Nice to see 20 rows on WLTV. The Grappler and Cab are definitely on my favorites list. Good choice GV.

P.S. – ChrisStan – that is absolutely awesome -can’t wait to see that spreadsheet!!!! GV – forget about the free bottle for the game score – it goes to ChrisStan!

It’s good to see that you have finally come to realize that the most important aspect of wine tasting is the actual tasting notes (aromas, flavors, condition) as some of us commented back at episode #1.

Julius always have but scores are still a huge factor to many and I agree with many that it is a “nice” guide. People just have gone overboard with it! I mean what is the REAL difference between an 89 and a 90, can you taste it? I will tell you as far as sales that 1 point is worth about 300-1000%!!!!!!!! WOW!

Gary, Thanks for the shoutout on “The Chuk’s Greatest Hit Spreadsheet”.

To Pete B. (and all WLTV viewers), The Spreadsheet essentially lists all of Gary’s “recommended” wines for each episode (I have from 54 moving forward and will fill in the back episodes along the way).

The spreadsheet shows: the date, episode #, episode topic, Wine name and vintage, Wine Type, WL Price & Code and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, the highlights of Gary’s comments. Excellent way of going back to refresh your memory of the certain episodes/wines.

Since it is in EXCEL, it is searchable and sortable. When drinking the wine, you can compare your taste to Gary’s tasting notes….or quickly identify which episode that wine was in so that you can more quickly pull up the episode. Also, the WL code makes it easy to find the wine on the WL site.

Anyway, Gary and I will figure out the best way to get this out there for everybody.

absolutely a AMAZING show……Gary, I emailed you because I came up with a way to show the color of the wine……

QUESTION: Have you ever rated a wine at 99 or 100 points?

Gary,
Excellent episode (at least a 94). Your tasting the LLC today was exciting and satisfying in that it came close to my request a couple different times that you taste a perfect or near-perfect wine! Thanks for the clarification of your price-irrelevant scoring from this point forward. BIG thanks for correcting the problem of the zoom-ins on the bottle labels when you are introducing them. Regarding the idea of showing the wine color better, I agree in principle with one of the other commenters. The fluorescent overhead lights in the room are not particularly helpful for seeing the color – especially when considering the typical size of the WLTV window on the computer screen. One way to do it would be to have a close-up or cut-away camera shot to the glasses with a white background, and preferably a dedicated lamp to shine through the glass(es). This would help show not only the color hue but the density, which is what I interpret you to mean when you say the wine is “pitch black” — meaning some degree of opaque. Perhaps an even better way is to have a bright spotlight above your head, or the table, as suggested by another viewer. Then a camera placed above your head would better show the color when the glass is placed on white paper.
HUGE thanks to Chris Stan for the WLTV Tasting Mastersheet. I am VERY interested in having a copy, or access to it.

Gary,

There must be something wrong with the Camera you are using. You mentioned the picture behind you of the best QB in NFL history but I couldn’t see Dan Marino in the picture. Looked like some other guy with bad knees to me.

I’m also interested in the master sheet, Chris Stan, so if you want an email address I’ll be glad to send it to you.

Gary-
Another super episode!:)
I will give this one a 97.
This was a great price comparison episode.
An inexpensive wine and one to take out a loan in order to buy! This is very fun and
educational.
I hope you will tell us SOON which sign off you are choosing.
Keep up the good work!!

Chris Stan, what a great service your spreadsheet is! I hope it is posted on the website, if not you can link through to my blog (click on my head) and i would Love to see a copy.

Great episode, GV! I want to ask the same question as someone did above – when do you drink these babies ealry (the 2003 Bordeaux) and when do you cellar them?

Cheers!

Dan (In Houston)

Please do not talk about football! No offense, but you apparently know *nothing* about the sport. Joe Namath the best quarterback ever?!?!??! This is a guy who barely completed half of his passes during his career (50.1%), who had far more interceptions than TD passes over his career (220 to 173 – he had only two seasons in 13 seasons in which he had more TD passes than interceptions) and a career quarterback rating of 65.5. It’s pretty safe to say that if the Jets hadn’t won Super Bowl III (by *running* the ball and playing great defense, btw), nobody would even know who Joe Namath was.

Stick to what you know, please. You have zero cred when it comes to football (which might be expected since you are a *Jets* fan). ;^)

And btw, it’s also pretty safe to say any quarterback in the NFL, college (all divisions) and high school is a better quarterback than you. 8)

Steelers 28 Dolphins 17. That Las Cases is looking great Gary. I generally cellar my Bordeaux for years. I wonder if you would comment about drinking a great wine like that young. Do you still get a lot of drinking pleasure from it or do you feel like you are committing infanticide? Put another way, if you had just a couple bottles of great wine like that, would you drink them young or cellar for 10-15 years?

With the game I had Hardy’s Whiskers Blake tawny Port. At $10 a huge QPR wine. Silky smooth, with wonderful orange zest, nuts and caramel flavors. Tastes very close to a $40 20 year tawny.

Always late to the party, but never before it ends! Good episode today. I think most of us, if we’re really honest, buy wine for ourselves and hope others enjoy it. So kudos to you for having a Gary Appreciation Day.

I really appreciate that you introduce wines in the $20 range (firmly in my budget) as well as look at wines at the other end of the spectrum. I like the idea of giving the Chateau Leoville Las Cases as a gift. The only caveat would be that it could only be a gift to someone who could appreciate it. No way in hell would I give this bottle to even my closest friend who thinks Turning Leaf is “pretty damned good.” Needless to say I come with bottle(s) in hand to his place or sip water.

How about the Charlie Batch huh? Need I remind you that he is a product of Michigan? Eastern Michigan University and Detroit Lions. We know how to develop talent in Michigan–too bad Bill Ford can’t seem to put them on the field in Detroit!

