Basket-case.

Basket–ready to drink!

Wine basket… easily.

A couple of Red Zins, some triple creme cheese and a crusty bread and it sounds like a picnic to me.

I’ll take a wine basket especially if it is like the Christmas one! What a crowd pleaser!

Basket!!

I have generally always dug the Holly’s Blend. Haven’t tried the ’05, but plan to soon.

I’d like the basket and the kit as a gift. HA!

Forget all you lazy alchoholics! Heheh… JK… jk…
I want the wine-making kit! That sounds fun!!!
Dangerous….. but fun! 🙂
(Seriously, though… What could increase you appreciation for wine more, than putting in months of your own blood, sweat, and tears, only to end up with undrinkable swill?) 🙂

Wine making kit. I love making Beer and mead and would also like wine Someone asked the other day in the comments and I was wondering if there was an answer yet about what the numbers behind you mean.
Well I voted for you good luck in the awards

Wine basket for sure. I had to drink too many glasses of homemade wine by an Uncle who was so proud of his wine that I couldn’t spit it out. Thanks for making my day for saying you enjoy Sauvignon Blanc over Chardonay. It seems safer to order at a resturant as I usually get a enjoyable wine. With Chardonay I always seem disappointed. This is a constant issue with my husband and me. He wants the oak monster Chardonay.
Thanks for a good episode. Will expand my white wine choices.

WHY I LIKE RATINGS…

Gary, Gary, Gary
You compare wine to bubble gum? To tires? How many brands of bubble gum are there? How many brands of tires? Maybe a dozen, max? How many kinds of wine could I buy? Thousands and thousands and THOUSANDS. So how do I decide? Okay, I like fruit-forward new-world styles. STILL thousands. So if Gary V or Bobby P or some Spectator wants to help me out and say – hey, there are lots of cab-based meritages or chardonnays or Rhone-style wines – BUT this one tastes better to me than that one, and this one tastes even better (and maybe use a numeric scale to differentiate) – then, hey – for me, that’s a good thing.
I’ll drink what I like – that’s why I’ve got 4 bottles of Paraduxx, 3 bottles of Garnacha de Fuego, and a few other duplicates in the cellar. But loving wine is all about trying new stuff, and I appreciate all the help I can get in picking out better new wines.
Keep up the great work!

QOTD – Got to go with the wine making kit!

QOTD: Wine basket

I don’t know Gary. How is one supposed to walk into a place like the WL, with its thousands of bottles, and make a decision without some sort of guidance? You would go broke trying even a fraction of everything there is. So, we need some sort of head start. After all, wine ain’t as cheap as bubble gum.

I choose wine in much the same way I decide what movies to see, or what electronic device to buy. That is I do read the reviews, but only the reviews of writers who I have come to trust. Why should wine be any different than any other commodity in this respect? Just how do you suggest that someone goes about finding out what they like? The trial and error would be ridiculous, and as I said, absurdly expensive.

In the case of wine, I have come to value your opinion because your tastes have rarely diverged from my own. I’m willing to risk a few bucks because you said so. I think many of the people here feel the same way. If you recommended wines, and I thought they sucked, I’d be paying attention to someone else.

So after months of rating wines, I find it a little disingenuous for you now to suggest that we not listen to you.

QOTD I vote for the basket.

Great show! I really like getting your tasting notes and comparing thim to the RP’s, WS & of course my own.

We are a nation that needs to be validated by grades! Let the vino grading continue! QOTD: Winemaking kit! A fun nudge from a friend to say: see what you can do! jp

QOTD: basket … too busy with family to add another project to my life, heck if I made my own wine I might not have time for WLTV

basket

basket

Your right, I took your advice on the Little Valley Cabernet – it was a monumental __________.
-glad I only got 2 bottles.

I’m going to bury the second bottle in my backyard under soil (in the very temperate Sunnyvale clime) and see how this one tastes in a few years. Back to the terroir is goes. . .

I totally agree on trusting your own taste and not that of critics. Just last night I had a bottle of zin that WS scored an 82 but I thought it was more of a 87-88 type wine. And for the price it was a great bottle, and if I had known the score before hand I doubt I would have bought it.

That being said scores are a great place to start when looking for new wines or exploring new varietals/regions. Are the scores really any different than asking the guy at the wine shop for advice?

QOTD – The basket. Not sure where I could grow wine or when I would have the time.

QOTD: Wine basket.. since I just bought a wine making kit!!

QOTD:

Wine Basket

Defintely basket. I’m more qualified for drinking than producing. Did you get a final tally?

Mar-kee Philips not Marky Philips as you pronounced it, right?

QOTD: Wine Basket, with the proper food pairing, of course!

Ok, I’ve watched a few shows and now I’ll be a Lurker No Longer (LNL?). Great stuff Gary!

I think your premise is right on (Drink what you like) but I would have to say that wine ratings do play a pretty important role. With SO much wine out there it is really hard as a consumer to know what to try these days. Tasting notes are really only worthwhile if you have found a critic with a similar palate to yours that you trust (and in that case if you are trusting their tasting notes, why not also use their score as a guide?). Finding a local wine shop and finding someone you can trust there would be great but sometimes you have to go on other’s recommendations.

I wish I could taste more wines and be able to just trust my palate but when I’m in a wine store with 400 bottles to choose from, 75% of the time I’d rather either go with a staff recommendation or a wine that received decent scores rather than closing my eyes and rolling the dice. (That other 25% of the time can be pretty fun, though).

RP