003 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Rocche del Folletto di Serralunga 6 x 2004 Bruno Giacosa Barolo Vigna Croera di La Morra 3 x 1990 Aldo Conterno Barolo...

I was hoping the lowest score would be for the 2012 Save Me San Francisco Wine Co. Pinot Noir Soul Sister which someone gifted to me about 4 years ago. I finally opened it last night and was revulsed by the god-awful nose. Then I took a sip and had to spit it out. But apparently CT users are more fo...

I can’t get the WineBid search to work on my iPhone. I see the Winebid icon and I can click to expand it. When I do, the page zooms in to roughly 200% and I only see half the search field. I can pinch the screen to zoom back out and enter my search but there’s nothing to click to activate the search...

Opening my first bottle of the NV Coessens Champagne Les Sens Boisés Brut Largillier tonight. Very interested in how this shows.

I get what Joel is saying. Yeah, it doesn't affect the taste of the wine. But if that's all anyone cared about, then why not package all wines in the same generic bottle with generic labels, and ship them all in cardboard boxes? The bottle, label and OWC is part of the experience. Personally, I valu...

john stimson wrote: ↑
November 25th, 2019, 1:03 pm

Robert.A.Jr. wrote: ↑
August 14th, 2014, 5:12 am

Charlie Fu wrote:Pycm cause people still don't know what it stands for.
Didn't Michael Jackson have a song with that acronym?
It was Donald Fagen.

There'll be spandex jackets, one for everyone.

I love this thread and refer to it fairly regularly. I would suggest that Clemente Guasti should be in the traditional list, rather than leaning modern. I visited them in 2014 and they use REALLY old Slavonian oak botti. Their cellar is one of the dankest and funkiest I've seen, and there was seemin...

Really well done, everyone. Tran, incredible notes. Ross, it sounds like it was an incredible evening. Sorry I had to miss it for a concert. The concert was also incredible, but the wine they served at the venue, not so much.

Two extremes in the last few weeks. 1990 Bollinger Grande Année. Sublime. Excellent, persistent bead. Beautiful balance between the still lively fruit, brioche and caramel. Couldn't have asked for more from this bottle. NV Pierre Moncuit Hughues de Coulmet BdB Brut. My go-to weekday sparkler. I like...

Anyone have experience with the Le Macchiole Paleo Rosso? Only thing giving me pause is some high(er) abvs listed in CT notes for some past vintages. In my experience, the Paleo is generally a very long-lived wine that probably doesn't hit its peak for at least 15 years. A friend opened a 2007 with...

When I drive down to the UPS store in NY to pick up my shipments and bring them back to Toronto, I repack everything at the store because I don't want to haul all the box inserts and styrofoam back home with me. UPS will recycle everything for $2 and it's the best $2 I've ever spent. But this inevit...

6 x 2017 Viñedos Bernabeleva Vinos de Madrid Bernabeleva Garnacha de Viña Bonita

How was the Philipponnat? A house I admit I have had a hard time grokking. I've had a few bottles of the 08 Blanc de Noirs and have enjoyed them but haven't been wowed. On the other hand, I could drink the Clos des Goisses all day, every day. So much depth and complexity. One of my notes on the 200...

Looks like it turned out to be a fine pizza oven warming party, Dylan. Sorry I missed it and that my event conflicted with yours. I saw Dianne's IG videos of the pizza oven in operation. Nice!

I had a group of the Toronto crew over to my place this past Saturday for a quasi-pot luck dinner and wine. There was no theme to the wines, but as people started to declare wines a natural theme emerged. The reds were almost exclusively Italian and primarily Tuscan: a nice flight of Merlot, a few S...

Wow, fantastic tasting and equally fantastic notes. Thanks Mike. I had to dump my last bottle of 2014 Familiar Blanc when I opened it last month. It was drinkable, but not at all enjoyable. I was equally unimpressed by the 2014 Semillon so I'm glad to hear it performed so well for your crew. I've be...

$99CAD @YLee Shoot! When is the next event? How do I signup? https://www.lcbo.com/content/lcbo/en/vintages/vintages-events.html Regularly updated with the various seated dinners and walk-around tastings staged by the LCBO. The next walk-around is a Napa tasting on Nov 7th @ $150. A nice lineup of p...

Andrew and Tom, The wine Tom 'reviewed' was the Grenache Blanc - the wine in question here appears to be a blend, NOT that same wine. Yep, the GB is a 'blend' as well but it is 75% GB and is labeled as such; this wine is only 50% GB so it is definitely not the same. Cheers. Larry, thanks. Good catc...

Has anyone received and sampled this? Notes please! Posted TN’s on this from our Ridge dinner at Pig+Fig about two weeks ago. Tom Thanks for the TN, Tom. I found it when I searched for “+pig +fig”. It didn’t show up in my original search for “Adelaida” because you had “AdelaidaVnyd” as one word, so...

Has anyone received and sampled this? Notes please!

Envoyer just emailed a flyer for 2014 Produttori SVDs, the same ones I purchased on pre-arrival back in March. The prices on many bottles are as much as $10 cheaper than what I paid. WTF??? I got the email, but most of the 2014 cru are available here in Canada for $5-$15 more, and that's in CAD, so...

I was thinking the same thing today. Supposed to ship the week of Sept 30 but no word yet.

It would have to be a miracle, since Scavino was the producer who scared me off Barolo for nearly a decade. ('How much wood could a woodchuck chuck...") There seems to have been a big change. Tasting through the '14 and '15 lineups last year and this year, they were surprisingly transparent and bal...

For example, I have multiple bottles of both the 2015 and 2017 Schäfer-Fröhlich Bockenauer Felseneck Riesling Großes Gewächs. Given the vintages, which do you think will outshine the other, or are they generally considered equal in quality? And which will have the earlier drinking curve? I know, it’...

How did the Fritz Haag fare? Pretty well actually, already very open and tropical. Not sure if it going to last as long as other wines in this tasting. Thanks. I thought I had some of the 2017, but I only have the 2015. Which leads to another question: lots of talk here about 2016, 17, 18... but ho...

How did the Fritz Haag fare?

I was at 170 until last week. Now it’s at 114. I’ll have it down to 48 by the end of October and hope to keep it in that neighbourhood.

That was an enjoyable and informative read. Thanks. Did you taste any of the wines from Clerico or Scavino, and if so, what are your thoughts?

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