Posts belonging to Category Gamay

Papa Fred’s back yard was the perfect Southern California setting for a relatively spontaneous wine tasting with snacks and hounds and folks who really enjoy wines bearing relatively obscure labels. We also a couple of special bottles to taste. A late Summer-early Fall heat wave put us on the patio. We pulled a bunch of corks and paid more attention to the dogs than the football game. But we paid the most attention to the wines. Photos courtesy of Kris-A. Comments from Kris-B. Welcome to new tBoW team taster K2. (more…)

the man the legend

The season has turned. tBoW has suffered the first schnüpfen in his nélson. [ed. he caught a cold]. The A/C bill will drop only to be replaced by the heater bill. And we are loading up on, and pulling corks of, red wines once again. This is a good time to discuss something every “collector” must consider. (more…)

UH HOW HOW HOW HOW. Here are the reviews for red wines from the Fourth. From Northern Italy to Beaujolais’ venerable Marcel Lapierre. There’s more. We have a review of an incredible Flamenco troupe playing in LA that you MUST SEE [ed. he rarely says that about wines]. Arte y Pureza is the inspired vision of Ethan Margolis and Company and we watched them conjure their feverish magic, melding dance with the traditional Gypsy music of Southern Spain. FLAMENCO!! Even when wines are this riveting…they are NOT this riveting! But then dance is fleeting…as is wine in most cases…so you need something EXTRA. Arte y Pureza has it. (more…)

Three gloriously HOT days. Any wine sipping foo gonna hit the party party party circuit. NowhatImsayin? We did. IGTY had the best babes and the most relaxed scene. But when it came to wine the Krisses ruled the roost at Papa Fred’s Shack. The wines ranged from Northern Italy’s Alto Adige (Lagrein) to two Paso Robles’ Wild Horse whites to several Ros√©s that created a stir. The wine tasters also ranged widely. Necromancer, prodigy, novotiate, tenderfoot, shellback, bashful and laconic. Toss in a garrulous minx and there is the perfect 4th of July bash. Read what they had to say about the wines that washed across their wanting palates. (more…)

wine angel

U20s abound. We are proud to point out thebestofwines saw the trophy-wine-bubble bursting urrlllyy on. Way ahead of the trend…a trend not set as deep, perhaps, as current real estate prices. When will our multi-million dollar homes and those fat home equity credit lines come back? Only when $350 Napa Cabernets become hard to acquire. Right now they are simply hard to find. Try China [ed. "wine angels" are supposedly the hot ticket in Beijing and Shanghai]. In the meantime the thoughtful oenophile can sample from a slew of retailers’ bargain bins PLUS the gemstone picks by some very savvy online/email vendors. Here are three we like [ed. with thanks to alert tBoW team taster Krisses!] (more…)