One of the best shows ever. Gary, huge ups for the effort. “I wanna be dominated, Mott.”

QOTD:1985 Krug

I too love those grower guys. Camille Saves is one of my favorites.
Loved the show. And agree with your assessment of the Feuillatte Brut.
Merry Christmas, Gary!

Love the change in venue, impressive you kept going in the ice storm. The spitting on the ground was also classic. As for the bubbles, our favorite bottle is Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label.

Nice throw, dude! Excellent and, of course, oddly interesting show. This is what I love about the Thunder Show – always bringing something different to the table.

QOTD: NV Pierre Peters Champagne (outstanding!)

Wishing everyone at Wine Lib and all of the Vayniacs the very best this holiday season.

QOTD: Ginger ale?

Gaston Chiquet green label. Very good stuff, I was impressed!

Gary Great episode…I am going to look for that last one it sounds legit.

QOTD:
-A good beer from Belgium called la choufe

Woah woah woah, Seattle sucky seahawks? I’ll admit we did suck this year, but your “should have been playoff bound” Jets barely scraped together 3 points against us in Favre’s bread and butter…snow. Tough luck, better luck next weekend against the Dolphins…you can still pull this out.

Great show, Gary! I was glad to hear you point out (re the Legras) that good NV can be cellared a few years, even improve.

QOTD: Like you, I suck down a lot of bubbly, but the best of this year was ’98 Jose Michel “Special Club.” I had always looked down on Champagne with a large proportion of pinot meunier, but this wine (50% PM) was outstanding, fruity but with real focus and lasted forever.

QOTD – Pierre Peters

I love bubbles. I love snow. I hate Gary. After all, a very enjoyable show (I was glad to see him shivering in the cold).

Gary – thank you for the creativity and effort to consistently putting on an entertaining and informative show!

As for the Jets….hey….I’m a Bronco fan…..I understand your pain….watch Denver crush San Diego this Sunday night….prediction – Broncos 41, Chargers 3!!!!!

QOTD: 1985 Dom Perignon at my dad’s 60th b-day celebration….unfortunately it must have not been stored properly….tasted like dog vomit on the sidewalk. However….it was very memorable : )

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you and your’s, Gary! Sorry this is such a late comment addition to your bubbly show. My fave happens to be Guy Charlemagne. At $30.00 for a bubbly hailing from the Grand Cru Blanc de Blanc village of Le Mesnil sur Oger (and located just across the street from Salon), you just cannot beat the quality, taste (if you like a blanc de blanc style), and FOR THAT ASTOUNDING PRICE!!! Also from that village, but a little bit more spendy, I like Michel Turgy. Now, for big house bubbly that’s still quite reasonable, for me it’s Pommery. And for Rose’s, I like Ployez Jacquemart’s (WS 91 @ $50) and ROGER POUILLON BRUT ROSE 1ER CRU (WS 90 @ $38). And also wanted to say that my hubby and I had our first taste of Giraud’s Hemart at our favorite wine store (Hi Times Wine in Costa Mesa, CA) just a coupla weeks ago and out of the flight o’ 12, the Hemart got both of our vote as the best.
Thanks again for all your enthusiasm, passion, and sharing it with all of us!
Babs

Qotd – THAT’s a tough one. While Salon Mesnil’88 may be nearly the most exclusive, and was great, I think Pol Roger Winston Churchill was bolder, and the Bolliner Recent Disgorged releases are still more complex.

The best bottle I PAID for was Pommery Cuvee Louise ’89. Enjoyed that for the first millenium/Y2K hulabaloo, and practically tried to lick the inside of the glass, then the bottle clean when it was done.

You nailed it with your Feuillatte assessment. All of their cuvees deliver. And that’s a promise. The Palme d’or is easily as good as Dom most years, and better than Kristal, and all the headaches that that stuff has caused in the industry. All because some bitch or jumped up rapper , who don’t know shite says it’s ‘cool’. I DO think the House of Louis Roederer is a fine house, but one can easily see, I find it difficult, to say the least, to have business, service, and class be subjugated to ignorant pap that issues forth in streams from such blindly ill-informed, and simply uninformed sources.

Love the Legras…

One thing, doesn’t this episode violate your “taste wines at room temperature” rule? I wonder if you would score them the same.

