The Wine Thread -- what have you been drinking?

whoa dude that is a big ass picture, sorry

I'm a fan of the Spanish riojas. nice medium body red. Was that one good? Should I look for it?

dude it's a white wine with a touch of peach, citrus and minerality.

Grayson 2007 Pinot Noir $12 very good

This is best thing you'll ever taste with Phil Collins face on it.

http://www.avalonwine.com/PGC_dollar-bills-200p-5-05.jpg

Seriously though, this is the best Pinot I've ever had under $20.

my wife got me this as an early christmas present (except '04, not '01)

http://www.englewoodwinemerchants.com/product_images/AltVend.JPG

it's so good that it is going to make me feel sort of bad when i go back to my normal cheap wines tomorrow.

Ten Australian Dollars for d'Arenberg these days, thank heavens for the glut in the wine industry.

(Yeah, I know, but I am from McLaren Vale.)

grayson pinot noir again - a napa valley pinot - is this unusual?

That you're drinking it or that it's a pinot from Napa?

the latter

Not unusual at all.

It's unusual except for Carneros, which gets fog and cooler air from the Pacific -- the rest of Napa Valley is too hot for pinot. Even Napa Valley pinot producers (Robert Sinskey, Mondavi, etc.) get their grapes from Carneros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s89FqNpXO4&feature=player_embedded

henri clerc pinot noir 2006

Domaine de Lancyre Roussanne 2007

Was in Oregon a few days ago and bought a 2008 De Ponte DFB Estate Melon. A lot of whites I find either too astringent or too sweet, but this was pleasantly dry and smooth, with nice notes of banana and pear.

(At least it was at the tasting. Presumably the bottle will be the same.)

we got this in the fridge right now
http://www.thedinnerpartyshop.com/images/products/wines/champagnes/saraccoMoscatoDAsti.jpg

might not be the 'o6 vintage tho

Me an' Lincoln have been drinking turpentine. It was in a brown bag, so how were we to know?

hardcore

I've had this a couple times lately and it is unbelieveably good

http://www.frederickwildman.com/wildmansite/bottles/hugel/hugel_pinotblanc.jpg

Alsace, where the French and the Germans agree to disagree.

that alsace is good iirc

i had a discount rioja reserva yesterday which wasn't great, v lacking in fruitiness or anything engaging

Chateau De Vaults Domaine Du Closel 2005 Savennieres $16

"Chateau Des Vaults" - sorry. Also, "La Jalousie"?

Another winner from Alsace - Baron De Hoen Gewurztraminer.

I've been having decent luck picking French wines just based on how nice the bottle looks plus how old the winery is.

Domaine des Hauts de Sanziers Chenin Blanc 2008

Norton Ridge Pinot Noir 2007

Domaine de la Madone Beaujolais Villages 2010

Budini Malbec 2009

all the European wine around here is $3-5 more expensive than last year, cheap Rhone staples Parallel 45 and Vidal-Fleury are now like $12

Jean Marc Bernhard Pinot Noir 2009 from the Alsace $16

The perfect test for qualia would be tasting notes for wine:

cough syrup (in a good way! i am sensitive to sweetness): http://kermitlynch.com/page/2011-beaujolais-nouveau/
watermelon (but dry, minerals and granite, etc): http://www.rimauresq.eu/page_23/rose12

i wish i appreciated wine more than i do.

more lozenge than syrup because there is that tart sucking on hard candy taste. when i was very small i got very sick and couldn't take cough syrup; it made me gag. so that is the case for qualia and what you cannot recover in your own lifetime.

Robitussin, make me feel so fine
Robitussin, elderberry wine

crozes
pommard
bierzo
cotes de ventoux
some nz sauv blanc

Does the shape of a bottle say anything about the wine it contains? I am asking this question after attempting to divide a bottle into 4-5 glasses based on the height of the label (level after the 2nd glass?) and finding it works differently for French (feminine) and Spanish / Portuguese reds (masculine). Spanish reds were featured in a Lloyd Cole song. If he were to rewrite it today, I imagine he would tie Greek whites to the drachma or something like that ...

It does: Burgundy and new world pinot noir have a rounded shape; Bordeaux and its grapes (cabernet sauvignon et al) have a straight cylinder shape; and Rhone wines (syrah, grenache, mouvedre) have an even more rounded, shapely bottle.

But, with a few funny exceptions, they all hold 750 mL of wine.

high shouldered = bordeaux, rioja, chianti
low shouldered = burgundy, rhone, barolo mostly

then there are those slender alsace/german things that new-world riesling producers kitschily copy

Giant photo, but here are the four common shapes (forgot to mention tall/slim for riesling, gewurtz, etc. from Germany and Alsace):

http://www.windowonwine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bottle-shapes.jpg

traditional jura wines are still sold in some peculiar size like 620ml or sthing

I think I've seen those .. Please forgive the gender stereotypes ...

The shoulders are meant to capture debris when pouring the last of the bottle, so you see them on reds rather than whites.

the wikipedia page for vacqueyras is amusingly sniffy & embittered

Being a little brother of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and, arguably, Gigondas, the wine is moderately prestigious and can yield pleasing results when treated correctly.[2]

The best vineyards are found on Plateau de Garrigues. In the lowland, warmer temperatures result in more powerful and often inelegant wines.[2]

The red wine can be much like the wines from Gigondas but for some reason Vacqueyras rarely manages to match their northern sibling.[citation needed]

Vacqueyras is, like Gigondas, known for its power rather than its elegance.