The Cheese Board, what are you drinking?

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.

i mean I feel like I know enough/more than 95% about wine, but I still get disappointed by bottles because I like to play roulette and be surprised. And I drink enough wine that I always want some reliable that is affordable. I don't love a lot of oak (it makes me want to eat pineapple pizza) and I like lighter styles with some funk or some weird mouthfeel. I also don't eat a lot of meat and I get weirded out about thinking I have pruple teeth or punchbowl mouth, so I tend to stay away from tannic wines. That was actually the first american muscadet I have had. I have had some American Chenin Blancs (my favorite white grape) and they have all been disappointing.

speaking of sake, i went to a seminar recently where we tasted this: http://www.vineconnections.com/japanese-sake/grades/junmai-honjozo/ancient-treasure/

shit was wild, sort of like drinking an oxidized sherry but totally in its own league.

my go-to wines are like cheap barberas and slightly less cheap rhone reds. i don't drink much american wine but i'm trying to work through a bunch of oregon pinot noirs since they seem like the most agreeable american red to me.

xpost Oh man, those tasting notes and food pairings for the sake are like, my insides.

Kosho is really good, but hard to find even in japan, delicious and very complex. I don’t think I saw a single bottle in the Sake-ya I found the other day.

The other comparison is to Chinese Huangjiu and I’d love to do a side by side tasting of similar quality stuff, My memory is that huangjiu Is less refined and tougher but that may just be because I’ve maybe only had good huangjiu a couple of times.

xpost yeah you likely have a more old world palate preference. You don't like fruit forward/saturated. For blind tastings ta cheat is if you get get confused about old world vs new world, after you describe the nose, does the wine taste on your palate sweeter (not sugar but more fruit) or more sour than the nose. If it's sour, it's old world.

Tomorrow I am visiting the Nikka Yoichi distillery and the Tanaka Shuzo sake brewery so tomorrow will be a good day.

I have never had genshu! I was just looking it up.

for sure, my wife and i are confirmed old-world wine people. she got her start drinking nice chateauneuf-du-pape when she was studying abroad. idk what my deal is. at least it usually means we're compatible when i'm deciding what bottle to open.

i bought a bottle of that sake btw, not cheap but like how could i not. i have no idea when i will open it but luckily according to the proprietor it keeps for a long time in the fridge once opened.

xpost, that pretty much describes my wine palette, I'd rather stab myself repeatedly with a fork than have another syrupy shiraz. That also seems go to for my taste in Sake.

https://goo.gl/images/gFG3ww

Funaguchi namagenshu is pretty available international, its not great but it is pretty representative of the style.

https://goo.gl/images/zwVs2y

I've seen narutotai in the US, UK and Australia, its a better sake but you have to commit to a whole 700ml. NB Nama Genshu has traditionally been exported in cans as Nama=unpasteurised so the can prevents light oxidation. Other Nama styles are available, indeed everything can come Nama, its typically a spring release - the first new sake of the year and the non-genshu styles can be very light and refreshing, sometimes with a very light sparkle, very small pettillant bubbles.

Damned images.

https://cdn1.wine-searcher.net/images/labels/02/59/kikusui-funaguchi-ichiban-shibori-nama-genshu-honjozo-sake-niigata-japan-10300259.jpg

http://cdn8.bigcommerce.com/s-7a906/images/stencil/1000x1000/products/6853/11914/Narutotai-Ginjo-Namagenshu-720ML__10634.1498242657.jpg?c=2

xpost If you like barbera and rhone reds, you would probably like other random Italian reds (not chianti or barolo or montepulciano or basically anything pricey). Try a cheapish Barbarsesco or Ghemme although that may not have the color you want. Sagrantino or Lacryma Christi (tears of christ from Mt Vesuvius) are two of my favorite reds. But really, I think Italian wine is so great because it has so many styles and weirdnesses that I like. Also Sicilian reds (Cerasualo di Vittoria, Occhipinto and COS are two big producers, they are related) are probably something you would enjoy because it's frappato/nero'd'avolo which if you like pinot noir it's kind of in that same vein, lighter can be served slightly chilled, easy drinking. But funkier. I like a lot of syrahs from Washington. Colder vintages, it tastes like black olives. But you would probaly like some of the reds from Languedoc Roissillon, they are medium body, some blends. ALso Cahors which is the French malbec/cot.

late to this but the Willamette Valley is really coming into its own re: wines

Languedoc Roissillon, they are medium body, some blends. Also Cahors which is the French malbec/cot.

