qotd drinking a sparkling of course

Gary how about doing a vin juane episode?

Good ending to 2006! Would have liked to seen that Sabre!

New Years 2006 I was in Bangkok Thailand. Great episode, I have thought about trying that wine now I will have to.

Loved the episode. The beard...not so much. Also, I'd take a 76 Sauternes over a riesling any day!

Iron Sheik?...Brutus the Barber Beefcake's Barber Shop was the REAL DEAL

Thanks for the heads up on the Beringer. We're heading to Napa MLK Jr. weekend and will skip Beringer (again).

NYE wines (20 people dinner/wine party). 5 bottles 1995 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millenaires. 2 bottles 2000 Angelus (decanted at noon for 9 p.m. tasting and still tight). 2 bottles 1986 Pichon Lalande (showed well after just a couple hours of decanting - little sediment). 2 bottles El Nido Clio (70% Mouvedre/30% Cab was very interesting). 2 bottles 1997 Casanova di Neri (decanting for 6 hours did nothing, closed and dumb - wine finally opened for brunch the next day). 1 bottle 1986 Rieussec and 1 bottle 1988 Rieussec (for the Foie Gras course). 2 bottles 1992 Dunn Howell (after 9 hours decanting it finally came through). 2 bottles 1991 Chateau Montelena Estate (lovely after just a few hours of decanting). Mag of 2002 Chateau Montelena (new California style, preferred the 1991, but still a great wine and showed well after just 3 hours decanting). Double Mag of 1995 Caymus Special Select (think RP was more on the money about this wine than WS). Mag and 1 bottle of 1995 Insignia (think Tanzer and WS was more on the money about this wine than RP). 3 bottles of 1997 Venge Family Reserve (still a baby after 6 hours of decanting). 2 bottles of 1996 Clarendon Hills Astralis (wow!) Finished the evening with Montecristo No. 4s (Habana from a 50 stick cabinet box).

Great episode Gary. Okay, I must be last on the sign up list cause i just got this email with the episode link today. QOTD: At Home, drank a few bottles of the 1985 Charles Heidsieck Champagne Charlie. Cheers ~ Jtk

Gary, Had New Years in Vegas. Place to eat; Fleur Da Lye at Mandalay Bay. Opened a 1998 Ovation by Joseph Phelps. The color was golden. The consistancy was like light olive oil. The flavor just kept coming. Its match up with Fois Gras was orgasmic. Tell me you have some of this stuff laying around up there for sale (1998). Happy New Year Jerry. PS Don't forget you promised me a Corton Charlemagne taste off on one of your shows. Jerry

Gary, I hit the club in Waikiki... And I had tons of Vodka! Exactly the kind of Vodka in your vid, Grey Goose!

Great episode and I envy the beard... I can't grow one that thick on my best week.

Just an FYI: I was at the Jets team hotel the night before they trounced the Dolphins -- I tried to send a positive vibe to them while they were there... I think that did the trick.

QOTD: (and I know I am late) I had 40 people at my house, drinking everything that wasn't locked up and helping me blow through a Cava-based punch and a case of Mumm Napa Blanc de Noirs -- very pretty salmon color, nice strawberry flavors -- a real crowd pleaser. Thank GOD they didn't find the 1990 Palmer.... ;-)

Happy 2007!

What an awesome Sunday for football....my #1 AND #2 are in!!!! Yes, Lb there is a Santa Claus!

I just want to second the opinion of Mathew L, who says, "Gary, his dad, and the entire staff at Wine Library are the real deal."

Gary is as maniacally (or Vayniacly) devoted to his customers as he is to the Jets. ;)

I drank Castell Roig Brut and some Killibinbin Langhorne Blend 2004. Good stuff.

Nothing better than offering the ladies my champagne compared to the guy with Korbel. Thank you Gary. Giggity Giggity.

Where is the love for the Giants? I do believe both NY Sports teams will be in the playoffs this year. I am growing a Giants Playoff Beard. YEAH! What would be a good wine to send to Tiki Barber so he doesn't retire?

Ooops. Please excuse some of the typos.

Happy New Year to all! My wife and I were in NYC for the holiday, and we HAD to stop by Wine Library on the way. All I can say is WOW! Gary met us when we arrived and is just as humble and folksy in person as he is on the show. He took time to walk me around to pick a case I needed for a party. He also helped me build a case for myself. I thanked him and we said our Happy Holidays and good bye. Just as we were heading toward the checkout, Gary's dad Sasha walks by. I introduce myself and my wife. Sasha then invites us on a tour of the entire store. WHAT A TREAT! I have been talking about the store all weekend long to any one who will listen. A friend of my wife's met us at the store and she was telling all her friends about the store. People can say what the want about Gary's motives for doing WLTV. I say, "To hell with them." Gary, his dad, and the entire staff at Wine Library are the real deal. I can honestly say that I have found my favorite wine store. I will now buy all my wine from WineLibary.com, and will, without reservation, tell anyone to do the same.

