Killibinbin 2004 Blend #2 Cabernet Shiraz

Yum, yum yum.
Perhaps that doesn’t pass as a review of this wine, but really, that’s all you need to know. It’s an Aussie blend, it has a screw-top, and it tastes great. If I had to provide a down side, I would say that the name isn’t as amusing as that of some of its […]

How Long Does Opened Wine Last?

My wife likes white wine. Specifically: buttery, oaky Chardonnays. And I like them too. Just not every day. So we usually have two bottles of wine with dinner. That is not to say that we drink two bottles with dinner. As much as I would like to drink a bottle of wine, my head and […]

Williams Selyem 1997 Russian River Valley Olivet Lane Pinot Noir

This was my last bottle of Williams Selyem, and I am very pleased that it was not completely over the hill. I waited a few years too long to drink this wine, but it has retained a fair amount of fruit without being overwhelmed by that unpleasant, lean structure that I find in older California […]

Robert Mondavi: R.I.P.

I was never a big fan of his wines, but Robert Mondavi’s relentless enthusiasm for Northern California wines was an important driver in the region’s rise to the ranks of wine-making greats, on par with Bordeaux, Burgundy, Barossa Valley, Barolo and a few other places on earth.
I remember going wine tasting at his beautiful facility […]

Turley 2002 Dusi Ranch Zinfandel

Just in case you weren’t confident that wine writers are detached from reality, here are two quotations from reviews of a wine that we drank on Saturday evening. Actually, I drank it. The wife sneered at me when I offered a taste.

“…aromas of black cherry, plum and licorice, with liqueur-like ripeness. Sweet, thick and velvety, […]

News Flash: Wine Drinkers Impressed by Price

Who knew? A groundbreaking study  has found that people are impressed by expensive things. And in other news,  water flows down hill, and children like sweets.

Fetish The Watcher 2005 Barossa Valley

This is one of those typical Aussie Shirazes that is getting more and more of my wine dollar. I paid $15 for this wine at The Wine Library. What I got for my money is an extremely well-made wine, tasting of dark fruits and hints of something spicy. There is ample structure, so I […]

A Corked Wine

I have been fairly lucky. I drink a lot of wine, and I have doing it since about 1980 (yes, I was legal). So the odds are that I would have come across dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of corked bottles. The industry assumes that about 3%-5% of all bottles have detectable TCA (2,4,6-Trichloroanisole) contamination. Through […]

Mauritson 2002 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel

I am usually happy with zinfandels, at least at some level. Oh, sometimes they are over the hill and have lost their fruit, or they are too soft and unstructured. But there is almost always something interesting going on in the glass. Not last night though! Yes, it was probably too old to expect much […]

Hot Or Cold? Wine, That Is!

I store our wine, both red and white, at 56°F. But what temperature is appropriate for drinking? I think that for reds, cellar temperature is just about perfect. All too often I have been served red wines at temperatures that I normally reserve for hot chocolate. The wines, and the waiter’s tip, have suffered. […]