I have an idea for your wine color issue: Have a lamp on your desk so you can hold up the glass to the light. At the moment, when you hold the glass up, all red wine looks like dark and opaque. Also, maybe the camera can zoom or move in closer to the glass.

Rick McQ – What year did you graduate? My wife went to school there (class of ’93)…

BTW – I don’t think I’ve seen a single Russian wine on WLTV. I have a Russian merchant I go to who hooks me up with some stuff but I have no idea what it is…

Hi all
suspect that I would like the 2001 leoville more (it is a superb wine though almost painful to taste right now). Though I haven’t had the 2003 leoville, 2003s tend to be over the top new world style low acid high alcohol fruit bombs–just the way Parker likes them. By the way Gary, Parker may have the most influence in Bordeaux but I can’t say I particularly like what he’s done to the wine–again, read the “Emperor of Wine.” Great book. 2001 (which is MUCH cheaper–as in a hundred dollars less) is my favorite vintage of the last ten years. It is somewhat austere right now but its acid spine and deep terroir element means that it will age (or so I believe) far longer that the heavily touted 2000 and 2003 (2004 and 5 remain to be assessed–though given the hype I’m suspicious). If you want a wine that will last 50 years and that is true classic claret, try the 2001.
Now for color. I think you made at least part of a good point a while back about how everyone had figured out the color game. I would nuance this a bit. Getting dark color is simply not that hard. There are a series of tricks (leaving on the skins longer, bleading (ie saignee), harder extraction and others. All of these can contribute to color. The problem is they can also lead to wines that are unballanced and that have tannins that will never resolve. I associate very dark wines (at least potentially–particularly Pinot and Cabernet) with wines that will not age gracefully but rather whose fruit will die leaving behind a dry and disagreable beverage that may have cost a small fortune in its youth. This is something that I think that Parker has repeatedly failed to recognize throughout his illustrious career and he more that anyone is responsible for, among other things, this new emphasis on color.
My experience with cellaring many California wines comes to mind.
By contrast, I have had many many many relatively light colored Burgundies and Bordeaux (and even a few Rhones–though far fewer) that were rich and elegant and a decade or two old. The color-weight-ageability equation is a subtle one and not by any means linear. One thing is for sure, I tend to be suspicious of (and to not like–though there have been many exceptions) “pitch black wines.”
Anyway, here are my requests for future tastings. German whites in a 12-20 dollar range. One of the worlds great values.
Alsace whites. Used to be a better value but still pretty good.
Unheralded appelation white burgundies (Macon, Saint Vera, etc). These are among the best low-priced non oaked chards in the world and they are getting better by the year. These really merit a look.
And of course, a real Burgundy tasting (where you take your Parker hat off) and your don’t have taste your house bottling (you know what I mean).
Great show. I complain but as you can see, i continue to watch. Can there be a greater form of flattery.

Gary, Gary, Gary,

There is no way Joe Willy Namath is or was the best QB in NFL history. Not even close. That guy was a playboy who got lucky one season by winning a Super Bowl.

Other than that, awesome episode. You do deserve a GVAD. It was great to see you taste an expensive bottle. I’m often confused as to which wine to select when looking at your more pricey wine selection upstairs at WL.

How about more tasings of wines from wineies here in NJ?

Tom

I don’t know if anyone has said this before, but I think that in order to show the color of the wine, it should be back-lit. Try putting a dim light box behind the glass: this will allow you to compare and contrast the opacity of each wine etc.

Jarasho! Garychik!

Great episode! You should treat yourself more often to these high-end wines. In portraying your experience you make us all almost “drink” it.

Don’t worry to much about the pronunciation. Russian should help you, another fonetic language, albeit in Cyrilic.

Keep it up!

Carlitos

Gary, to follow-up on Panman’s question of “Have you given any thought to doing anything special for the 100th since it is approaching fast?” I’d suggest free shipping for all WLTV viewers. What do you think? Let’s move some wine!

Cheers,
Steve B

How come when I check the “Just In” tab for new arrival wines on your site, which I must do about 20x a day every week day when I am in the office, the newest addition is not necessarily at the top but most often is buried down four to eight wines down from the top? Is this done on purpose to make us scroll through all the wines more carefully?

There’s a lot of truth in what P.Hig. says. But I think there is too much importance being placed on the color of the wine. Certainly there’s the idea of color intensity, usually described as pale, medium, deep or opaque. And the color range typically described as purple, ruby, garnet, mahogany or tawny. What I sense from Gary is that the “blacker” the wine is, the better it is. I was taught that the clarity of the wine and the absence of flaws in the appearance was an indication that the wine was “well-made.” The shades and intensity of color can be attributed to the stage of development of the wine. And I don’t think Parker is proposing overextraction. In reading what he has said of many of today’s top winemakers (and vineyard managers), I think his appreciation is for those that get all of what is good from the grape.

When judging wines I was taught that the wine should adhere to the standard for a varietal. I remember my college wine appreciation textbook with a color plate that had all of the major varietals lined up from light to dark. I think what Parker is big on is no filtration. Color intensity does not equal flavor intensity or complexity. That’s one of the first things I was taught…

Is it me or does this video stop before he tastes the wines? I’ve played it a number of times and it stops right when he is done w/ the question of the day.

great EP, QOD I am gonna go pittsburg 28 to 17…do I win? I dont recall you saying putting a time limit on our guess.

I too wonder about decanting when i eat out, usually order $50 bottle so is not very high end wine but still there is no time for the wine to breath at all before we are drinking it.

my growing list of topics I would like to see coverd.

1 heat, storage and apartment cellaring
2 decanting, when to? for how long?
3 cali zins