Holy Holidays Burg Man. tBoW Blog Day is Christmas!

Talk about your freaky coincidences. Christmas week in LA is in the 80s. If I told you how often this is the case you would leave Connecticut and move back here. Wait. You may already know that. Looks like stogies on the patio and another round of goff. Merry Christmas to everyone especially those we know who retired this year. Hope everyone drinks better wines more often.

We also remember friends who left the planet sooner than many would have liked. A good year for the grim reaper started early with Miss Brenda and closed (we hope) with Papa Fred. Those among us destined to live longer lives should feel all the more fortunate. We have learned this in 2013: live each day well. Love your family and pals. Enjoy what life allows us to experience. Help others less fortunate. We will do our best to expend our life energy positively in the company of our most positive friends!

We have spent some good times recently with some dear pals pulling corks on some very decent bottles of wine.

2010 Pierre Luneau-Papin Butte de la Roche Terre de Pierre Muscadet $22: “Not another Muscadet?” we thought when Goldun pulled the cork at a favorite tofu lunch palace. This wine is easily the best white wine for drinking anytime in any circumstance that we have had this year. Full bodied knitted together with punch and panache. Stoniness comes from the serpentine soil that imparts unique character. “Iron fist in a velvet glove” is a phrase we have not read in a decade or longer. Now you have read it but I am not sure it exactly applies. Stony fist in a rubber glove? No. [ed. shut up] Very few winemakers in Muscadet make a wine from a single vineyard. Of course, how many vineyards have soil from rock at our planet’s core? This wine is available from Eno Fine Wine and elsewhere. The price is very very good given the very very good quality. Here is a far superior commentary on this wine. Louis-Dressner Import. Get it. 12%

2011 Domaine Masse Givry 1er Cru Champ Lalo $29: “They are sucking this down” our wine dealer said of clients who drink this bottle like it’s diet coke. And with good reason. If wine snobs sold houses their favorite axiom would be “structure structure structure.” This wine has plenty of that like a log cabin. Sturdy, rustic, the height of mountain-man craft. We like that it is young with years of life. More fruit up front than the 2009 Lumpp Givry with similar backbone. Not as elegant a beauty as the 2009 Moulin Aux Moines Bourgogne but try and find that. Both are appropriate yardsticks. Eno Fine Wine winner. 13%

2009 Domaine du Château de Chorey (Germain) Beaune 1er Cru Les Cras Vielles Vignes $60: Where did we get this? Another very decent Burgundy from a very decent vintage. Is there such a thing as sour cherry mash? This wine is tasty, sappy, with plenty of ‘shroom-like flavors. This is a young wine with lots of promise. I am betting we got this at Liquid Spirits… for a song. Merry Christmas Pete! 13.5%

2001 J Wilkes Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir $25 TAFI: This was Jeff Wilkes first vintage. For us this wine is the classic expression of Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir that has received little to zero tampering. Wilkes kept the books for hundreds of winemakers for decades; winemakers who wanted Bien Nacido Pinot Noir fruit. He decided he also wanted to make a Bien Nacido Pinot Noir. tBoW covered Jeff in 2009. Maybe he had “newbie nerves” about tampering with the fruit like the other winemakers do. Maybe he just wanted to make a wine that said “Hi. I’m Pinot Noir from SRH.” At 13 years this bottle was tight when opened. Lean. We aerated her and she relaxed [ed. is this “Wine Gyno?” the next Sideways?]. Peewee shared her immediate impression – as though there is any stopping her: “That’s how I like wine. Exuberant, exciting, light fluffy, welcoming.” Plain and simple. No back palate. Like drinking cake. Continued to open in the glass for an hour. Pure SRH fruit. Remember when winemakers in SRH made 13.1% wines?

Here’s a Xmas treat. Get past the 15 second ad to find the Divine Miss M singing the coolest yule song in town.