All-Purpose Wine Thread - anyone interested?

No, but I can say the best thing about Greg Norman's wine was the free golfball with it.

 

Classy.

 

Here's a wine tip:

Never, I mean NEVER, buy a wine from the East Coast. New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc. claim to have good wines. Nope.

 

Wrong. At least in the case of Reislings.

Hell, I'm wasted on a bottle of New York Reisling right now.

I'm a very selective alcoholic. I hate beer and most shots. I'll drink hard lemonade and apple cider, whiskey sours, mudslides margaritas and reislings.

I love reislings though. I'll drink it by the bottle.

 

While I despise their chardonnay (as I do most chardonnays), I absolutely love their reisling.

And I know I can't be the only one on this thread who loves champagne and dessert wines....

 

Digging this out of the trash for some fresh replies, plus...

I'm sitting in front of an empty bottle that I feel I must recommend: Evolution No. 9 (a blended white) from Sokol Blosser in Dundee, Ore.

Very mild and refreshing. It's rare to find a wine I can drink from start to finish, but this is it. I'd call it my single favorite, in fact (luckily, the nearby World Market has plenty in stock).

Also, when my wife wasn't looking today, I bought a bottle of Hokie Bird White: The Official Wine of Virginia Tech. ;D

 

I think I saw some of that at a local wine bar/shop called the Grape. I'm pretty sure it's a franchise, and I love the place, they'll give you samples of anything you want, and their store is interchangable with their restaurant. I've been popping in there from time to time to start building a collection. I've got about seven bottles right now waiting for when I and the gf have friends over.

If you have a "Grape" near you, I would definitely recommend it. All kinds of wine for all kinds of prices, and some cool features to their drink-in bars.

 

Sure enough, we do GB. Out in Tysons (though I had to look it up). Looks pretty bad-ass.

Our usual stop is much more utilitarian: Total Wine. (Or maybe it's just that the one near us is more utilitarian.)

I was reminded last night that I need to have my wine experts over and have them try the Childress and Jeff Gordon Chardonnays I've been saving. Yes, it's for work.

 

I recently got turned onto carmenere from Chile. Had a glass of Mupa carmenere cabernet sauvignon at the Gypsy Room downtown and absolutely fell in love. It was like velvet.

I can't find Mupa in any of the local stores but I've stumbled upon J. Bouchon Assemblage, a melange of carmenere, malbec, syrah and cab sauv. It's $40 a bottle but well worth it!

 

I'm with Boom on the Calif. cabs, generally. I've been drinking a Sonoma cab, '94 Sebastiani, recently. Under $20/bottle.

Following the All-Star Game this year I had the fortune of meeting a gentleman named Lance Carter who was a winemaker at Gundlach-Bundschu in Sonoma for 15 years. Visited the cave there and had a tasting this summer and found some of their varietals kind of nice -- Tempernillo, I think, was one of them. Reminded me a little of a Chianti. Also went to anoher, on his recommendation, called Imagery. Also very nice.

 

Not the first time Hokies and whine have been used in the same sentence. ;D

 

I've been drinking a ton of sparkling wine lately and really love Cava. Avinyo Cava, if you can find it, is amazing. I call it my "poor man's Veuve Clicquot." It's about $17-$18 per bottle.