Red Wine...

[T47]

In the end, I'd continue to seek out WA wines due to their balance and value and when you're looking for a big blockbuster go to CA or one of the really tannic and age-worthy bordeauxs. This is not to say there aren't some powerful and amazing WA wines -- there are -- but I hope that in the end WA keeps its niche where its at and doesn't try to emulate CA wines. Unfortunately, I see it happening already at some wineries. At a tasting last weekend at Chateau Ste. Michelle the guy pouring for me was telling me that the wines they did in the 70's and 80's were really ageworthy but stuff from the 90's and later is fruit dominated and released for earlier consumption -- due to a change in their business model. I've rattled on for long enough...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You have a more developed background and its good information. I will have to go to Ste. Michelle sometime, its so darn close. I did the Dinner Train there years ago, but didn't really appreciate it...now its too late for that!

[birdman1099]

For me, it was the bold reds from France, Italy and CA that drove me to the bourbons.

I have always been a CA wine hor, but as my taste matured, my interest in whiskey grew.... I finally matured into Bourbon and I have been in bliss since.

The price of a great bottle of bourbon is a fraction of that for wine.... and you get far more from it...

Don't get me wrong, I love my wine, but my daily is bourbon!

I can't believe I missed this thread.

These are my sentiments exactly. I was/am big into California Reds (specifically the 2002 Stags Leap Estate Cab) now, My cabinet is overrun with Bourbon !!!

[TNbourbon]

I don't have specific recommendations, but I'd suggest you cast a wide net...

Indeed, the truth of the matter is that so much good wine is produced these days, that bad wine just doesn't survive in the marketplace. Unless you happen to have the extremely bad fortune of coming upon some retailer's first run of a 'bad' wine, it's just a matter of finding what YOU like.

It must have happened at about the same time that I realized my taste for Whiskey suddenly developed, I enjoy Red Wine....

Todd, they are not mutually exclusive. I believe the use of oak in each case is a commonality that helps explain and hone tasting techniques and terminology. When the French Oak-barrel-aged BT experimental came out, I remember thinking, "Smells like wine!" Lesson learned about where specific aromas come from. The education continues...