Holidays are here. tBoW is getting ready for a big Xmas day party. Touring local wineries today. Here is my holiday bling collection courtesy of a Downtown LA vendor. Have to make a shopping stop there next week. Here are the wines bringing holiday cheer.
2005 Fitou Bel Armant Chateau Champ des Souers $15: This may be the third time tBoW has reviewed this wonderful little Languedoc/Corbieres wine from Beck Wasserman. Toffee nose, soft, vanilla, fruity. Balanced well. Blends Grenache, Carignan and Mourvèdre. Just very pleasant and completely enjoyable. 13.5% (more…)

Jim Morrison sang “Strange days have found us. Strange days have tracked us down. They’re going to destroy our casual joys<. Can we use his gravesite as metaphor for the 2008/9 economic collapse? His fevered fans have trashed his grave like our fevered wall streeters trashed…you get the point. I hope we all listen to his moody lyrics and act with the anger he showed singing. Troubled rock stars are a cliché today. We can only hope boom-to-bust traders, AIG executives and hedge fund managers will become tired clichés tomorrow. I can foresee a new era of celebreality shows that replace the Bad Girls Club; maybe Broke Brokers and Bad Bankers, or TARP Traders; re-enact the hey-day of unbounded greed and self-interest. Thursdays at 9:00 on the WB. Strange days have come!!
Yeh!! (more…)

The wine economy update:When I wrote this post about a month ago in advance of this publication preceded the greatest economic event in our lifetlme. The current financial crisis in world markets has bearing upon what we will be buying and drinking over the next couple years. It is more important than ever to find value wines and avoid the vinous equivalents of institutions deep into credit debt swaps
The end-of-days folks are getting new airtime. tBoW finds that contemplating the mass psychology of cataclysmic disaster scenarios makes it all the more important to attend to more rational minds breaking new ground in their own way. (more…)

It is axiomatic to oenophiles that you have to sit on some wines for awhile so the wine can develop in the bottle. I am coming to the conclusion that this is just one more corollary to the magic chef and the hallowed ground marketing themes that have created the Parker/Rolland two headed monster. Wine does age in the bottle. But does it get better? Recent pourings/tasting have concluded otherwise. The 1996 Burgundies flopped like Vlade Divac taking a charge. And here we have some pinot noir bottlings from the fabled Santa Rita Hills that also fell well below high expectations when purchased on release. (more…)