Brad Ballinger

My only experience with this was also with an Italian wine. Not my bottle, but I was present when a dining companion opened his 1959 Antoniolo Gattinara and found no cork. With such an old bottle, at first we thought the cork maybe fell into the bottle. Upon emptying it, however, there was no cork. The fill level was unaffected, and the wine was quite good.

I wonder if the $38 for the Billiot on the printable list was for a half-bottle. At any rate, glad you liked it. Billiot is an excellent grower-producer of Champagne. And it looks like we have another convert to Valtellina wines (which are, as you mention, a hell of a deal -- particularly compared to other Italian wines made from the nebbiolo grape, Barolo and Barbaresco).

A "good" or "bad" vintage is determined by many factors, particularly in Champagne. In Champagne, it is up to each producer to declare that the grapes they (or they're contracted growers) harvested in any particularly growing year are of high enough quality to warrant producing wine solely from their juice, without blending it with any reserve wine for other vintages. Regarding 1992, some may consider it a "bad" vintage because not many Champagne producers made vintage wine. But I would trust the folks at Bollinger to make the right call (and your experience with the wine shows they probably did). Other 1992 vintage Champagne included Dom Perignon, Dom Perignon Rose, Krug, Philipponnat, Pommery, Taittinger, I could go on. No, not all producers declared a vintage in 1992, but many reputable ones did. Most vintage charts, if you take stock in such things, rated 1992 a good year in Champagne (not classic our outstanding, but good nonetheless).

Went out to a dinner with co-workers in my department. I picked a place that I knew would let us bring our own ($11 corkage per bottle, which ended up being waived). My co-workers have a casual interest in wine, and one of them may actually try to learn more about it. I decided to go all French. 2004 Francis Blanchet “Cuvee Silice” Pouilly-Fume. Blanchet produces a number of Pouilly-Fume wines – a Vieilles Vignes, a Cuvee Calcite (beginning in 2005), a Les Pernets (beginning in 2005), and a Cuvee Silice. Silice is named for the type of soil (silex) the vines grow in, which has a high degree of flinty minerality. In short, this wine was a wonderful, quintessential Loire sauvignon blanc, with a strong mineral backbone, grapefruit pith, green gooseberries, and some herbaceous elements. Bright, lively, saliva-inducing acidity. Stony finish. 2004 J.L. Chave “Sybele” Crozes-Hermitage Blanc. This wine is made from a blend of marsanne and roussanne (don’t know the proportions). This was a more difficult wine for the newbies to embrace, but one of them liked it quite a bit. More woodsy and spicy than the Pouilly-Fume. There was decent lemon and melon fruit, but the fruit had to fight through some spice, earthiness, and resin for attention. There was a roundness to the texture that helped bring balance to the wine as experienced in the mouth, but the wine appeared austere on the finish. 1999 Domaine Moillard Chorey-Les-Beaune. Bottle signed by Jeanne-Thomas Moillard in 2004, FWIW. After about 30-45 minutes to open up, this wine was positively singing. Queen Anne cherries, a small amount of spice, decent acidity. May not have had the amount of secondary element development some might crave, but it hit on all the cylinders it brought to the party. 1995 Pichon-Lalande, Pauillac. Since one of my co-workers spent some time in Bordeaux, I had to bring a Bordeaux wine. Omigod. I split of case of this on pre-arrival with a friend, and this was the first one I’ve opened thus far. It is doing quite well, and no one could be blamed for opening as many as they want right now. There’s rich layers of cassis, coffee, chocolate, and a touch of mint. Some of the earthy components are just started to share the stage, and the wine should develop nicely over the next 3-5 years. Tannins are fine, and well-integrated. Very balanced wine.

Well, sulfites are added as a preservative to many wines. For organic and biodynamic producer that don't add sufites, you should still be aware that sulfites occur naturally as part of the fermentation process. Probably the best biodynamic producer of Champagne is Jacques Selosse. He had a falling out with the U.S. market, however, and his wines are no longer imported into the U.S. I note you are from Montreal. Maybe his wines are yet available in Canada. If so, that is easily the producer to look for. Others I would suggest are Fleury, Larmandier-Bernier, Tarlant, and Leclerc Briant. I've listed them in the order of (what I'm guessing) will be easiest to find to hardest to find.

First, the zinfandel thing. Ridge is a producer located in Cupertino (Santa Cruz Mountains area). Some of their zinfandel grapes come from that area. Some come from Sonoma County. Ridge's Geyserville uses grapes from around Geyserville, in Sonoma County. But the zinfandel content is usually not high enough for the wine to legally be labeled a Zinfandel wine. Also, in my experience, Geyserville is better enjoyed with some age on it. So I'd go with a Syrah. You can get a California Syrah, or something from Northern Rhone (which you'll find labeled Cornas, Cote Rotie, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage). If getting a Northern Rhone wine from a more recent vintage, I'd go with a Crozes-Hermitage or Cornas. Edited to add: I suppose you could also get an Australian Shiraz. Just ask your retailer for one that's not to goopy or oaky.

