The Wine Thread -- what have you been drinking?

I worked in a bunch of California wineries for years and no longer give a shit about it. All the magic is gone, and most of the people in the industry are completely full of shit - get them involved in a blind taste test and they'll make total asses of themselves. Most can't tell the difference between a merlot and a cabernet, truly.

That said, there's some cheap Penfold's at Trader Joe's that rules my world right now... $5.99 shiraz I think.

That would be the one. 2000 vintage I think.

Say, what is that stuff at Trader Joe's - Charles Something - we call it Two-Buck Chuck. What happened there? There must have been a bankruptcy or something... no Napa wine should sell for $1.99 unless there was some kind of trouble.

It's actually sort of drinkable, especially if it's the fourth or fifth bottle...

marsala ambra, colli
maderia verdelho
traminer
and a cold duck (whatever that is?)

I got ridiculously wasted on Cold Duck red champagne a few weeks ago and died to death at Emilymv's. Our boy Fudge who was over there coined the term "Quack Attack" to apply whenever drinking Cold Duck again. Which will never EVER happen ugh.

I think the rest of your choices are cooking wines!

Last bottle- Ca' del Solo Big House Red (actually by Bonny Doon). They were clearing out a bunch for like $7/bottle. Bonus factor-- SCREW TOP!

From the Canandaigua Wineries website:

"Cisco is a Beverage Dessert wine for people who like a strong, great-tasting sweet wine at an affordable price. Cisco is available in a wide range of flavors: Orange, Peach, Red, Berry, Black Cherry and Strawberry and in 375ml and 750ml sizes. All wines are offered in both 13.9% and 18% alcohol by volume..."

Search: Anything from Columbia Crest and esp. from Columbia Crest Grand Estates--lots of oak. The Chard and Maerlot/Cab table wines are on sale for 3.99 I think. The Grand Estates are more from 5.99-7.99

The French red Bourdeaux from Trader Joes are generally good. Chateau Haute Rozier is one, I think

I'm a little disaapointed with Trader Joe's Australian offerings, from the usual suspects, but I've found that if for a white, if it is blended w/ Semillion and for a red, if it is a blend with Shiraz, the cheap wine is brought up to drinkable.

2 buck chuck (Charles Shaw) is undrinkable swill. Bull's Blood is on the same level.

At Trader Joe's you do get what you pay for, and it is hard to get a decently drinkable table wine for less than 5.99. An exception is the Marques de Caceres White Rioja at 3.99 and occassional sales on Columbia Crest.

The Italian Bastardo (it's the only one Trader's has) is a pretty good deal for an ordinary pizza wines, but beware the Barolo, Barbaesco, Sangiovese, Cameneire. I would get these wines at a real wineseller like Rolf's.

The best under $20 Champagne/Sparking Wine is Domaine Ste. Michelle Extra dry7.99 and at a step up Roederer Estates NV 17.99 (the latter you will have to go to Costco or Rolfs for)

School me please people!

I really like Rioja, but after a couple of duds I realize I need a primer. Orbit?

i was looking at their schedule online today. i haven't gone yet, but it's something i keep meaning to do. tomorrow is australian wine.

oh i just had that last nite. nice

I'm drinking Renwood's sierra series zin from 2001 right now, it's decent but far from my fave. I love Peter Franus's zins, and highly recommend them if you can find them. I'm about to drink a 1997 Rosenthal Malibu Estates cab, and expect it to be fantastic as I had some about a year ago or so and it was getting really good. Had a 1997 Liparita cab from Napa a few days ago, great stuff. I'm running out of good wine though and have been falling back on the cheaper stuff as I am tonight, but cheap wines have been getting better lately.

Castle Rock cab is very very good for the money -- they're a Napa producer, but their cab is Washington fruit.

Jim, you sound like you're pretty into the Aussie stuff. I envy you getting to drink that Henschke -- sounds awesome. Have you Yalumba's unoaked chard? Very tasty.

