I like the blind tasting- why not have Darth Vayner just bring in bagged wines, pour them, analyze them and then reveal what they are? The t-shirt thing was a little awkward. Gary, how about some food/wine pairing shows? I was drinking a Malbec last night with some sashimi Tuna (I switched to it while eating) and loved it. I had another glass later, without food, and thought the wine was suddenly lame. It’s amazing how much food changes wine. QOTD: I actually haven’t had any wine in the last 14 days that I thought was bad. Just different levels of mediocre to great.

Very interesting episode with the blind tasting – see, you *can* improve it still!

QOTD: It’s been just 14 days, but it has to be the 2005 Woodthorpe Merlot Cabernet which I had two weekends ago. I brought it out to go with a nice steak too, such a shame. In one word: boring. Dull colour, dull nose, completely unremarkable taste with the oak monster as the only recognizable component.

Friday evening made up for it though, had a marvelous 2000 Lalande de Pomerol Clos de l’Eglise (not to be confused with Pomerol’s Clos l’Eglise). Beautiful cassis, black fruit, coffee and a finish that just lasted forever – and that for a wine which 99% wouldn’t know or confuse with its Pomerol namesake. Reminded me that I should spend some less time with all these new world wines…

Great ep as always GV. QOTD: Moncao Danaide Vinho Verde Red 2005 but I don’t think it was the wine’s fault. It wasn’t corked but I think the cork had been comprimised; it came out way too easily and there were striations all down one side of it. Too bad because it was my first foray into Portugese wines but no matter, just an excuse to buy more wine.

I’m back, and catching up!

QOTD: Man, we’ve been to the Pinot Days in SF and then to Napa-Sonoma for three days, so there was a lot of wine, good and some bad. I’m going to stick with the one I had yesterday 2004 Domaine des Causses Lirac Syrah Reserve that I got from WL. 🙁

Great show, Gary! You have inspired me to grill out tonight!

QOTD: 2004 Kangaroo Ridge Australian Cabernet Sauvignon. One shallow, one dimensional, and completely artifical tasting. Thankfully, it’s still drinkable.

This is an awesome episode, this is in my top 5. Way to bring the Thunder on a Friday.

Thanks for doing pinot, including one I can afford. Creative blind tasting format. QOTD – Had two corked wines in the past week at good restaurants. Otherwise no bad wine in past 2 weeks.

qotd: had a lindeman’s chard that was pretty much a suckfest.

Kool on the Kosta Browne tasting. Tried to find a bottle last year but haven’t yet. But at $150 bones – I can skip it.

FANTASTIC blind tasting, BIG G.- you basically nailed it.

QOTD: In line with my comment from the other day, the worst wine(s) that I’ve had in the last week were definintely the teo Portuguese reds that my friend’s Dad offered us on the 4th of July. I hate to seem like wine snob with my non-wine-drinking friends, but they quickly agreed with me when I had to label these wines as nothing more than… “bad.” Call me crazy, but when you give ANY wine a sniffy sniff and get NOTHING, then taste it to get a thin, chemically, alcoholic flavor profile, it’s not exactly something to write home about…unless you want to tell your folks at home that you’ve just had an absolutely aweful wine.

Alright! Kosta Brown in the SF Vaynerglass!

Thank you for the Paris Hilton comment.

QOTD: The worst wine I’ve had in the last 14 days was the 2004 Grant Burge “Kraft” Sauvignon Blanc. I bought four of these at a deep discount in the hopes that they’d at least be decent everyday wines for the summer, BUT… no such luck. Oddly, I’m not too upset about it. It’s actually kind of nice to have a wine around that doesn’t disappear as soon as I open the bottle. This stuff is so out of balance that my girlfriend (and most of our friends) can’t handle it. But it doesn’t apologize for its faults, and I like that. If it tried to smooth over its faults with sugar, I’d probably just give the stuff away. But, as it is, I’ve got three somewhat enjoyable bottles entirely to myself.

Has every show the past 2 weeks been the Thunder show?

I like the “blind” format, makes it more interesting.
Did anyone else notice the shirt blindfold looked like a “superhero” mask – like Robin (i.e. Batman) – funny. “Wineman” anyone?
I’ve noticed a lot of PLUS “+” scores lately…. just give it a score. There may be a few instances where it is justified (like 89+) but lately it’s been given for way to many wines.