Thank you Gary, Sasha and the staff at Wine Library for capping off my 2006 with a great memory.

FYI...here are the two cases

For the New Year's Eve party:

Olivier Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc Les Setilles 2005 (Library Code: 8877)
Vavasour Sauvignon Blanc 2005 (Library Code: 7686)
Gravity Hills Tumbling Tractor Zinfandel 2004 (Library Code: 9738)
Lemelson Pinot Noir Cuvee X 2003 (Library Code: 27784) -- This wine disappeared fast!

My wife bought a huge assortment of cheese, spreads, olives, meats, and other goods from the gourmet department at the store. They were great!


For myself:

Clos Mimi Petite Rousse Syrah 2004 (Library Code: 8815)
Whistler Black Piper G/S/M 2005 (Library Code: 29157)
Giant Steps Jones Block Sexton Shiraz 2004 (Library Code: 28508)
Clone 5 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 (Library Code: 29687) -- This is Gary's Cab. I can't wait to try it!
Luna Beberide Tierras De Luna 2001 (Library Code: 5123)
Massena 11th Hour Shiraz 2004 (Library Code: 1930) -- This is outside my normal price range, but Gary said I needed to treat myself. :D

QOTD: Our hosts had a lot Champagne. There was Clicquot (brut and rose), Tattinger, Moet Imperial, and Roederer. A guest brought a gift bottle of '93 Dom P. I brought a bottle of Jean Laurent Blanc de Blanc, but it was left in the card. I guess I will get to savor that one another day.

Oh...while in the city, we had dinner with some friends at La Giara (on Third Avenue between 33rd & 34th). (www.lagiara.com/)I've been there a few times, and they serve great Italian food with really friendly service. We had a Mionetto Prosecco (nice) with appetizers and Puglia Primitivo (okay) with dinner.

QOD: Okay, this is after the fact. But I just had time to watch the video after watching a stunning Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma. Wow! I hope you got to see it. Great game! Anyway, New Year's Eve we have a dinner party for 8 of our closest friends. With the amuse bouche, which was a deconstructed Guiness and shallot spicy sausage ragout with asiago cheese on top, we served the NV Napa Mumm Cuvee M. Nothing special, but it went well to greet the guests. The first course, was grilled shrimp basted in a chipotle butter over a green tomatillo salsa. We served a 2003 Alsatian Pinot Blanc. The main course was a rotisserie-grilled, herb crusted veal loin roast served with saffron risotto and baked asparagus with prosciutto and Herbs de Provence. This was served with 4 bottles of 1995 Sociando-Mallet which I decanted for 3 hours or so beforehand. It was smooth as silk. We then served a chocolate course (some 70% cocoa dark chocolate and a couple of truffles) with a nice 1977 Quinta do Noval Colheita Port. Dessert was a Bailey's Cheesecake with dark chocolate swirls (my creation). At midnight, we toasted the New Year with a couple of bottles of NV Heidsieck & Co Monopole Blue Top Premiers Crus Champagne. All in all, it was a fantastic evening. I hope all of yours were equally good.

QOTD: Dutschke God's Hill Road Shiraz, Jacques Billot Brut Reserve Champagne, Johann Hart Riesling

Spent the evening at a dance party, drank a little pinot gris, and I'm now on four hours sleep.

Happy New Year, and thanks for WLTV!

Goat cheese and cabernet is usually a pairing from H***. That's white wine country. Albarino rocks with that cheese.

IMHO, the New World winemakers are losing a big chance when they go to the cork. True, a wine with a cork will be a different wine from the same wine with another closure. There is so much tradition with the wines which have been produced for more than a century, that I'd like to see a good portion of the old world traditional wines stay the way they are. Better yet, let's see some wine sold in skins.

However, New World wines were always destined to be different. I'd like to see everything in California, Oregon, Washington, Australia and New Zealand in a screw cap or other modern closure. It may age somewhat differently (maybe better), but there is so little of these wines aged, that we won't be missing a traditional flavor.

So we drank the '85 Lafite that had been in my basement for god knows how long. It was perfect. Maybe corks aren't so bad.

For the bubbly at midnight I opened a charmat method brut that I brought back from a winery in Chile last month. I paid $4.50 for it. I didn't taste brioche -- or stars, for that matter -- but it was refreshing. No one complained.