I cant drink reds, I'm allergic :(

I wished I had a bottle of wine whilst watching Foopballers Wive$ last night but I did not :(

The label says J P Garrafeira 1995 Palmela. It's got some kind of D.O.C. style registration cert on the back. It's 100% Perequita varietal from Setubal peninsula, and I have no idea in hell what any of that is about, I've never had perequita. It's quite good. I think it's rather like a strong finishing Garnacha. You ever heard of this style Clarke? I got it on sale from a heavily raided case.

there's a wine from i think puglia called gratticiaia which is made in the same fashion as amarone, not cheap although less costly than those

im still going through stuff from that bin end sale i posted itt exactly a year ago

other than that a lot of marginal stuff, a couple of montsants (heavy garnatxa/carinena from catalonia), a nerello mascalese from the slopes of mt etna, a pinot noir from alicante (quite why someone would plant a grape from north central france there although it was just about alright), roter veltliner from lower austria, bucellas which is a white wine from near lisbon that was popular in london during the napoleonic embargo ('portuguese hock')

some barossa shiraz and some cote challonaise wines at the more normcore end of the scale

I've been collecting these natural wines from Mt. Etna in Sicily made from this eccentric Belgian dude named Frank Cornelissen. Not for everyone, but I'm enthralled with them.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, January 14, 2015 11:12 PM (3 months ago)

After years as a drinker of bourbon and beer, Mr. Murphy had his palate turned upside-down one afternoon in 2008 at Racines, a wine-obsessed spot in Paris where Mr. Chearno, his vinous Yoda, helped introduce him to a bottle of a Sicilian orange wine called Frank Cornelissen MunJebel Bianco No. 3, “which was so crazy,” Mr. Murphy said. “In my memory, there were leaves and twigs floating in it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/dining/for-james-murphy-of-lcd-soundsystem-a-brooklyn-wine-bar-is-a-switch-in-tempo.html

what does this thread think abt orange wine?

there was a single forlorn, slightly dusty bottle of croatian orange wine discounted by 50% sitting at the back of a shelf that i couldn't quite get the will to buy
could envision myself pouring it down the sink so didn't bother
there's a lot of dismissive comments about them from people who usually aren't reflexively dismissive, but i think more it's sense that even partisans seem to be saying they are really interesting
whereas would rather buy things that may or may not be interesting but will definitely be at least alright

towards the more normcore end of things, i had a bottle of pesquera del duero the other evening and thought it was excellent

I've only had two orange wines, and did not particularly like either of them. They are cropping up more and more on lists in DC restaurants these days and are generally $$$

Lately I am into Portuguese roses (which I like so much better than the average French rose) and whites from former Eastern Bloc countries! Yeah it is winter but this is what I'm drinking, so what? I can chill it in the snow.

I had a very good orange wine while on vacation in Croatia last year. I would like to try more.

Speaking of which, I wish there were more Croatian and Balkan wines available in the U.S. We had some really delicious wines in Dubrovnik that are hard if not impossible to find here. Even good U.S. wine stores in big cities might stock one or two at most. It's maddening to know there's so much good, inexpensive wine out there that never finds its way here.

And since I don't think I've mentioned it previously on this thread, let me give a shout to my favorite Spanish label, Lopez de Heredia. Also hard to find in the U.S., but I've come across it here and there. Even the cheaper Cubillo is very good, but if you can spring for the Tondonia, highly, highly recommended. One of those wines that really needs to breathe and open up before you drink it -- otherwise you'll get a mouthful of dust and wonder what I'm talking about.

Lately I've been buying the Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1.5L bottles for something like $9 a pop. Crazy cheap, and tastes pretty good.

I brought home a Spanish orange wine from a vacation about 15 years ago. I was intrigued at the time, thinking it was a fermented orange/grape mix, but I later read that citrus is too acidic for yeast, so the orange was likely added later. Too sweet, and not very good really. It took me several months to finish it.

the orange wine itt is white wine that sits on grape skins for a while, giving it an orange colour.

quite a few new restaurants here in sydney now have an orange wine section on the winelist & i really like them... they're not any more expensive than other wines, but i think that's because a lot of the young australian 'natural' wine makers enjoy making them.

OK, I've never heard of that, outside of "white zin" type abominations.

the orange wine itt is white wine that sits on grape skins for a while, giving it an orange colour

I thought that was how rose (imagine an accent over the e) is made. Is there something different about the process that makes it orange rather than pink?

wikipedia says -

This winemaking style is essentially the opposite of rosé production which involves getting red wine grapes quickly off their skins, leaving the wine with a slightly pinkish hue.

OK, so rose is red wine grapes with a brief exposure to the skins, whereas orange wine is white wine grapes with a long exposure. Interesting. Will look for it maybe when the weather gets warmer.

Somehow we wound up with a half bottle of Rose -- I literally do not remember how we got it, but I didn't feel like drinking a beer so I said fuck it and poured it. The brand is Schlumberger, no idea if this is good. It's kinda ok but kinda weird, like something vaguely pukey about it compared to other sparkling wine. Anyway tastes like something I should be drinking at some high class party and not alone in my apartment.

