Novocastrian

But if you're not a pratt, you'd have bought the expensive wine 10 years ago.

BristolUK

NB Liquor is running daily offers up to xmas.

Today was Chateau St Jean (Calif) Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay, $19.99 down to $14.99.

What is it with this near equalising of prices for whites and reds?

I've been so used to seeing Hardys, Rosemount, Jacobs Creek, Wolf Blass, Lindemans and others all charging about $3 or $4 for their reds but so many now are the same price or only a buck in it.

I don't know whether to expect this Cabernet Sauvignon to be not that great because it's the same price as the white or whether to expect great things of the Chardonnay because it's normal price makes it as 'expensive' as the red.

caretaker

Next time take Retsina and see the face he makes.

caretaker

In the summer I was buying the sale wines and trying them, things like Bodacious and 4 or 5 others that instead of $11 was on for $8, and all were drinkable, with 1 or 2 on the sweet side or a bit on the tart side if a red, but when I was looking for something nice and crisp to get for an oyster dinner in Vancouver I found sales on the VQA rack reduced by 5 or 6 dollars and one of those fit the bill nicely... let me look, this one. Download the Delectables app on your smartphone and if you remember in the liquor store take it out and open the app and take a pic of the label for reviews before you buy. I rarely remember, works for some other booze ss well.

BristolUK

Smartphone? I don't have a dumbphone let alone a smart one

Just the land-line.

I don't know it but whenever there's a wine I want to look up - maybe because of an offer, a mention in the weekly paper column or whatever - there's one site where you get the main review and guests (supposed experts going by title) post their own reviews.

Between them they get to refer to just about every 'tasting note' possible with many contradictions.

The Chateau St Jean red I got earlier today...many of the reviews I read talked up the 'spice' aspect and that put me off but the label referred to blackberry and plum, a description that I usually find more to suit my taste. So I took a chance and got one of each.

I can't say I think of plum at all, it's just that when 'plum' is used to describe it, it's more likely to suit me than cocoa or tobacco.

caretaker

I had some Taj white rum from India once and it tasted like dirty old running shoes, made us deathly ill as well. Nothing gets a 100% consensus, I had a dark rum (Bacardi Black) that I couldn't drink but everyone else on the rum ratings app loved it.

BristolUK

Ah, but that's where there's a difference on the wine tasting notes.

The expert reviewers (as opposed to "I bought this and it was lovely but hubby found it too sweet") tend not to say they like or dislike it, they talk about hints of this or that.

One will describe a wine using terms like fragrant violets, sweet cherries, chocolate, vanilla, chalky tannins while another will find a hint of clove and peppery spice, supple tannins and another will say cassis, touch of mint, cigar...and they're talking about the same wine.

Either the wine has all of these things or one or more of them is bluffing.

caretaker

That Unreserved merlot claimed to have hints of double - dares.
Edit: When someone shows you the bottle and says I dare you.. ha ha. As a general rule of thumb if I won't drink something you'd better not.
Christmas comes but once a year,
you push, I'll steer.

dbd33

When we started our company we used a lawyer who subsequently packed in lawyering and bought a vineyard near Santa Rosa CA. Some years later a colleague and I were doing a job in the area and staying in Los Gatos so, by arrangement, we drove up to see the place. We were told that there would be a tasting and that we were welcome to join in. The tasting was to be attended by the head of this wine society and that syndicated wine columnist and so on. I was very nervous that it was to be an evening of snobbish comments on whiffs of goat cheese and hints of decayed melon.

As it turned out, the guests arrived clutching bottles in paper bags from which samples were poured, sipped and spat out. Guesses as to year and country of origin were proffered. Since the wines had been selected with the tasting in mind they were rarely what they seemed and the guesses were all over the map. Each wrong guess was met with giggling, the remainder of the bottle was chugged and it was on to the next sample. The high point for me was when, after a bottle had been reasonably well guessed, the following one flummoxed the crowd. It was the next bottle from the same case. We drank it anyway.

The evening was something of a revelation for me as I hadn't previously seen anyone wear a bow tie and have a laugh. What I took away from it was that knowledge of wine and the ability to identify wines by their overtones of sweet cherry doesn't clash with an inclination to gulp the product by the bucket load.

BristolUK

I can't find a clip of Morecambe and Wise doing the chip sampling sketch.

jimf

Haven't watched it but this film was recommended to me the other day.


If it says Rhone or Bordeaux on it it will usually be fine by me.

caretaker

I want to see that.

Novocastrian

I decided that a whole case of the Sauternes was far too generous a gift for the FIL, so I bought the last two bottles of Chateau Lagrange St. Julian 2003 (not as good as the 2005) offered on the internet.

I'm keeping 10 of the Sauternes for myself.

God, I'm selfish.

Oink

I bought mine, Morrissey's 2014 World Peace Is None of Your Business album. Beat that for vindictiveness.

BristolUK

Had the Kim Crawford tonight with one of those boxed Seasoned Turkey Breasts.

This is the best wine I've had for a couple of decades or more, except the Chardonnay at the Savoy River Restaurant in 2001, so I'll say best red since the stuff my mum used to get from some dealer.

This was even nicer than the best Rosemount that really doesn't "do it" for me anymore.
$23 for me and just under $20 for you jammy b'stards in Ontario.