Happy to spent New Year's Eve home with my family.....having a nice dinner by the fire, ringing in 2007! J-E-T-S won big this afternoon---gotta keep the Playoff Beard alive!!!!!!!!! 2006, a very good year, the birth of WLTV....here's to all the Vayniaks........best to you 2007!

well gary i've been a lurker and fan for a while now, and thought i'd pop out of the woodwork just to congratulate you on your big W with the jets today. i'm a college football fan myself, but found myself rooting just a little bit that the jets would win today.

enjoy the playoffs!

oh, and lets celebrate by getting winelibrary to ship to arizona! woot!

qotd: new years includes mumm napa blanc de noirs NV

Staying at home with my wife. Eating a nice lobster, which I will boil here (I never hear the screaming). Drinking a Laurent-Perrier Grand Siecle "La Cuvee".

Hi Gary!

Longtime lurker here, must say I really love and look forward to WLTV.

As far as New Years, the hubby and I will be spending it at home together in front of the fire. He's demanded my Chicken Kiev. I'll be making a vanilla bean cheesecake with blood orange curd as well.

Sofia Blanc de Blancs was half price at the grocery store so I thought I'd give it a shot. I did see your WLTV episode on this one, and I'm not feeling hopeful. Doesn't sound like my style of bubbly (I always look for descriptors such as "brioche", "cake batter", and "bread dough", then I know it's up my alley) I'll probably get a back up split of something more reliable just in case.

Anyhow, a "Wine"derful (ta-dum-dum!)New Year to all! Keep it rockin' in 2007, Gary!

The sound of the cork is akin to the ping of a golf ball off the tee right down the middle of the fairway, the crack of a Ryne Sandberg home run, or the swish of Jordan fade-away jumper...ok, pull the natural, but what's wrong with synthetics? Graphite racquets ruined tennis, don't let twist caps ruin wine in similar fashion.

Great episode. I enjoyed the questions and your responses. Is there a rule of thumb that a novice like me can use to tell how long a wine can be cellared and when is likely a good time to pop a bottle open to see how things are going?

I realise it depends on vintage but simple rules of thumb based on grape variety or wine type & quality of vintage (good, fair) would help newbies a lot.

-Aamer

To Joe, who is positive that his Leoville Las Cases and Latours will "age gracefully and positively for 25 - 50 years in cork," I say: Maybe not. Yes, the cork will let in some air, but it will also let in the smells of the cellar. If you have an expensive, custom cellar to hold the wine at the right temperature, then the wine has a good chance to age well, but I've tried many older wines that smell musty and taste oxidized.

One anecdote. I organized a tasting with six couples about 10 years ago, the organizing principle being: bring a great, ready-to-drink bottle of red wine. I brought a Margaux, someone else brought a Latour. All the wines were between 20 and 30 years old. Of the six wines, all were over the hill -- some undrinkable. Four of the six came from basement cellars and two of the six had been purchased at high-end wine stores a few weeks earlier.

Since that experience, I've been very cautious about holding wines too long. As I've gotten older (I'm 55), my taste buds have become less sensitive to tannins, so I don't mind young wines -- as long as they've had time to breathe in the glass (or opened bottle). And anyway, I can't count on being around all that long even if I had a fancy cellar.

All this reminds me that I have an '85 Lafite in my basement, and that tomorrow would be a perfect time to pop that cork when friends are over.

Going to spend some quiet time with friends:

Drinking:
Drappier NV Blanc de Blanc "Signature"
Eric Rodez Blanc de Noir Grand Cru Brut NV

Hey Gary,
Thanks for all the tips and tricks.
Have a fantastic year....

I'll be in Rio de Janeiro at the beach and drinking a Paul Roger-Winston Churchill 1995

Seeya next year

Hi

New listener here. First comment ever. First of all, congrats for this great educational AND entertaining machine that is WLTV. Keep up the good work.

I watched a couple of old episodes and really liked the blind tasting one. How about a part II to that?

QOTD : Probably a Minervois - Le Régal du Loup 2004. I also have a generic 2000 Burgundy (Croix St-Louis) that begs to be opened.

My wife and I are driving up the coast to Santa Barbara and staying at a b&b over New Years. The plan is to wine taste New Years Eve day and on January 2nd, and have some nice ad hoc dinners in our room with some of our purchases. New Years Day will see most of the wineries closed, so we're hiking in the mountains to work of all our holiday glut.

G to the V... As luck may have it, I have to work. Yup thats right. Hopefully the Krug will be flowin' My wife and I are popin a '89 D'Armailhac New Years Day to celebrate. Cant wait. Holla' Back, CB

P.S. Thanks for the shout out!

I will look for that cheese.

Me like Spanish cheeses.

QOTD
At the diner, I feel like drinking something like California cab.

Haven't decided which one yet.
Champagne at midnight.

