Great Zins show. Zin is a style that offers reasonable pricing for good quality. I hate seeing Cabs or Pinots heading north of $50 for run-of-the-mill quality.

QOTD2: Wine with Food pairings!!!

UFC was huge this weekend! Serra was right about St. Pierre drinking his red wine. It obviously gave him strength.

The 2006 Orin Swift The Prisoner Zin blend is probably the most distinct Zin blend I’ve ever had. I can’t find it in-store anywhere and getting stuff shipped to Boston is just tough.

I’ve got a great 2004 Cab Franc from Greenvale Vineyards in Rhode Island. Any thoughts on wines made in the northeast… well, more like north of NY?

As far as viral marketing goes, getting a book coupon piggy backed onto the bottle neck of any wine producer you’re friendly with would be amazing. You’d probably give their brand a big boost as well as get your book out there. I used to see coupons and little gimmicks on bottles at the liquor store I worked at. They tend to stick out.

So, this makes me a lurker no more.

Gary- I like rubber wrestlers but REALLY !! Did you wrestle in school????? 🙂

QOTD: Stop by Rev3 or Diggnation during taping again to give it a little pluggy-plug! That’s the viral geek side. If you want it to blow up, crash Oprah or the Food Network. I’m going to the Savor ‘festival’ thing for craft beers in May, that may be a crowd to try to get interested too. That’s where I’m coming from, and I am!

QOTD1: Others mentioned this already…Stern show.

QOTD2: Bierzo please; or you already promised CA Rhone style blends

QOTD #2: Cinsault episode. I know I havem’t seen such thing as 100% Cinsault, but maybe you could do some wines that are at least 10% Cinsault. I always seem to love wines with that grape in it.

QOTD: PETITE SIRAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2003 La Storia Petite Sirah from Trentadue. it seems like 100% Petite Sirah wines are becoming more popular these days

Gary-QOTD #1: I like the whole T shirt idea. I think this would promote much conversation about the book = more sales of the book. How about: “What ?” on the front & “101 Wines” on the back. Of course you would have to decide on this quickly. Also you need to give all of the Vayniacs a discount on the t in order to get the t’s out there so that they can promote the book asap.
🙂

GV, as you know, you can’t do this by yourself! Hire a PR company, and I’ll be happy to send you the contacts of the various media outlets that have done stories on China Wine Tours lately (New York Times, Newsday, CNBC (airing in about a week!), and others). Also, promo books…we do wine tastings and I’d be happy to offer your books at most of them. I just bought 2 copies, and 1 copy will be going to China so I can start spreading the word there! You’re the best!

QOTD: As of this point her name appears eleven times within all of the comments on the page, and for the twelfth… if Oprah will poke around at a brain and try a shot of Cod Oil, I’m sure we could get her to taste some salted rocks and grass with grapefruit juice.

QOTD2: I want to know what aged wines you’re opening up right now. The ones that have been in the cellar for x-years. How are they now compared to your first run.

Gary- I was disappointed to hear about the Lytton Springs. Although I’m a big fan of Ridge, I’ve only had a couple of vintages of the Lytton Springs Zinfandel, and they were light, but extremely well made and balanced with good noses. In fact, I always thought that the nose of the Ridge wines was one of their great features. They always seemed to jump out of the glass, with elegant, clean aromas. In particular, I remember a 1975 or so Montebello Cabernet that just knocked me out, from the nose through the finish. It seemed like the perfect wine, and it was shortly after I’d had a 1974 Stag’s Leap Cabernet (which I recall sold for about $8.00 at the time). I’ve visited the Ridge winery and tasted some samples there, which also impressed me.

For future Zinfandels, I wish you’d try some others from Alexander Valley, which to me produce some of the most distinctive Zins. I think the grape is a kind of chameleon that can assume the identity of many varietals, depending on how and where it’s made, but the Alexander Valley wines were all similar. Of course, this was many years ago, and I don’t know if it still holds true, which is why I’d like you to check it out. I remember being impressed by the Phelps Alexander Valley Zinfandel, and by Alexander Valley Vineyards’ version.

I’ll have to think about book promotion ideas for while because nothing comes to me right off the bat.

