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Reminds me of when a restaurant I once went to: Wairess 1: "We only have 2 Chateaubriand left so you may wish to reserve them" Us: "OK" Waitress 2 comes along a few minutes later: " How many bottles of Chateau Briand did you want?" Us:

No, but look it the other way. What right has the producer got to stop me selling his product where I want to if I bought it legitamately? And when taking a vintage into consideration, how long does this exclusivity you so want last for? (eg if you had an exclusive agreement on Chateau Plonk and were currently selling the 2000 vintage, would you be looking to stop people importing the Ch. Plonk 1980?) The gray market is out there and you just have to accept it. Seems strange that the only people who have really acceopted it are the Bordelais!!

Wineserver, I am a "small gray market retailer" (actually wholesaler) and think that your argument is ,shall we say it, flawed. You are an appointed agent for some products and therefore should get preferrential prices from your suppliers. If I can buy the same goods on the open market (presumably thru another agent)and sell cheaper than you then it is possibly a reflection on the mark up that you are putting on your goods. If you still feel that you cannot compete with parallel traders then maybe you shouldn't think that they are being the "pirates" but look towards your supplier and ask how this is possible. More oftn than not he is offering better prices somewhere else. The argument that the agents do a lot of work and spend money promoting the brands doesn't really hold either as the gray market isn't really interested in products that don't sell themselves. Sorry if this sounds like a personal attack, it's not meant to be.

Don't know what is happening your side of the pond but this shipper is UK based.

I have received an e-mail from my shipper who says Firstly, the Prior Notice process will go into effect on 12 December as originally planned. There has been no change in that. The good news relayed by Ms. XXX and documentary evidence supplied since, was that, through till March at least, US Customs will allow entry to shipments even if no producer registration number is provided. This is because of the "grace period" that was established. Importers are still asked to supply registration numbers, but their shipments will not be impounded if information is missing or inaccurate. Secondly, Ms. XXX represents US Customs, not the FDA. While Customs would like to see a database of registration numbers, FDA oppose it (and they unfortunately write the rules). Also, FDA have not budged from their insistence that, once the rules are finalized this spring, producer registration numbers will be required for all goods. It is important that we continue to work hard to gather as many producer registration numbers as we can, while lobbying FDA to relax its rules

I think that is pretty much the same as here in the UK although wine by the glass maybe better "value" There is a restaurant here (can't remember the name) in London that if a wine costs under (I think) £20 they put a flat £10 on and for more expensive wines they put a max of £20 on. That means that your 1st growths are more affordable! There is also a small group of restaurants (Brinkleys, Joe's Brasserie, The Wine Gallery etc) that has very "cheap" wine. They used to have a wine shop next door where you could buy the wine off the shelf and have in the restaurant. The shop wasn't the cheapest but it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately the gastronomic experience isn't the greatest although it isn't too bad. Nothing like a restaurant that I used to go to in Bordeaux when I lived there - The Bistro de Sommelier. I used to go once a month for a bit of a blow outwith some friends and we always used to have a couple of cheaper wines and then go for something like a Mouton/Latour/Lafite 1983 at 400 francs (about $64) (11 years ago now) with a set menu of 96 francs. Also remember Climens 1983 was 250 francs (about $40).

There are some real gems at around £8 but if you found these in a restaurant then you would be expecting to pay £25 a bottle (then the 10-12.5% service charge). The general rule of thumb is to triple the retail price to get the restaurant price, so a £11 bottle is going to be about £3.60 in the shops and I have yet to find anything decent (drinkable - yes) at that price.

It reminds me of some wines that I submitted to Decanter for a New vs Old World tasting. Must have been back in about 1997. I put in some lovely Sancerre's by Gitton (I think 1995s that weren't appreciated) and was surprised that the winner of the tasting was an Australian Cabernet from 1990. (If I had known that reds and whites were being compared in the same tasting and that there was a wide variety of ages I wouldn't have bothered submitting the wines but drunk them myself)

This best wine in the world - I am a little confused? Is it what is drinking best at the moment or is it what current release in the past year is drinking best? Can someone clarify? Whichever it is WS is being a wee bit arrogant by chosing THE best.