First off, I notice the Billiot Rose is on the printable wine list, but not on the one brought up by the link itself. It's also going to have plenty of pinot noir in it. Regarding Burgundy, if you are stuck to your price range, there are none available to you. If you're more flexible than that, go with the Chauvenet Nuits-St. George.

I didn't even look at the sparkling (shame on me), but this is the best deal on the list, and trumps all other recommendations.

More like three bottles of grower juice.

I remember one time where a friend of mine left a bottle of Krug Grand Cuvee in the freezer too long, and we all had Krug slushies.

This is overrated. If you are pressed for time, yes, submerge the bottle in ice water for 20 minutes (ice water will cool it faster than ice alone), and it will be chilled to drinking temperature. If, as I'm guessing, you don't have a Champagne bucket, and don't want to try and figure out what to use for one, the refrigerator works just fine. Show me one restaurant that waits to serve Champagne until they've taken it out of the cooler and let it sufficiently chill in a bucket of ice. In the spirit of Dick's other excellent advice not to worry, stick it in the fridge.

Without knowing what you're eating, in the price range you suggest I like for whites: Foreau Vouvray Sec Lamy St. Aubin But I may save money and get the Brundlmayer (it's misspelled on the list) Gruner Veltliner For reds in the price range: Rostaing Coteaux du Languedoc Triacca Valtellina Superiore (asking it be decanted two hours before I show up) If, saving money, I'd consider the Guelbenzu "Evo"

Chilling it in the refrigerator is fine. Bollinger wines are generally fairly toasty and nutty upon release. So you might expect something along those lines with perhaps a bit less forward fruit. Flatter is not a word I would use. A better desciption, IMO, is that the mousse (think bubbles) will likely be softer, more integrated.

How warm is your cupboard? Champagne is more fickle when it comes to proper storage conditions compared to most still wines. So if its storage has been suspect, I'd advise opening sooner than later. If storage is fine, it all depends on how much age you like on your Champagne. Edited to add: I responded before noticing this thread which addresses the same general topic. Two of you were thinking alike.

I'm skeptical about aging beer for that long. But a vintage date on a beer bottle occurs from time to time. Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale, for example, will put the year on the bottle. For products such as that one that have limited seasonal releases, the producer will sometimes put the year on the latest release. I can think of two reasons for this -- 1) assure the conumer is getting fresh product and that the retailer isn't just pulling some old product out of storage; and 2) invite comparisons of the product from year to year (for the true geeks like me).

Plenty of "f" to go around. For grape varieties, there's fume (sauvignon) blanc, freisa, furmint, fiano, falanghina. Producers from around the globe include Falesco, Felsina, Fontodi, Figeac, Ferrari-Carano, Freemark Abbey, Fess Parker, Fetzer, even Freixenet. AOC/DOC/AVA regions include Fixin, Fleurie, Faugeres, Fiano di Avellino, Frascati, Finger Lakes, and of course France. There are the German villages of Forst and Freinsheim. There's fortified wine such as Porto produced by Fonseca. There's first growth, fourth growth, and fifth growth Bordeaux. There's wine that is floral, fruity, and fizzy. Please, though, no flabby wines. And foxy wines have a limited audience. Of course, it's all fermented. 1996 Franck Bonville Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru, Champagne. It had been two years since I last had this wine, and this one was my last bottle. Over that time, this wine has developed from a steely, flinty, lemony wine with a laser beam focus and seamless mousse to one that is nuttier, toastier, fuller, and more mellow. I like both versions very much. The finish on this wine is very mineral-driven, and the mousse appears to play a larger role than it did two years ago. If I didn't open it, I'm sure it would still continue to develop for a couple more years at least.

The first two are serviceable. Don't know a thing about the third.