Gary- I was disappointed to hear about the Lytton Springs. Although I’m a big fan of Ridge, I’ve only had a couple of vintages of the Lytton Springs Zinfandel, and they were light, but extremely well made and balanced with good noses. In fact, I always thought that the nose of the Ridge wines was one of their great features. They always seemed to jump out of the glass, with elegant, clean aromas. In particular, I remember a 1975 or so Montebello Cabernet that just knocked me out, from the nose through the finish. It seemed like the perfect wine, and it was shortly after I’d had a 1974 Stag’s Leap Cabernet (which I recall sold for about $8.00 at the time). I’ve visited the Ridge winery and tasted some samples there, which also impressed me.

For future Zinfandels, I wish you’d try some others from Alexander Valley, which to me produce some of the most distinctive Zins. I think the grape is a kind of chameleon that can assume the identity of many varietals, depending on how and where it’s made, but the Alexander Valley wines were all similar. Of course, this was many years ago, and I don’t know if it still holds true, which is why I’d like you to check it out. I remember being impressed by the Phelps Alexander Valley Zinfandel, and by Alexander Valley Vineyards’ version.

I’ll have to think about book promotion ideas for while because nothing comes to me right off the bat.

CHEESE!!!!

Hey Gary

QOTD 1: Try and get it as the topic for http://www.winebookclub.org/

QOTD 2: Perhpas too hard to find, but Japanese wine? (surprisingly decent). If not then lesser known, but high quality Australian wines – Tasmanian Sparkling, Yarra Cabernet, Rutherglen fortifieds etc. You always abuse Barossa Shiraz, but I buy at least a case of Australian wine a month and basically never buy Barossa Shiraz…

Cheers Andrew

Gary- QOTD #2: I would LOVE to see some serious challenges between Rioja wines and/ or a matchup between some Bandol reds or Bandol roses. 🙂

Terrific show! 1st QOTD: Boost book sales by having your Dad and other families guest co-host for the week.
2nd QOTD: Fun fact week, how they price wine in restaurants, how many grapes make a bottle of wine, biggest importers, biggest wine drinking nation, health benefits etc. Like Letterman’s top ten each day.

Props on mentioning the fight. I was shocked that no one in Washington watched boxing…it’s my absolute favorite sporting event to drink wine while I watch. Question of the day: If Joe Calzaghe was a vino, what would he be? As for the episode, please do a Santa Barbara episode that gets into their Rhone style wines…I’ve had some great stuff from there but want to know more.

i would really like to see a serious burgundy episode. i feel like it’s been a while since you’ve covered that particular region.

QOTD: Easy, book tour through wine areas… not book stores but like small wine cities… maybe in grougs of 3 or 4 places… I live part time in the San Jose area and the other part in the Santa Barbara/Los Olivos/Paso Roblas area. There are tons of wine places, I know nothing about them but would go and visit some if you were to come by for a book signing.

Geek cube idea… Make a Wine Library poster and hang it in your work cube… send in/post on flickr pics of poster with your work computer setup… little geeky I know… link to amazon.com for book

happy monday! great show tosay, I havn’t really played with zin that much but I enjoyed that last one I had a few months ago.
QOTD- get the book into restaraunts
qotd2- one side of the valley verses the other side, just pick any valley such as the Rhone or Loire valleys it would be interesting to see if morning sun or afternoon sun makes a big difference on your pal

QOTD1: Did I miss the question? Didn’t hear it. Something about book promotion? Heck, man, you don’t need no help with that.

QOTD2: I would love to learn more about unusual grapes. Like Austria’s gruner veltliner. There must be some interesting grapes from eastern Europe too that we know nothing about.

Hey, Gary!

Just wanted to say you are a great person and the Real Deal!
Man when I met you at Ad Tech it was like we were already friends.
That’s how cool you are. The Real Deal! You really mean what you say!

As for what I’d like to see… you may have done this but…
when you talk about grapes, I’d like to see an episode where you show
what the grapes looks like… real grapes…
maybe a show tasting different real grapes…

maybe a small icon/pic next to the name of the wine that shows what grape
the wine is mostly made of… just a thought…

Thank you very much!
Chad

Gary,

I apologize if I missed it but exactly what kind of information does the book provide?

How about an Alsatian Gewurztraminer tasting of the 2005 or 2006