Gary, Nice two-color shirt. Is it Michelle or Michel? I think the corkscrew industry is behind the agitation to keep cork. You know, another Big Business conspiracy! Thanks for enlightening and entertaining us. A very happy New year to you and your family. I'll be at dinner with friends and then to a house party with me bringing Duval Leroy Brut.

Think I'll hang up the car keys and drink some wine. Actually, a group on another forum I was participating in (before advent of WLTV Forum) decided at the last minute to do an impromptu online tasting, for the sake of "togetherness". Wasn't time for many guidelines and zeroing in on a single wine we could all drink together, so it sounds like we will either pop a Barolo or a good Chianti CCR, or both. I plan to try the Virna Barolo Cannubi Boschis 2000 (I know, you panned it on Episode #116, a couple of days after it was an e-mail special). I had already ordered three. (BTW, I'm always glad when you tell us what you really think about the wine you are tasting, whether it's good for sales or not). For the Chianti, either Castello della Paneretta '01 Torre a Destra CCR or Felsina '95 Berardenga 'Rancia' CCR. Happy NY and Happy NYJ.

Happy New Year to Gary and all the Vayniacs!

QOD- Root beer or ginger ale for the kids and 2001 Justin Isosceles for me and the wife.

PS- Those plastic/rubber/fake cork corks are the worst. Nearly impossible to remove and completely impossible to re-cork. I much prefer screw caps.

End of year is a great time to extend a major THANK YOU for all you do in bringing passion and fun along with a little bit of you to the wine world. This was a nice little episode. I agree with the former comment it would be great to see a mini-vert on same wines different vintages same producer (e.g., Knight's Valley 01, 02, 03). Or perhaps easier to arrange would be different wines from same vintage same producer. QOTD: Not at all sure what we're doing New Year's Eve. I never drink on New Year's day because I'll be forty feet up in the air taking down Christmas decorations. I was going to open my last 90 Dominus for NYE but then got worried it might be corked so I opened it Christmas night. The cork was fully saturated but the wine turned out to be fine. Better than OK, it evolved fabulously in the decanter and in the glass over the course of about six hours. Absolutely beautiful mix of cherry, herbs, tomato, tobacco, and later on, fresh bell pepper. It reminded me that not only do we tend to be impatient about how soon we drink wines, but many many times we drink them way too FAST, robbing ourselves of the potential to experience different stages of what you call "the moving target". Best to you and your family for the new year Gary, CK

New Years: crashing parties in S.F. drinking whatever the hosted bars are serving; will prime the night with Paringa Sparkling Shiraz and Le Grotte Sparkling Lambrusco (something charming about red and bubbly and the girly girls love it).

I can't get past the Beringer association with their White Zinfandel; will probably never purchase anything by them -- that's their fault, not mine: there's no government regulation that says you gotta make White Zin if you have a winery. . .

We will be playing our annual NYE poker tournament with the fam. When you live in Florida, the house becomes a "Holiday Inn" this time of year. I am about ready to kick them all out, so my husband and I can enjoy our nice bottle of Gosset without having to share!!

Hey Gary,

I'm with you about enjoying cheese as much or more than wine! I don't think i'll be able to find it; but i'm going to be on the lookout for that Leonora!

Have a great new year!

~Chris

I already know where I'm going to be on NYD...for I just arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, and have started celebrating it! I'm only 1 block from the Civil Rights Museum and the Lorraine Hotel, where MLK was killed, and I'm only 3 blocks from Beale Street! Will be celebrating the new year with my boyfriend Jason who flew in from Guam to bring in the New Year with me(he's the love of my life) and a couple of his friends. We have all committed ourselves to a veritable food and drink orgy/mission for the entire New Year's Day weekend by going to all of the top eating joints we can stand. We are NOT going to worry ourselves about weight gain, lack of exercise, possible premature death, or any of the mundane stuff we normally sweat ourselves about. One of my boyfriend's free-spending and very rich college friends (who loves champagne, and calls it "cham pag knee") has put himself in charge of the bubblies and he has promised that we will have either Dom or Cristal for New Year's Eve (among many other spirits)...tomorrow we're all looking forward to a barbequed shrimp skillet dinner for 6 at the Rendezvous (best rib joint in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD). We just came back from Memphis' top place for buying wine (it's called Busters--hi Tiffany!). I normally like Zin with my BBQ, but the folks at Busters said that even with BBQ'd shrimp, a red could be a bit overwhelming, and so they suggested a Sauvignon Blanc instead. So that's what I ended up getting for us to take to the Rendezvous with us tomorrow (yes, Gary, it does has a screw-cap opening :-). I am sooooo psyched about all the good food and drink I've already had here in Memphis so far, and about what lies ahead. This is the absolute, most idealized, most perfect way for me to celebrate a new year, for I do love good food and drink so very much!