SS Chris,
You get an A for creative but an F for spelling.
Wow – ok, if you like to make up words then
you just need to explain what they mean.
You’re vocabulary is creative!?!?!?

Susan: Where you joking when you spelled Scrabble incorrectly?

I echo the thoughts of TimF, SS Chris, NickP and TampaSteve. We all do what we gotta do to maintain a reasonably balanced life. Keeping priorities in the right order is essential. Gary’s no different than the rest of us; we all have a lot of irons in the fire (with the possible exception of Brandon M 😉 ) You do what it takes to “git r dun!”
So serious on a Monday morning…

Great weekend for the Buckeyes and Bengals!

BTW, thanks everyone for the input on the wine glasses. Can’t wait to try the Riedels.

TimF-
Now you are getting it!
These days no one knows how to spell!
I always laugh at bigger than life
advertisements that prove that very few can spell.
My favorite recent sign was one for
der carn for sale
(that’s deer corn or field corn for the rest of you).
Life can be interesting!

Did anyone see my Falcons? HEHEHE

And good job Jets. They pulled through well.

Gary…as for all this ramble about your time and stress…Do what you have to do. It seems that some people might be blowing your comment about stress out of proportion to me because we all have rough and busy days (not that I am sown sizing how busy you are). Just keep pushing on. You have tons of support here but I’m sure more at home. Do what you’ve gotta do, buddy.

QOTD – Raymond Reserve Chardonnay. It packs a lot of flavor & structure for a $14 bottle.

When we visited the Napa Valley a couple years ago, we have two wonderful CA Chardonays. They were:

Frank Family Chardonay (Napa Valley)

Darioush Signature Chardonay (Napa Valley)

Nearly impossible to find on the east coast!

What did everyone drink this weekend? I had that Jonesy Port we discussed, a port from Pinzar (not nearly as good as it was in the tasting room — serious peppery, geranium taste), and the Corte Riva Merlot (great tip from Gary).

Not Pinzar — Pindar.

I go along with Kahuna (see comment #5) and sit on my mail-order wine a few weeks. I don’t know if bottle-shock is truth or fiction, but don’t find it necessary to risk it. My Rocky Creek/Can Blau/Costeras/Juan Gil are resting nicely, arrived Saturday.

G- I gotta give it to your Jets. They’re really putting together a nice season. Play off bound???? I’m psyched for you.

mwf

Try – http://www.winelegend.com/ for Frank Family

and
http://www.winechateau.com/ for the Daruiosh

Both east coast suppliers

Gary,

Monday to celebrate the Jets wins, Wednesday ’cause it is Hump Day, and Friday to predict the winning Jets’ score!! For the Vayniac’s sake Take Time OFF!!

VaynIACS,
My apologies to all of those who believe that I was blowing Gary’s stess out of proportion and somehow actually adding to it.

GARY,
If my “campaign” that started with #161 added to your stess, I certainly apologize…I hope you know that this would be the opposite of my my intention.

QOTD – Best chard ever? 1992 Ferrari-Carano Alexander Valley – Very eclectic, loads of tropical fruit.
Best more recent? – 2003 Staglin Rutherford – Big, creamy, buttery

Yahoo, never thought I would be the 215th post on this blog. Great work Gary.

Couple of things to Tony Chalone just got bought out the winemaker is the same guy as always and he says the European owners aren’t making him change anything.

To Paul Rafanelli makes a great Syrah still though like you I miss Petit Syrah.

My favorite Cal Chardonnay is Kalin from 1990 Livermore Valley, Ramey Hyde Park any vintage.

Gary don’t stress. Since I am posting on Monday I hope you are a betting man. I think you hit the score exactly.

I say we all leave it alone for now and let Gary decide what he needs. If he needs us then by reading these comments he knows he has our support.
I still feel that he just had a rough day/week and it got to him. It happens to all of us. He’ll be in full force today after the Jets win no doubt.

Gary, I still want to know…Bottle shock. What is your opinion? And what about vibration? If you have a wine cooler that has vibrations when the compressor turns on/runs how much damage is being done to the wine really?

Rombauer & Cuvasion

Rick W.

This weekend, 2001 Coturri Pinot Noir Lost Creek. Tony Coturri was a WLTV guest way back in Episode #35. This NOT your standard California Pinot. The winery notes the “Burgundian” nose of damp earth and mushrooms. That’s pretty close to what I got, but at 15% alchohol, I did not confuse it with Burgundy. There was fruit, but it was more sour than sweet. 89 points, absolutely needs food to go with it. last night, choked down my last bottle of ’04 Falesco Vitiano. Seemed to taste worse after it was “Vayner-chucked”.

Gary, what do you think about Cleveland on Sunday? Maybe a blow out. The Browns are playing like “brown” so I think your boys will be on top of things…
I predict 24-3.

Now give my Falcons some love for beating the Steelers (my second favorite team)!!!

Bottle Shock-
I know it takes place after bottling-Being a home winemaker just last month we were bottling 15 gallons of wine- Naturally we were drinking it while bottling and it was amazing. After Bottling three days later I drank a bottle and was out of balance(for lack of a better term) the fruit had seemed to disappear. I opened another bottle just to check to see if it was a miscleaned bottle same thing-

I called my friend who I gave a case too for helping and he said to me that the wine tasted different of course he drank three bottles anyway- I told him not to touvh it for a few weeks to a month. He tried it again before me and said it was back to its pre-bottling self.

I will get wines from wineries that I am members of and if they bottled close to the ship date they will put stickers on the bottle to say let sit for a month due to bottle shock.

That being said I just translate it to shipping also and let them sit for a few weeks.

This weekend…
2004 Luzon Jumilla Verde (organic from Spain)…not bad. Nice color, some decent fruit on the front. Not a lot of body and not a long finish.
2003 Tamarack Cellars Firehouse Red…Good color. Earthy, with dark fruits on the nose. Needed some air time to calm down the heat but after a while it really opened up. Nice dirt, berries, and leather on the palate. Smooth medium to long finish. Good price.

TimF…This weekend, I finished off a bottle of Rock Rabbit 2003 Syrah (87% Syrah, 12% Cab, and 1% Petite Syrah). It had nice nose and mouth feel, but I found it a bit hot on the finish initialy. It did settle after being open for a while. Yesterday I tried my hand at decanting (WLTV is influencing me as this is, honestly, my first time ever decanting wine) a Montpezat 2004 ‘Les Enclos’ 2004 (70% Merlot 30% Syrah). It had a very faint nose, but had a nice mouthful of berries. The tannins were a bit too strong for me, though.

Thanks Kahuna

Well…I understand bottle shcok at bottling, and do believe in it, but bottle shock from shipping?
I’m just not to sure that a little bottle shake is gonna throw a wine out of balance.

B