Posts belonging to Category I.M.H.O.

Recently we’ve been thinking how the wine world has it all figured out now. The recession blew the socks off trophy wines taking down everyone with them. The “survivor-type” wine producers foresaw the end of the “wine bubble” and started moving to lower pricing without sacrificing quality. The intersection of CHEAP and QUALITY is precisely where most wine consumers get lost. The old signals no longer work. You really just have to taste the wines to know for sure. There are other indicators such as knowing the importer or distributor but that gets into advanced wine studies. Here are some tips for selecting and detecting which wine to buy and which wine to pass on. (more…)

Arianna Occhipinti works it!

With temps in the 80s, offshore winds and longer daysit is starting to feel like Dotoré’s favorite season. Fighting off the urge to nap we have time to hit you with some wine reviews. And the occasional observation.

What if Andrew Dice Clay reviewed wines?

The Underground Wine Letter is running a series on wine fraud. Phony DRC wines caught at auction. I saw a guy on Auction Hunters crying because he only got $55,000 for his Delorean “time machine.” It was a replica. So these wine frauds pay for empty bottles of premium Bordeaux and Burgundy. If you can get past the effete-iness it makes for interesting reading. Especially the entry where Tilson (UWL editor) goes through a multi-decade process solving a mystery about a case of very unusual 1928 St Emilion he bought at auction. (more…)

"Red wine makes them live longer, but they get to be a real pain."

This blog supports exploring your feeeelings especially as they apply to wine consumption and appreciation. A questionnaire was recently presented to us that helps all of us consider how our wine fascination came to be and how it is progressing. tBoW share his replies below and encourage you the reader to share your own feeelings here in the safety of our little community among friends of our palates.

A true wine geek goes through the following spiritual stages: (more…)

We were recently struck by two moments of clarity. The scene is a popular Malibu dining establishment where some of the ‘Bu winemakers hang. Our company that evening was Napa winemaker Jim Moore of Uvaggio who at one point was having a conversation about grapes with a local Pinot producer. She asked how many cases he made in 2009 and he said 6,000, “a small number.” He asked and she answered she made 45 cases in 09 to which Jim replied “that’s a hobby isn’t it?” Later the same week when I called Jim on the phone he asked me to call back because he was “loading a truck with cases.” Got me to thinking…what is it like to be a full time winemaker on a day to day basis in 2010? (more…)

All of a sudden I am totally bored with wine. All I think about when it comes to wine is how I do not want to think about it at all. I still like drinking wine. I am just out of gas when it comes to describing the experience or even caring about it.

Maybe it is because we are at the end of a summer that hardly got started. Maybe it is because I have decided to drink less for health reasons. Before I get an email about the French Paradox let me make my position clear right now…who cares. Wait…it gets worse. (more…)