The Cheese Board, what are you drinking?

For the first seder a Bordeaux, for the second (INO), a New York "select harvest" or whatever pinot noir, I think from the odd good 2007 vintage. Now back to the usual OR stuff.

Pre-passover I quite enjoyed sharing a reasonably fresh Nugget Nectar, which I'm probably imagining tastes better in the bottle than the last time I had it in a can. I'm no big hophead, but I quite enjoy them when well-balanced with malts, and it was a great pairing with a mole tamale.

Re: sparkling water, I never drink the stuff alone and found the espresso pairing an affectation at first, but now I often miss the stuff when it doesn't come with.

Some excellent natural wines from my local where you bring a bottle and they fill it from large metal canisters. It’s bulk natural wine.

I was reading about the one place in Rome that has a free wine fountain.

or rather, a little outside of Rome.

wine fountain in Rome, dang. I don’t spend nearly enough time there.

Been enjoying a bottle of Lagavulin 16 I got for my birthday, good stuff

I had a mostly dry weekend so I am very proud of myself.

drank a chilean chard/viognier blend last night that was pretty enjoyable

2007 barrique matured dry Pinot Noir

Who was the producer of the chilean?

vistamar

Lagavulin 16

I’m in Kanazawa drinking local sake made from the lauded rice here in Ishikawa prefecture.

― droit au butt (Euler), Monday, March 5, 2018 8:39 AM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

paging euler--any sake (or general) tips for kanazawa? i'll be there for about a day.

Not that I have visited but the brewery that features in the Netflix Documentary ‘The Birth of Sake’, Yoshida Shuzoten, is in the Kanazawa suburbs. Doesn’t do tour but apparently does tastings. The Tedorigawa Kinka was very good when I had it in San Francisco.

http://tedorigawa.com/en/about/company/

i mainly drink wine these days. its still hot here (in australia) so it's been low alcohol chilled reds, on the weekend i had a grolleau (?) by francois st lo which was only 8.5% and delicious.

in Kanazawa we just asked for recommendations for sake in the places we ate / drank. I brought a bottle home but haven't opened it yet.

For eating there, just eat seafood, seafood, seafood, which you already know, but it's so good there, so fresh. lots of ocean-fish sashimi but also tiny river fish, fried.

xpost the grolleau- the Loire wine region is in my top 3 in the world. Everything there is a wonderful.

xp cool, thanks! i'm looking forward to it.

Had a glass (then a bottle) of this Jura Chardonnay recently and it blew my mind a bit. None of the oiliness that's (ignorantly) put me off chardonnay for so long.

https://✧✧✧.shop✧✧✧.com/s/files/1/2080/6109/products/jura-chardonnay-chevassu_1_1024x1✧✧✧@2✧.j✧✧

Had a different Jura chardonnay subsequently and it was fine, but fine was a disappointment.

Ugh. This one: https://terrawines.co.uk/products/cotes-du-jura-chardonnay-sous-voile-domaine-marie-pierre-chevassu-2015

Had a great Bulleit Sazerac last night as well as a mug of Blue Owl Czech Czech Sour Pilsner.

Wife had a drink that combined Stout, bourbon, maraschino, and Orange bitters. It was a bit unusual, but quite good.

I love the Jura. That chard is aged under flor which is the same way sherry is made. If you liked that you might like Vin Jaune which is from the Jura too but the savagnin grape under flor. I have a bottle that I have been saving since it's a lot for one person to drink on their own and not many people like it.

xpost any drink with maraschino/luxardo is a winner.

xp I'm on my way round.

I think it's because I was drinking sherry that the nice person behind the bar gave me a sample of the chardonnay. Will keep an eye out for the vin jaune.

Any nice wine shop should have a couple of bottles at least. Even in France you can find cheapish bottles in the supermarket. It's super nice but weird. They make this "famous" dish in the Jura that is chicken with morrels and vin jaune.

Not sure it's quite as common as that over here - a quick click round my usual places shows some do, some don't but the cheapest I can see is like £32 for a 62 cl bottle, which is probably a bit on the costy side for me).

If you fly 14 hours to where I am we can break open my 2006 Jacques Puffeney Vin Jaune. I will save it for you.

On my way.

vin jaune is not easy to find over here! i'm so curious about it.

You can also get chardonnay or savagnin (or a white blend) from the Jura as long as it's been under flor (the voile) and that is pretty close, but lighter to vin jaune . I don't think I have really seen those that much outside of France but definitely see vin jaune (vin jaune has longer aging requirements so it's more expensive).

some of the new australian winemakers have wines made under flor since a lot of them are into the jura but i dont think anyone's done a vin jaune? maybe i should investigate further.

The jura/savoie got pretty popular about 3-4 years ago. I feel like vin jaune style wines would be a tough sell. You definitely have to prepare people for what they are about to taste. It's like the first time you ever had a dry sherry.

guys it's 4/20 and i'm drinking a fremont dark star oatmeal stout. it smells like new-mown grass and homemade collard greens here. need one of our resident deadheads to suggest a "dark star" pairing to listen to.

I read that as "new mom grass."

asahi super dry from a backpack keg at a hanshin tigers game. tasting super fresh and crispy tbh.

russian river "consecration", sour ale aged in cabernet barrels. better than i'd expect for a beer with comic sans on the label, but honestly, i'm not sure it's beery enough - the wine flavor predominates

i'm not sure it's beery enough

This style of beer (oud bruin) is a very common beer in West Flanders (which is kind of like sacred ground for beer!)

I had some Aslin Stellar Parallax and a RAR Slip-Ons today. The mid-atlantic is getting scary good at hazy stuff.

Last night, bottle of chilean riesling and then a 2004 Vina Ardanza, La Rioja Alta

I am having a Bow & Arrow, "Melon" Willamette Valley. I am very surprised how much I like it. I mean I love muscadet but I thought I would find fault with this as i do whenever they take a super frenchified grape and take it US.

Like, I would buy totally this buy this by the 10-20% off case if possible. Super easy drinking, very flexible/angular, cute label.

not available near me : /

i swear to god one of the things keeping me from digging more into one is how friggin hard it is to find a specific bottle.

*more into wine

Where are you? I think that winery was kind of a ~hipster thing for a time.

They had a wine called Air Guitar...

i'm in mass, looks like no in-state distributor. getting stuff shipped here is possible but a pain in the ass.

If you like a certain style or have descriptors of things you have enjoyed I can probably recommend similar stuff to be on the lookout that you would like. Or sometimes the best bottles are because of who you are drinking with at a certain time in your life.

Or just ask a clerk your local "good" wine store and don't feel intimidated. They live to share knowledge. Even at Trader Joes, I think they have enough expertise where they know what to recommend.

yeah i'm open to try anything, like an american muscadet that comes with a recommendation from someone knowledgeable sounds great. basically if i read about a wine or someone tells me about a wine i would probably be happy to try that wine, and i'm able to track it down like less than half the time.

i'm at the point where i just literally need to taste more wines and develop my palate so it's frustrating to hear about stuff and not be able to try it.

I’m in japan so drink lots of Sake. Best so far has been 北の錦 純米山廃(Kita no Nishishi Junmai Yamahai). Really great umami with a little roughness, beautiful straw colour as well.

I need to stop accidentally buying 原酒 (genshu) which is the undiluted sake. It’s generally too big and heavy, but at least makes a good argument for why it is diluted in the first place. I had 南部美人純米吟醸 生詰原酒 (Nanbu Bijin junmai daiginjo Namatsugenshu)、詰 can mean packed or stuffed and it certainly was, too much going on and almost syrupy.