Schlumberger is some pretty high-end ish out of Sonoma County. Probably not too sweet. Enjoy it.

What he drank came neither from the decent-to-good (Cabernet especially) Michel-Schlumberger winery in Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley, named first for the Swiss banker and oilman who founded it in the late '70s and second for his later partner and ultimate owner, a Texas-born Californian descendant of the old French wine family (not sure whether a connection to the Houston-based multinational oilfield services company of that name), neither of whom was the winemaker or is involved any longer, nor from that family's much better-known Alsatian estate winery Domaine Schlumberger, which makes some very well-respected Rieslings and Gewurztraminers and is probably what "Schlumberger" means to most wine people, but from the Austrian mass producer (and therefore "brand") of sparkling wines named for the country's first such, who founded the company (now GmbH) in the mid-1800s.

the charles shaw at TJ's is pretty decent this year

That was a really enjoyable sentence to read.

"something vaguely pukey about it compared to other sparkling wine"

butyric acid... sometimes it goes away with age, but it's probably the most oft-putting off flavor.

Yeah, in sum it was fine but not something I'd seek out again.

the charles shaw at TJ's is pretty decent this year

― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, April 26, 2016 9:01 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like when people call it "TJ's" because it always makes me think of "Like a Sunday in TJ, it's cheap but it's not free."

Charles Shaw makes an awesome Riesling for under $12ish. I think it's called Kung Fu Girl.

Other awesome inexpensive Rieslings (dry) Hermann Wiemer and Ravines from the Finger Lakes and Leitz Ein Zwei Dry from Rheingau.

imo riesling just tastes like sparkling sugary white grape juice

which I mean, it kind of is, but I don't really need that

yeah way too sweet for me

Charles Smith (better than Charles Shaw) makes Kung Fu Riesling and lots of other good wines. Also can appear high as a kite in person.

German riesling (Mosel) and riesling from the 70s and 80s is what you are associating with off dry riesling (typically Mosel). A good rule of thumb is if it's less than 12% alcohol it will be off dry.

Oh Charles Smith is the 2 Buck Chuck brand?

If you enjoy spicy food or asian takeout, riesling is a win. Or Champagne, Cava.

Ugh, Charles Shaw I mean for $2 Chuck. Charles Smith has those graphic wine labels.

spicy food or asian takeout cannot be eaten with my Dad around without a reminder from him that it's good with Gewurtz/Riesling

it simply cannot be

Ha. Riesling is like somm gatorade. Basically for anything spicy salty you need either residual sugar or a high level of acid to cut through the salt/spice. Although I do know people who love to drink tannic, robust wines with spicy food because they like the bitter burn.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChBoQcNWkAA5Y9K.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChDJ5GmWwAEu85H.jpg:large

https://twitter.com/FredericBillet1/status/725301524210024448

If Terrence Malick was a winemaker...

wow

We found this Argentinian Malbec for $11 called Las Piedras. Damn good, think it will become a go-to.

gobelsburger cistercian rose has quickly become my favorite rose

Malbec is definitely one of my go-to reds. Spanish tempranillos and garnachas are also good value.

I feel like Malbec's flavor profile is sort of in the same general range as Cabernet but usually cheaper for similar quality, and that's usually the kind of flavor profile I like most in reds.

I've discovered that there is actually a type of french wine I don't like - Fer Servadou. Just a weird profile all around, started out a little bit manichevitzy and ended very astringent.

OTOH have been loving Italian reds. Barbera D'Alba *chef's kiss*

Just drinking the usual red plonk. Nothing special.

We have a wine bar we occasionally go to now because it's literally five minutes drive from our house, the owner is a local, and he has very good taste. I have a tendency to want to try whatever I don't know, which is how I wound up with Fer Servadou last time, but I guess that one was a bust. Other times it's served me really well. He has a few Georgian "orange wines" and I'm thinking I might try one next time.

I brought a bottle of Spanish orange wine back from Spain many years ago. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but really not good wine.

Since January I've been getting into wine by drinking a bottle of something new every week. I'd always been a beer guy, then got into cocktails, then sherry but for some reason wine had never been my thing. It's fun - turns out there are lots of kinds of wine.

Anyway, for UK folks I highly recommend https://www.vincognito.co.uk - it's amazingly well-curated and I kind of want to try everything they have in stock.