What flies under the radar, and is seldom noticed, even if by Grand Marques (the 18 major Houses) standards, are their various Grand Cru Vineyard selections/cuvees. I’ve had several from Pommery, Taittinger, among others, and they ALWAYS give you a smashing bang for the buck – ofter at 1/2 to even 1/3 the price of the top Prestige cuvee.

Terry Thiesse, as you note (PEOPLE, TAKE NOTE!!), always delivers top quality, and I’ve told people for years, that his very name on the back of a bottle is assurance enough for me.

Often, one may discover top/prestige name quality in the most unlikely of places. The first Marilyn Cuvee, 1990 Carneros, was pretty mind blowing, and at $30, I bought,( not at my own employer) and soon drank every last one of them to spite all the people who wanted me to get it for them, so they could make money off of it on ebay, or some other unwholesome enterprise.

Brewer-Cliftom made 3 cuvees from extremely low-yeild, tete-de-cuvee juice in 1993, released around 2000. They, too, were around $30, and drank like Dom, or equivalent. I got all I could for the 2 stores I worked in at the time, And it was used as a sommelier’s selection pour at a club I worked at that year, also.

QOTD: 1990 Sir Winston Churchill, PR

Cool show – thought the Champagne glass may slide off the table on the ice.

QOTD – probably the mid 80s Dom P that I had on my honeymoon with my wife.

Gary, you really went above and beyond with this episode. It looked like you were freezing your fingers off, but you pulled out all the stops and delivered an awesome show. Thanks for bringing so much passion and dedication.

QOTD: My all-time favorite was the 1985 Salon, which I bought for $110 back before the prices exploded. Best Champagne I’ve tried recently was the Franck Bonville Cuvee Les Belles Voyes. I am also partial to the Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve, which has very complex fruit and nut flavors and aromas, and can still be had for a very reasonable price.

QOTD A fresh young Hefeweizen, great bubbles and clove-banana character

Hey Gary, Love the bubbles too! Enjoy the show thoughout the year. Friday Night Wine Night with the Hubby along with Gary. Happy Holidays to all!

This is my second post on this subject. My reason for an extra post is to make a case for Champagne. Champagne is a very complicated subject. Because of its position in popular culture (i.e. one hasn’t “made it” unless one can overspends on mainstream brands in public), Champagne is often overlooked by serious wine lovers. It is thought to be the beverage favored by rich people trying to show off.

What most people don’t understand is that because rich drunks are willing to pay way too much on specific brands of Champagne (Dom P, Veuve NV, Cristal), most of the wine makers in champagne can make really great wine on a small scale. The reputation of champagne allows all the houses to experiment and innovate. Champagne makers have very strict requirements that they have to adhere to, but within those requirements, they make astronomical wine. You can buy at bottle of Pol Roger NV for $28 that is as well crafted as any white wine in the world, at any price.

Gary says that he loves champagne, but he sells himself short by not elaborating on the subject. Wine Library has the best selection of grower champagne in the country. I’m drinking a NV Pierre Morlet right now that is cheaper and tastes better than NV Veuve. Don’t get me wrong, I love NV Veuve and Dom P and Cristal, but there is so much more to champagne than those brands.

Champagne has such strict standards, that it is hard to find anything that tastes bad, but anyone who is interested in wine, is short-changing themselves by not exploring the less-famous houses of champagne (which are called “grower champagnes” and are unusually cheap and easily available at better wine stores).

Some of these houses… like Pierre Peters, Vilmart, Gimmonet are hard to find in Europe, but under $40 and available in the US.

I’m telling you, if you like wine, nothing will make you happier than popping open a bottle of Pierre Peters and eating it with linguine and clams or el pollo loco.

I very rarely drink sparkling wine… my favorite bubbles is 7up!

Dude, it’s snowing out there. You need to get some gloves the next time you do that. I’m probably not drinking on New Year’s, but if I am, I’ll try to have something different.

Best bubbles I’ve ever had hand’s down was the 1999 Pierre Morlet Millesime. I ordered it after you rated it 96 points and saved it for the night I finished my last law school exam. My wife and I drank it on the roof of our DC apartment at the time and absolutely loved it. Thanks!!