Nice Episode. I like blins tastings and would like to see then with different wine varietals…

(lurker no more 🙂 I’m from Brazil and I did not read Time Magazine 😉

QOTD: Domaine Wachau – Gruner Veltliner
Terrassen/Federspiel 2005 – This wine
cost me $10 & it ain’t worth 10 cents !!
YUK !! YUK !! QUADRUPLE QUK !!!!!! 🙁

You, you, you…you’re good! Calif pinots are getting like other grapes…too much alcohol. losing their uniqueness BUT maybe that’s what they are. Kosta is still a great bottle of wine.

hey yo GV!

great show from friday. I’m back from a trip to ATL so i’m watching the show late. In answer to your QOD, we visited Chateau Elan while we were in GA and we went through their tasting. The WORST wine I had was their American Pinot Noir which IMO tasted like rotton fruit. It really was pretty gross. They make alot of flavored wines as well but one true wine that I liked was their Viogner. Picked up some to bring home as a souvenier!

also off topic i saw you on a tv show yesterday: Uncorked! Not sure if its an oldie, but you were doing a guess the price gimmic. Pretty impressive, how you called a wine listed as 9.99 as too high was unblieveable.. the real price was 8.99.

Lata GV can’t wait to see the new announcements!

QOTD: Hands down, 2002 Rockledge Napa Zinfandel, very tanic, worst finish of any wine I have tasted. Tried it two times with the same result.

Wmole asks, “How can you overextract a grape that has thin skins”? Two observations: the skins do not add a whit to the syrupy, glycerin ‘quality’, but could provide structure, tannins, etc. in a more restrained style. Seems this is what is precisely missing from fat, fruity Cal. Pinots. It is, infact, that the fruit has been left too long on the vine so as to reduce, perhaps eliminate, structure altogether. Secondly, manipulation remains the one great factor in the wine biz about which the consumer knows next to nothing. Does Uri Geller bend spoons? Of course he does, provided no viewer is alert to how the trick is done. A little mega purple here, a little micro-oxigenation there, new pump-over technologies, along with oak barrels, staves, pellets, powders toasted to the winemaker’s exact specification, zin or cab or syrah used for blending or the ‘topping-off’ (up to 25%), added sugar during fermentation, GM yeast strains out of the U. of Fresno and U.C. Davis, so many techniques are available to the hypermodern winemaker it is no surprise you end up with so much ‘magic’ in a bottle of Cali. Pinot.
Truth to tell, I’ve not had a KB. Further, I cannot say what technologies, if any, they use, But I can assure you the Cali wine market is flooded with manipulated examples of Pinot, and every other variety.
The skins? A quaint artifact.

Loved the blind tasting. Do more of that! But try double-blind or at least throw in a couple more ringers.

Gary, I think you’re a very honest and accurate critic, but you gifted the Amisfield with a few too many points given your tasting notes: “dirty & vegetal on the finish … little stinky sock meets green pepper meets dirt w/ chocolate bar on top @ a Camp fire … overall a young wine … little more disjointed….”

That sounds like a wine that should have been rated at least 4 points lower that the lesser of the Kosta Browns, which sounded delicious.

I’ve also learned to automatically deduct 2 or 3 points from any pinot noir score because of the hype factor. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste and my taste buds don’t like pinot noir, but I believe that people are more willing to overlook obvious flaws in pinot noirs because of the hype.

So, by my calculations, the Amisfield would be an 86 – 87 pointer if it were judged by the usual standards. 😉 None for me, thanks!

Great show… the blind tastings are a nice change of pace.

QOTD: Well, the wife is out of town so I hate taking anything from our stash that she doesn’t have a chance to taste. I’ve only had a few bottles the last two weeks and they are grocery store budget buys that are our dependable choices when we are in a pinch. The worst of the bunch that I have had is the Masciarelli 2003 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo that I grabbed at Costco to have with some pasta. It wasn’t awful or anything, just not good.

Worst wine I have had recently was Pillar Box Red. It was a screw cap with a red label…What crap! It tasted like dirt mixed with crushed up grape stems…I took it back to the store at which I purchased it at and told them I thought the bottle was corked…They quickly said it is a screw cap…I guess it goes to show that screw caps can be pretty bad as well. They didn’t hassle me much past that point, due to the fact that I buy some serious wine at thier warehouse.

As far as really good pinots go, I would recommend Paul Hobbs Pinot. I mean I think it rates right up there at the top…I am going to seek out that Kosta Brown stuff it sounds really yummy… Thanks for the find….I would have never known..

QOTD – A Sur De Los Andes Torrontes 2006 bought from Wine Library. Tasted at wine fridge temperature, upper 50’s, very disjointed. Popped in a regular refrigerator and chilled down to swilling temperature. Acceptable at that point. Even though it was not a great wine, I would never have tried a torrontes without WL. (Not sure I will try another)

QOTD: Las Rocas Garnacha…. it tasted and smelled like horse poop mixed with mint or eucalyptus

missed this last week was on vacation…GREAT EPISODE GARY!!! glad to see a blind tasting episode especially with kosta browne.