That is a very good arc of France from the Languedoc to the haute Garonne(OK Lot but the water still ends up at Bordeaux.: see also Corbieres, Madiran, Sabazan, Buzet

If you want to break down wines (although I have used it for beer and sake tastings) and have fun, this is the current court of master sommeliers blind deductive tasting grid.

http://www.courtofmastersommeliers.org/wp-content/uploads/Deductive-Tasting-Grid-Dec-2016.pdf

you hit on a lot of adjacent wines that i've enjoyed! i will have to track down some washington syrahs--v intriguing and something i've definitely never had.

Ha, I don't have a sweet tooth and a lot of american wines are too high alcohol and too fruit forward which tastes sweet even though they were fermented dry. So you have to look for american wine producers who make more subtle euro style wines. Like Sandhi in CA makes french styled Chardonnay. Also any wines over say 13.5%, you are not likely having a second bottle and it tips over into feeling unbalanced for me although a lot of people like that burn of alchohol. Some Australian shiraz are like 16%!

Ed, you should study to be a sake samurai.

xp lol yup, every once in a while i'm in the mood for a brutal 15% california zinfandel, usually i just pick up something from ridge b/c they know how to do that well. that happens maybe once a year at best.

part of the prob with american wines is economic, for ex. i really like ridge stuff, i like cakebread chardonnay a lot, those are intense and fruit forward wines but they have other interesting aspect. but also those are $35-$50 bottles. american wine <$20 is a nightmare. otoh there are $9 barberas i'll happily drink anytime.

Yeah, decent American wine, while living in America, is super overpriced. But since it's only for heathens and whores, that's the tax I guess.

two years ago I went from living in france for half of the year to living in Hawaii and it was a rude wine awakening. First time I routinely bought drugstore/supermarket CA wines. We got a lot of that Rex Goliath wine. I actually though it was fine. If I could find a Louis Jadot at Costco though, I was in heaven.And don't even start with me about being unable to find dry riesling. Ugh. #firstworldproblems

I’m not a wine drinker but i can usually find decent zins from some little town in central/northern california for about $15 — i guess that’s expensive compared to france where babies are fed wine instead of formula

Yeah, I really like Dry Creek zins and Italian primitivos. ZInfandel got a bad break for awhile after the whole white zin thing.

@Yerac:

My fave of the Willamette Valley is Crowley. I hope (think?) you'd appreciate.

Yerac, have you ever had the TJ's pine ridge chenin blanc + viognier?

I also love chenin blanc but there's not too much out here (even if it's bad)

Albert, I will look into it. I rarely buy Willamette though because I think it's slightly, 10%, overpriced.

Is the TK Chenin Viognier off dry? I had something they were tasting the other day and it was off dry. I got the one dry vouvray that they had though. It was fine.

I literally have 5 bottles of Huet Vouvray beside my bed right now that I plan on taking back to my home home.

sometimes you get decent discounts at world market if you get their free membership

bought a tj's gigondas as a treat the other day(not sure why i just didn't get a chateauneuf, but) - saving it for when there's some reason to celebrate. been drinking their cheapo but decent gruner vetliner lately. not mindblowing but it's a underrated grape imo. i've tried with zins and i think they're just generally harvested too late for my liking. the ones that i've tasted (it's my sister's fave grape besides gamay so she always has some at her place) just /seem/ so damn sweet and i think i hate wines over 13% or so. still living in a wine and cheese desert though and i'm not happy abt that

I was on a little bit of a gruner veltliner kick for a while and started thinking I would like any/all of them and then I got one that was too tart even for me. So I might need to back off a little.

I may have mentioned it on this or another thread, but I have a friend that thinks all zin smells like blueberry cobbler.

I am drinking Schäfer-Fröhlich, riesling "Felseneck". I ordered it off the internet because I like SF, but I didn't check the alcohol, (only like 7.5) so it's off dry and I was holding off drinking it because I never feel like off dry, but I am totally feeling it now.

I don't remember how to drink red wine btw since I switched to white/sparkling all summer. I opened a bottle of this organic tempranillo yesterday that I usually think of as being pretty soft and gentle and it was killing me about halfway through the bottle.

xpost I did a harvest in Vacqueyras (also nice and affordable, more so than Gigondas and definitely more than CdP) and it was quite easy to stroll over to Gigondas or a longer walk to Beaumes de Venise.

It's this one, and it's a super buy at $9.99.

https://www.midvalleywine.com/images/sites/midvalleywine/labels/bodegas-volver-venta-morales-organic-tempranillo_1.jpg

Put that in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. I personally would keep it in the fridge and just take it out 15 minutes before drinking.