Red Wine...

[Sijan]

I'm a big fan of wine as well - red, white, sparkling, dessert, you name it.

Something I would strongly recommend for those first getting into wine is to check out Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine. It is a great resource when you are learning about the different types of wine, etc. It gives you the essential info you need about each type of wine, but doesn't get bogged down in too many details. Has lots of purchasing tips, drinking tips, food pairing tips, and other good advice. 108 very short chapters, each usually just a few pages long - very easy to pick it up, read about one particular wine, and set it back down.

I have picked up a copy of this book for several friends as they've started to get interested in wine and they have universally found it to be very helpful.

If you're looking for more in-depth coverage of wine, I would recommend Karen MacNeil's The Wine Bible. It is also easy to read, but is more detailed and comprehensive. Too much info for a beginner, probably, but useful if you want to find out more about a particular region.

[Sijan]

Washington's Columbia Crest and Chateau Ste. Michelle (they are owned by the same company) make a lot of good - often very good - wines, and extremely good prices.

The 2005 Bordeauxs appear to be good across all price ranges. I've had some pretty impressive 2005s in the $10-20 range. Actually, 2005 was very good for Burgundy and the Rhone as well.

A good Cotes du Rhone value you can find at Costco is the E. Guigal

[T47]

Thanks for the book recommendations, I will keep my eye out for those.

Like I said earlier, I am kind of sticking to WA wines for the time being just to try and get some kind of tasting memory down. My wife does not drink much besides sweet cocktails, so I find myself limited on what I am willing to open.

I have had many of the Columbia Crest bottles except for their Horse Heaven Hills line...I need to look for some of those to try.

I know I am lucky with my Long Shadows connection, it allows me to have access to some bottles I probably would not want to spend the money on otherwise.

I get most of my wine at our local QFC, which seems to have a very nice selection for about the same price as Costco (on what I have been buying anyway). I have been meaning to stop into Esquin Wine Merchants in Seattle. It is close to where I work, and from there web site, they seem to have a nice selection...and tastings! I will have to find a time I am not working to go in for a little hands on education.

My booze money is a little limited...the recent Vintage 17 and WTAS purchase has put a crimp in my funds! I have a b-day coming up and have a bottle of rum (Zaya 12) on my list. I have wanted a bottle of Guatemalan rum for some time now (for sentimental reasons) so it looks like that's my next bottle.

It's nice that I enjoy the $10 bottles of red wine enough...I can slip them in the grocery cart almost unnoticed!

As always your all a wealth of information, thanks.

:toast:

[mier]

Why's the little purple grape bowing down the the Netherlands?

Cos they have good wines!!!

Eric.

[Vange]

I must agree that Washington does make some great wines. I have been REALLY enjoying the wines from Owen Roe recently. The Yakima Red is a excellent wine. Smells of a fireplace and some cedar and drinks like silk with some fruit.

[Joeluka]

I must agree that Washington does make some great wines. I have been REALLY enjoying the wines from Owen Roe recently. The Yakima Red is a excellent wine. Smells of a fireplace and some cedar and drinks like silk with some fruit.

Doesn't the Yakima red go for $55-$70 a bottle?? IMHO For that price there a hundreds of bottles of wine that should knock your socks off.

[Vange]

I get it $38-$42. I do agree at $50-$75 there are others to buy as well.

Stag's Leap Fay Estate being one of them!

[jbaker]

My love and interest in wine has brought me to better appreciate both beers and liquors of all sorts. You all have posted a great many awesome suggestions for the beginner! Hugh Johnson's & Jancis Robinson's "World Atlas of Wine" is a great resource. You may also check out "Sotheby's Encyclopedia of Wine" by Tom Stevenson. It's a little more succinct, but it's also more thorough in covering almost every wine region in each country commercially producing wine. (Make sure to buy the most recent edition, otherwise you might be getting outdated info.) For a really great beginners book, and I mean beginner, try Joanna Simon's "Wine: An Introduction." It's got great photos, it's very simple and easy to understand when you're just getting started. Plus it describes how to taste wine to get the most out of it, how wine is made and it gives an index of wine grape (varietals) synonyms (many grapes go by lots of different names, and this often can make you think that you're drinking a different wine when really it's just the same old thing).

Another suggestion is that lots of local wine retail shops will offer Intro to Wine classes for reasonable prices. Ask around or search the internet. Public tastings are also a good way to get exposed to lots of wine (sometimes for free). The hardest part is remembering it all! I would recommend, like most wine professionals, that you start a simple tasting journal and make a few brief notes every time that you try a wine. Make sure to date the entries so if you get to try the same wine again, you can see if it's changed at all.

