QOTD: Burgundy confuses me and, like others have commented above, the price point of their wines makes it hard to experiment to find out more.

A quick shoutout to you on a food/wine pairing I just had last night: fixed an apricot preserve flavored chicken, matched it with the Hermit Crab I had picked up from you a couple months back (based no the WLTV review) and the pairing was the bomb.

up to 6 cents, 4 more to go to dimehood.

just thought of a 2nd answer to the qotd:

lesser known italian varietals. i read about them, want to try them, and then get into a store and can’t remember what’s what. you know, since there are about 5,000 of them…

Italian and French wines baffle me. I have no clue where anything is from. I’ve looked it up and read (read the france chapter of Wine for Dummies easily 5 times now and i’m still lost). Maybe it’s cause I haven’t trained my palate to taste the differences in regions in those countries or what, but when I pop open a bottle from one of those two places, I might as well be doing a blind tasting. Plus I never understand most of the words on the labels anyways.

Very nice episode, even with all the teasing by putting the glass in front of the camera to the point that I was reaching to the screen trying to smell it and sip from it, good camera work.
A bit down about the Unico, that has always been one of my fav, but I guess they can’t be perfect every year, I am still savoring the 2004.
This week I’ve been getting my shipments in from my visit to Napa/Sonoma last week, so you bet that I will be pouring some nice wines this weekend.
QOTD: What baffles me is the different taste profiles of the wine, I guess I don’t have a good nose or palette, I know what I like and don’t, some times I do pick up cherry, rasberry, some chocolate, but that is about the extend of it, I wish I could segregate more, and had a wider nose and taste memory library, but I am satisfied with what I have.

Meant to say the 1994 Unico, not 2004.

QOTD: Scoring system for wine – is it true that you get 50 points straight off the mark just for *being* wine? Wish I got that kind of a head start just for *being* an engineering student doing exams in college.

Loved the episode, but I do like the times that a wine unexpectedly brings the thunder, at a great QPR.
I will open something special this weekend and share it with my boyfriend while I’m at Fort Benning! Maybe I’ll pick up something at Three Sisters Winery in Northern GA?
Memorial Day is all about recognizing exactly why we’re able to be so lucky.
Kathleen

QOTD: the tasting. Trying to taste flavors like “a smörgÃ¥sbord of fruit with a second layer of tobacco smoke” is very hard for me. I taste wine and can get some fruit, but usually just end up thinking, I like that and I don’t know why. I guess tasting things like this will come with tasting better wine and experience.

Wow! Some great wines.Just curious,have you ever thought of rinsing your glass with water? or using a new glass each pour?To me you showed just a bit of arrogance today,or maybe it’s just my age showing.

Excellent ep, Gary. Thanks so much. We are all indeed very lucky.
QOTD – probably most of the bigger areas like Napa, Bordeaux, etc. Just the map of Bordeaux that you guys made for us was a bit intimidating. It’s amazing how much wine there is in just that area.

That reminds me, I never got around to answering the question did I. So here we are: even out here in the stix, I can wander into a retail joint and for a reasonable price find me a nice, if not terrific, wine from France, Italy, Germany, Australia, South America, and so on. And of course from CA, WA, and maybe OR too. And of course, that’s before we even factor the internets into it.

So then why is it so difficult to find stuff from the rest of the USA–TX, VA, CO, GA just to name a few. I know there’s decent stuff in a lot of these places, but I had to go there to find out. And I’m not sure some of these places would even ship to me in any case. That’s what I find confusing.

Thanks for tasting that Leoville Gary and for your commentary on it.

QOTD: What interests me most but what I don’t know a lot about is wine-making itself, from the time the grapes get picked until the time they end up as wine in the bottle. That confuses me, because I know generally what goes on, but the specifics I would like to learn more about someday.

We are all so lucky! (I say this now that I’m back in Trier after a year away…)

DvT

Wow… nice episode.

If there was any doubts that Wine Library TV has turned very profitable, today crushed them. Rinsing with $40 worth of wine? Must be nice 🙂

QOTD: Nose. I am getting better with taste, I can pick out the flavors when I taste. But when I smell a wine, I still just smell….. wine. I try and pick out other smells but unless it is very obvious it is lost on me. And this is after ramming my noise in the glass and inhaling a ton, almost to the point of burning the noise from the alcohol.

got to watch it today with 0 buffering! have to say my new issue coming from The AV Pinot fest i attended is cooperage.

lots of underlying respect paid to the coopers up there in Anderson Valley.

i am interested to talk up copperage now. may be picking some brains on the 31st.

AWESOME…you threw away wine like it was water and then yelled at us after doing it! LOL!! AWESOME

Way to bring the THUNDER Gary!! I love these BIG tastings! I have always wanted to know about Leoville Poyferre. Would love to see you review Duckhorn, Decoy, Goldeneye.

OK – the dumping out of this quality wine is truly, truly tragic. Criminal almost. Humour aside, why can’t you just raffle off the honour of some viewer being “Gary’s Drinking Assistant” for episodes like this? And don’t tell me you have to rinse the glass for God’s sake, at this price you would be well ahead having a NEW Riedel glass for EVERY wine, then – if you want humour – SMASHING the GLASS (Russian vodka style!) afterwards!! This way you could just pass over the glass to the “assistant” when you are done and he/she could finish it off (perhaps even sparing the glass)! There would be another massive plus in this: you could entirely get rid of the huge spit bucket from on the table, leaving more room for the bottles instead of Gary being behind them more and more as the show progresses. I mean a show like today – you would have had to beat them off with a stick if you had suggested this as a possibility for your viewers beforehand. I could NEVER afford any of these wines, and I am not watching another show where you chuck this stuff out!!

QOTD: Definitely distribution laws. How come Wine Library can ship to Kansas, but it seems nobody else will (wine.com, direct orders from wineries, etc)? Not that I’m complaining about WL… 🙂

QOTD: Definitely distribution laws. How come Wine Library can ship to Kansas, but it seems nobody else will (wine.com, direct orders from wineries, etc)? Not that I’m complaining about WL… 🙂

QOTD: It is all pretty confusing, but I think the most confusing is why a wine purchased in a vineyard tasting room can cost 30% more than a wine in a retail store. Are there negative transportation costs? I don’t get it.

Pumpovers? Whats the point?

French Oak vs. American Oak? Why the difference?

Why no national retail wine chains? I don’t count COSTCO.

QOTD: It is all pretty confusing, but I think the most confusing is why a wine purchased in a vineyard tasting room can cost 30% more than a wine in a retail store. Are there negative transportation costs? I don’t get it.

Pumpovers? Whats the point?

French Oak vs. American Oak? Why the difference?

Why no national retail wine chains? I don’t count COSTCO.

QOTD: Labeling, especially Europe.

QOTD; My own palate. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m tasting, blackberry, raspberry or currant and then other times I bark out “chain link fence” or “creosote”. What’s up with that? I’m not even entirely sure what creosote is so how am I tasting it in a wine?

QOTD; My own palate. Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m tasting, blackberry, raspberry or currant and then other times I bark out “chain link fence” or “creosote”. What’s up with that? I’m not even entirely sure what creosote is so how am I tasting it in a wine?

QOTD: Burgundy by far. Its like a black hole where my money gets sucked in, never to be seen again.