That episode rocked it!
QOTD – I live in Ontario ie all liquor sales are by the government. It’s nice in the sense that you can take anything back if its corked and always get a full refund or you can by 6 bottles, try one and if you think its crap get your money back without a reciept. The shitty part is that all the prices are fixed and you don’t get any smaller stores that offer great service like you guys. Anyways, wish you could open a chain here.

Wow…great episode…I wonder if I will ever be able to do a blind tasting…let alone one after I tasted over 100 wines.

QOD: I bought Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon from Sycamore Vineyards in PA for 19.99 a bottle and I have seen it for 55.00. I love it and when I went back to buy more… of course there was none!

What a fun and impressive episode, Gary.
the Petite Verdot? What buds!
Thanks for hanging on the limb over the abyss.
Keep up the great work!

Love blind tastings-episode seemed very rushed though-did you need to be somewhere? Good job with the Petit Verdot!
QOD Recently got the Achaval-Ferrer Quimera for 23.95 at Capitol wines-retails for 40-45

Wow, Gary…what a fun, ridonculous episode! LOVE these blind tastings! QOD: Sorry, Gary, but have not, so far, run into significant discrepancies in the wines I’ve been buying. So, maybe that means I have to BUY MORE!!!! :}

Gary,

Great show. Kudos to you on the double blind tasting. I was impressed with the Petit Verdot.

Keep up the good work.

Still watching everyday from Hong Kong.

Gary,impressive to say the least, what a demonstation of cojones. A great deal(?)that I found was 2003 Montrose for $70 at Costco when the going price was more like $170, also bought a very memorable bottle of 1989 Phelps Insignia at their winery in 1995 for $30 because of critics damning the vintage. Anyway thanks for the free S/H and your truly entertaining and informative show.

damn you are good!

very cool ep.! I’m wondering how the staff chose the wines?

Great job I am very impressed! Your tasting today fully reinforced my wariness about buying California wine–which I hardly ever do. There just doesn’t seem to be any correlation between price and quality…well, ALL the cheap ones suck and half the pricey ones also suck. I’ll stick to Europe (except for CA wines I have seen you taste and like).
QOTD: 02 Lynch-Bages $55 in store and $0 free swiped by my friend’s aunt who works at Cathay Pacific from their stash. Just kidding, 05 Funtanin Roero Arneis for $15 all summer at one store and now it’s at another store for $9. What a nice white wine, lov ethose Italian whites and all their wacky grapes.

Very entertaining episode. Definitely need to throw a blind in a couple times a month.
Orion: Bevmo is the only local retail I’ve found with some quantity and quality. Although be wary of the displays with $10-$12 marked 90pts by WW as I’ve been disappointed every time and starting to think its more a gimmick to push product. The David Berkley store near Howe and Fair Oaks is smaller on quantity but great on quality and you’ll get personal attention too….I happened in there while a port vendor was there pimping product and the proprieter was tasting and I was offered a glass too. Now that’s customer service !

QOTD: Ask this one again down the road and I’ll have an answer…

C

The main problem with the blind tasting was that of the homogenization of the wines. They are, after all, at the mercy modern technology. I’ve had zins that taste like syrah that taste like cabs that taste like the lowly cal. merlot that taste like roadkill that taste like the sweat of violence. The price point chosen for your tasting was simply too low, the wines, too generic to generate much distinction. That you did not nail cab, the first bottle, the Ex Libris, says to me that they did a lousy job in bringing out its obvious varietal characteristics. The Montes Alpha, christ, pancakes anyone? And the zin? Zins can have Rhone (ahh, my beloved Rhone) qualities, the mystery of exotic, remote echoes of a chanteusse singing in an alley you can’t find,… but also those of an IHOP, liquid donuts. Cop wine. Fast and Furious. That you did well with the p. verdot, from a cheap, silly producer to boot, tells me only of your straining palate. You got it right despite the contents of the bottle.
Yes, do more blind tasting. But, please, let’s up the ante. Decent, quality wines for a man of the same.

Gary, thanks for all you do for us. The show, the wine….the free shipping.

QOTD: I have been fortunate to experience quite a few price discrepancies. The best was a tie between Groth 2000 or 2001 cabernet(the better of the two) for $12.99 and Gruaud Larose 1998 for $18. I have also been able to purchas Hourglass for $29.

QOTD: As far as restaurants, in about 2004 I paid about $25 for a full bottle of 1994 Lafon Rochet. Gotta love half-price wine days at great restaurants.

Gary,

Very cool episode, love the blind tasting. Wow and a very impressive performance on guessing the wines. I knew you knew your stuff and you didn’t disappoint.

Bravo!

Ken B.

QOD: still the half case of Rombauer Carneros Chardonnay I picked up on closeout at 5 bones a piece. I don’t even like CA chardonnay that much but yeah, I’d hit that.

Conversely, however, the celebrated seven-buck Di Majo Norante Sangiovese runs $12.50 locally, and that’s if you can find it …

This episode is now one of my favorites, or at least in my top 3 (including the other single blind episode, and a space for one more as soon as I think of it). A lot of fun from first taste through the finish… this episode is definitely 95+ 😉

-Nico

Great episode Gary!! I think the blind tasting is very educational….just so we can understand the characteristics of different regions through your pallate..and eventually hopefully our own. I bought the sette ponti oreno 04 for 51 bucks and it is consistantly sold at 80-100 bucks a bottle.

Bought 2003 Don Melchor at $32. Pretty sure it’s hit $90-100 at some places. I thought it was a fantastic $60-70 dollar wine.

Great episode!

About comment 62:
For someone who has been in the business for about 14 years, about 10 of which were at legal drinking age, and who professes to conduct frequent and extensive wine tastings, I would give you an okay score, perhaps an 85. And at the blind tastings I have attended, including the one this week with Richard Betts, we ignored the price but rather identified the varietal, region and vintage (range).

Comment 62: By Julius on March 9th, 2007 at 8:08

That’s what The Court of Master Sommeliers trains themselves to do. They also ask about quality level but don’t put it to a price (at least at the course I attended – where Betts was teaching). What GV does about price is far more important in retail in my opinion. I give your comment an 85.

Gary, you are my hero. So how did you nail the Petit Verdot? What made you go in that direction?

Great episode! Next time, might be a good idea to have the real prices handy offscreen, so you can compare your guesses to the real thing – and then you can tell us whether you really think it’s a buy or pazzzzz based on QPR.

Great Episode! You impressed me once again. Nice job Gary!

QOTD-On a trip to London I visited a wineshop in Kensington and purchased among other things a bottle of Mouton Rothschild ’93. The one with the banned in USA nude (girl?) on the label. It was about 140 pounds and for some reason I was thinking dollars and it did not dawn on me til I was almost back at the hotel that I had just paid @$260 for a bottle that was available in the USA for around $160. I haven’t opened it yet perhaps I’m waiting for it’s market value to reach the price I paid.

The face you made at the Purple Angel reminded me of the one I made last time I had a RP 92 rated Australian (Craneford ’03)which should have one of the fruit bomb warning stickers you suggested in an earlier episode.