The other thing that you all nailed is the 2005 Bordeaux thing! Spot on! I've had some awesome 05's from Fronsac (a sub-region on the "Right Bank" that is mostly Merlot) for $15!! It was called "Ch. Tour Saint-Bernard" and if you can find it, snatch it up! The $15 range is where you can start really finding the "good stuff." (Don't get me wrong, $55 will be great, but the deals for $15 are usually better than the deals for $8.) The only thing to keep in mind is that inexpensive wines, no matter how good they are, aren't really meant to improve in the bottle. They're meant to be drank within, I'd say, about 3-4 years. Cheap stuff (read "Yellow Tail) is meant to be consumed within 1-2 years. Just don't want you wasting your money by trying to improve something that won't ever get better.

More power to the wine drinkers! In vino veritas!

[ILLfarmboy]

Janean and I will be going to a chocolate festival tomorrow and some time during the day we plan on going to a wine shop that lets you taste some of their wines before buying. We hope to find a few reds that we both like.

My biggest problem with wine is its variability. I sometimes have a hard time finding the exact same thing again. Or I forget the name and vintage by the time I get around to shopping for a few more bottles. Or sometimes bottles of the same thing seem to taste different. Last summer I found an inexpensive Australian Shiraz from (I think) Reynolds Vineyard. We both liked it and it was cheap. I went back to the store a couple weeks later and bought three more bottles. One tasted off, and neither one of us thought the remaining two tasted quite the same as the first one we had. I suppose the off bottle could have muddied our taste memory and caused us not to like the last two as much as the first.

[jbaker]

One tasted off, and neither one of us thought the remaining two tasted quite the same as the first one we had. I suppose the off bottle could have muddied our taste memory and caused us not to like the last two as much as the first.

You might have been the victim of a faulty wine. If it tasted significantly different than the other two bottles, I would say return it to the store (if you didn't already pour it out). If it tasted really musty, it was probably "corked," which is a bacterial problem from the way they process the corks. If it tasted like all the fruit expression was gone, and it was brownish in the glass, it may have oxidized (corks sometimes let air in). 12.5% of all wine is estimated to be lost due to cork failure, so it's inevitible that you'll get back bottles from time to time. But there are other issues that can even affect wines in screwcaps, so it could be any number of problems! Most stores are good about taking back bad bottles (if they're mostly full) because they can get credit from their distributors, who in turn can get credit from their suppliers, ad infinitum.

As far as variation, each vintage of the same wine will taste a little different, especially on wines that are under $30 or so. Unlike whiskey, wine is so linked to the particular year's weather.

Oh well, such is the way of wine. Have fun at the chocolate fest! If you're going to pair wine with chocolate the thing to keep in mind is to match the sweetness of the chocolate with the sweetness of the wine. Dry red wine and milk chocolate are not buddies.

[mythrenegade]

I get it $38-$42. I do agree at $50-$75 there are others to buy as well.

Stag's Leap Fay Estate being one of them!

Mmmmmm. Fay. Good stuff. As is SLV.

One of my favorite bottles of wine ever was a 1990 or so that was a blend of both SLV and Fay. For some reason that year they were better together than alone.

Joel

[bigtoys]

Another vote for Oregon Pinot Noir. I like the Willamette Valley region. Argyle comes to mind.

A good Napa Pinot is Etude from Carneros.

A Napa Bordeaux style we like is Cain Five, around $110, but we think it's worth it.

We went to Napa & Sonoma last summer and went back in October for one of the winery's harvest parties. I'd go again; I love a day of tasting.

[T47]

And just when I thought I would not get to try a WA Pinot Noir, for a late B-day gift some fiends dropped off a bottle from Lake Chelan Winery it's their 2005 Estate Pinot Noir.

I look forward to giving this one a try. It seems my shelf just keeps shrinking.

:toast:

[Vange]

Mmmmmm. Fay. Good stuff. As is SLV.

One of my favorite bottles of wine ever was a 1990 or so that was a blend of both SLV and Fay. For some reason that year they were better together than alone.

Joel

My prize in my wine collection is a Stags Leap Cask 23. Waiting for special occasion and to let it mature.

[felthove]

Todd -- as a California native who grew up in Napa I started out with wine, myself. Pretty much drank CA wine exclusively until I moved to WA. After my arrival I did like you and drank WA wines exclusively for a few years just to establish some familiarity with certain producers, regions, and styles.

The one trend I see happening in the wine press is a bit of a backlash against the big, extracted, jammy, high alcohol wines that CA made so popular (since many of these scored well and thus were snatched up by many consumers creating a following for those types of wines). In particular, such wines don't tend to be as food friendly as less ripe, more acidic wines that work well to clear the palate during a meal. This is where WA wines really stand out.

Cooler nights allow for a greater retention of acidity in grapes througout the growing process and the weather in Eastern washington sports very warm days but long, cool nights. This environment allows good winemakers to coax out very balanced wines that on their own may not be as big as the CA wines but make for a more pleasant dining experience (at a lower price, I might add). The lack of rain (and presence of irrigation), even ripening, and cool nights allows WA grapes to get some of the ripeness and flavor of CA fruit but retain some of the "old world" European acidity. I believe Eastern WA has the same latitude as Bordeax but is warmer and irrigated.

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...

[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!:bowdown:

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...