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Roche Wines Texture Pinot Noir, 2019
First tasted with duck in a fine restaurant in early December and it sang. Not Ethel Merman belting it out, more like Elvis on Are You Lonesome Tonight?, just in sympathy with the food, red currants and pungent acidity and nothing declarative. It didn’t attack the food, or make any demands. Note to self: get […]
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Fanti Brunello di Montalcino, 2015
Look what Santa left under the tree. Wow. Very naughty but obviously someone’s been very nice. This is ludicrously out of our bandwidth. This is like that visit to a two star Michelin restaurant in Hong Kong where they had a Burgundy wine flight. This is just heaven. Wine heaven. And I am extremely fortunate […]
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Penfolds Bin 29 Kalimna Shiraz, 2018
And so it goes, another year unfolds. From the cellar: A Wine Spectator top 100 from 2020 (#41 in fact), gifted under the tree last Christmas, this lay in our own cellar an additional year. I mean not since 1972, but still. 2021, the year so many of us gave up (on travel, on shopping, […]
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Battle of the Vintage Riojas: Sierra Cantabria San Vicente 2008 vs. CVNE Reserva, 2012
From the cellar: This time of year, the “season” if you will, is a good excuse to dig up some gems. The 2008 San Vicente was a “significant birthday” birthday gift, and a great gift at that. What a wine (despite the dry cork: Hey BC wine sellers, how about some lie down?!!). Each sip […]
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La Frenz 2018 Malbec and La Frenz 2018 Merlot
La Frenz is having a moment. Awards and glory. Good on them. We’ve been getting a mixed case, annually, for over a decade; they deserve some acclaim. Somewhere along the line we went “off” Burrowing Owl Chardonnay and transitioned to La Frenz. But here’s the rub: We got a bit put off by the rise […]
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Quinta do Noval Silval Vintage Port, 2007
From the cellar: Here’s a bottle that got shoved to the back in the cellar. We pulled it out almost by accident. The Wine Spectator had given it 90 points and recommended it be drunk by 2016. Based solely on that professional intel we anticipated it to be fully past, an accident waiting to be […]
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Chateau Villegly Minervois, 2018 & Mitolo Jester Shiraz, 2018
Thud and plunk. Epic fail of the pointsters. Let’s start with the Robert Parker 90 pointer, the Oz red. Heavy as lead. What a walloping clunk of everyday red. We were expecting a fruit forward, peppery Shiraz with a touch of black currant. But it was less than full bodied, rather one-note, and really not […]
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Montevertine Toscana, 2005
From the cellar: Well, from someone else’s cellar. Let’s just say you knew someone who collected wine but ended up drinking too much wine and that led them to AA and when they went dry they started giving away their cellar. Let’s just pretend that happened to me. But, you know, even people who go […]
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Lunessence Brut Riesling 2020
Bar none the sparkling wine of summer 2021. We drank it, we sipped it, we had it as an aperitif, sometimes with a dash of Amaro or Campari; one guest even asked for an Aperol spritz (it takes all types…). It’s dry. Gorgeously tart and citrus forward with a toasty, chewy note on the palate […]