Well, I keep reading and hearing about how fabulous this place is. I’ve posted upthread about my okay experience. Gave it another shot Saturday for their Weekend Brunch. This was a special occasion brunch to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the “official” (court-approval) adoption of our daughter, who is now 16. I might as well get it out of the way right now – although I made mention of that fact on the reservation I made through opentable.com (there’s a field where people making reservations can free text any special occasion information), no one acknowledged it. Not the hostess, not the waiter, not anyone else. Okay, on to the meal… Before stepping into the place, I thought the weekend brunch was prix fix [sic] only from clicking on the “weekend brunch” link on the Cosmos web site. However, we were given menus that listed breakfast, lunch, lunch specials, and the prix fix menu. I figured that meant anything goes. This will come into play later. I had scoped out the prix fix menu online, and figured that the fussy daughter would have no problem ordering. As I had predicted, she ordered the fruit smoothie for a starter, brioche French toast with Valrhona chocolate sauce, raspberries, and whipped cream for her entrée, and cheesecake with raspberry coulis for her dessert. My wife and I both figured there’s no way we could do a three-course brunch, so we ordered off the breakfast menu. She ordered a fruit smoothie ($6) and lobster frittata ($16), and I ordered the oatmeal brulee ($8) with berries and the Cosmos benedict ($12). The daughter’s prix fix brunch also came with a mimosa, Champagne, or Bloody Mary. I had her Champagne. After placing the complete order, our waiter tried to either talk our daughter out of the prix fix, or tried to talk us into it, or tried to talk the daughter into ordering different items (something about more expensive items). I never fully understood what his point was, and I still don’t. I noticed that the bottom of the prix fix menu quoted a $28 price per person, so I asked if we all had to order the prix fix brunch for one of us to have it. No, that wasn’t it. Then he was trying to get my daughter to order the omelet instead of the French toast and said something about it being a more expensive choice (not better food). But the French toast was $14 on the a la carte menu while the omelet was $12. So I didn’t get it. I finally asked flatly, “Can we or can we not get what we ordered?” Yes, we could. Problem solved, I guess, if there even was one. The first things to arrive were the smoothies. Although my wife and daughter each ordered the exact same smoothie, my wife’s was many shades lighter than my daughter’s. It was like my daughter’s had no dairy in it at all. But they each preferred their own to the other’s so we let it be. My daughter’s, however, had several large-ish chunks of ice in it (so not totally smooth). I asked her if she would like to send it back, but she was fine with it. When they were half-way through their smoothies, my glass of Champagne arrived. Next, the lobster frittata and French toast arrived. The frittata was very good. Huge amounts of lobster in it. The French toast wasn’t as good. The presentation was wonderful, but the bread was very dry yet. The chocolate sauce was not blended very well and wasn’t what anyone would call smooth. My daughter said she’d eat it though, instead of sending it back. She did. Halfway through those dishes, my oatmeal brulee arrived. It was good, and the berries were fresh and large (except for the raspberries which were smushed). Those plates were cleared. My daughter still had cheesecake coming. I still had my entrée coming. My wife was done. The cheesecake arrived and then my benedict arrived. The Cosmos version of the benedict was a nice idea in theory, but didn’t work in execution. It was like traditional eggs benedict, with a portabella mushroom replacing the English muffin base. The problem was that the mushroom was cooked a bit too much and gave off too much liquid. And, since this was served in a shallow bowl, the mushroom juice quickly mixed with the Hollandaise, compromising the integrity of the sauce. It was one of those “Oh well, it all goes to the same place anyway” moments. Since my daughter was on dessert and my wife was done, I really didn’t bother to send it back only to arrive when they could both watch me eat. So, foodwise, the lobster frittata was a standout. Everything else was average or below-average. Definitely, not worth the prices charged. The service was poor from the timing of food to the table to the confusion over what we should order. And there was only one other table of diners in the place. So the kitchen couldn’t have been that busy (unless there were a bunch of room service orders we didn’t know about, and hotel guests trump restaurant customers). If I ever return to Cosmos, which is highly doubtful, it will be to drink in the bar. I’ll stay away from the dining room.

I'm not a chef; hope I can still comment. As a diner, I gravitate toward restaurants that have a focus on using locally grown or raised ingredients which are treated with creativity and love. With the more "exotic" stuff becoming more and more available to Midwest Joe and Midwest Jane consumer (chance are whatever saltwater fish the KC restaurants get, you can also get), I can have that when I want and don't need it dolled up as much as I may need a turnip dolled up. And I trust myself to do a better job cooking a good piece of fish than doing a creative turn on a turnip.

Shaker's makes a rye vodka that you may find has what you're asking about.

There are some links on home winemaking in the last post of this thread. Other than that, there really isn't a thread in the archives devoted to making wine at home. Maybe we've had some new members come on board, though, who can contribute an answer to your quesiton.

Poinsettias?! The Christmas plant? Or is that a name of some fizzy, wine-drenched dish? ← As written above, bubbly and cranberry juice. I love Riesling wines, and have cases of the stuff. Good stuff. None of it is labeled "Top Gun." Re-reading the thread, I see jackal10 merely wrote "German wine in fancy bottles." I assumed Riesling, which may not be correct. Could be muller-thurgau. And my post above should've probably substituted the word "German" for "Riesling."

You can try wine-searcher.com. Also, some online auction sites (Brentwood Wines, North Carolina Wine Company, Chicago Wine Company).

Invariably, I get the unwelcomed unasked-for unwanted bottle of wine. Fortunately, my wife goes on a couple of "girls' weekends" every year where just about any wine is considered a "big deal." LBV Port -- Not nearly all of these are that bad. Use for cooking, sauces, etc. Fizz -- Great for mimosa, poinsettias, salad dressing, granita, punch. Riesling -- My mother loves that kind of stuff; maybe you know someone like her.

Many Port houses declared a vintage in 1991. The two biggies (Taylor Fladgate and Fonseca) bottled single quinta wines in those years and declared a vintage the following year for their flagship wines. If you can find one of the single-quinta wines (Fonseca's is Guimaraens; Taylor's is Quinta de Vargellas), I would guess they are drinking nicely now. Which reminds me that I have one of each in my cellar and am now tempted to open one. It may be easier to locate Vintage Port from any of the other easily-found producers, though. You placed California further down on the list, but 1991 was a good vintage for California Cabernet, and they've held up pretty well. I also go along with John on Northern Rhone and Spain. 1991 was also fairly good for Amarone della Valpolicella.