I was at a tasting earlier this week hosted by one of my Bordeaux negociants and he brought along two or three 2003 samples. The fact that he brought some along means that he is very confident in them and to be honest 1 of the 3 was good and the other 2 were OK. Without mentioning any names they were all classified growths albeit at the less prestigious end of the scale. He also said that there would likely be a price rise over the 2002 of about 20%!!!! the reason is that there is a small crop (lets see if the price drops when they have a big crop!!) and because of the "superb" quality of the vintage. Now I know that the French generally think that every vintage is fantastic and that all price rises are justified, but I hope that we are not going to have another 1997. When I told him that I thought that the Bordelais were rather unrealistic with their pricings and didn't totally understand the end buyer and their thoughts on prices, this was (arrogantly) ignored and I was told that the price also had to go up to protect the 2001! (PS He also told me that it costs over $10 to make a bottle of wine in Bordeaux! Funny that when I was making wine in Bordeaux it cost about $3 but that was in 1993. "Aaah" he says, "prices have risen a lot since then"!!)

T, I'm with you on that one. A wine "is" part smell part taste

As I've said before and as CC writes how can mother nature be perfect. Perhaps if WS & WA are going to keep on marking things 100 they should mark it 100/101 with 101 never being achievable!! Otherwise 99 should always be the top score.

Just a little tip that I adhere by. When drinking LBV's I always buy those that need to be decanted. You can usually find out whether you need to or not from the back label. I find Taylors and Fonsecas LBVs very disappointing. I had a Smith Woodhouse 1986 LBV on the weekend and was pleasantly surprised.

It is the Chateauneuf that is in question. I would have done a WTN but the effusive and almost poetic way in which Florida Jim writes his shames me into silence!

I had a bottle of 1978 CNDP, Domaine de Clos du Roy on the weekend, which whilst exhibiting an expected amount of age (too much) was still remarkably good drinking. However I know nothing of the property and cannot find any information about it. I suppose that there is the possibility that it no longer exists.

Most malt isn't local either. I know a local farmer in the South of England who has a very high quality barley that is used for maltings. As for bringing in the water, are you sure about this? Shipping in water would be very expensive and it would surely be cheaper in the long run to take the distillery to the water rather than the other way around. As to your point about caramelisation. Most of the top end prodcts will not use caramel and get the colour mostly from the barrels. I am sure that something like Famous Grouse would adjust the colour for continuity purposes.

I think the term terroir sort of works here too. Those nuances in taste develop based upon the type and careful selection of grains (which I'm sure are "local" thus providing their own unique characteristics), selection of wood (oak casks) and type of water (I believe it is spring water, which is also unique). Then there is managing the process of drying the malt over an open peat fire, and aging. There are four geographical regions that single malts originate: Lowland - said to be the lightest in flavour and colour Islay - heaviest and full bodied Campbeltown - full bodied, but are very few in number Highland - most balanced with medium flavour and aroma. Speyside is a part of the Highlands and regard as the premium single malt producing area. Cheers! It is absolutely delicious stuff. Honey flvaours in whisky come about when the water used has come across heather moors. Water is not only from springs but from burns and lochs as well. With Aberlour it come's from a well (so prob a spring) called St. Drostan's Well. With the geographical areas. The Lowlands are the Lowlands but the rest can almost be grouped altogether as Highlands. Traditionally the island distilleries have been part of the highlands with exceotion to Islay. With Campbeltown there are only 2 distilleries currently working - Springbank and Glen Scotia

Katie - totally agree and find that R2 (one of the more common packet yeasts) is making alot of wines taste similar. I used to work in a vineyard in Bordeaux and the owner did a lot of work with yeasts (and was in fact partly responsible with Brian Crossier) in developing R2. He also did a lot of work with (bread) bakers. After I left the property, I went back and visited them and took a mystery bottle for them to taste. The owner thought that Leasingham Semillon (from Oz) was a Semillon that he had made in the Graves!!!! So much for terroir!!

There are usually only two types of sediment in a bottle of white wine. One (and the most common) are tartrates, which is especially prevalent whit wines that have not been cold stabalised. This is not a problem for the wine. The cloudy sediment in a white wine is a problem. Whites do not throw a sediment like reds )mainly because they have been through a tougher filtration. However if there are clouds of brownish sediment then this is more than likely to be dead yeast. Not a good sign.

Earlier in this thread someone was questioning whether a Chablis-esque wine could be made elsewhere in the world. I happened to be at a tasting of Billaud Simon a week ago (and before reading this thread) and I put the same question to the owner. He (maybe rather typically) said that he didn't know anywhere in the world that could achieve the same characteristics. (PS Britcook - in your opening thread, you mentioned that 2nd wines came from "inferior" parcels of vines and that is why they were not as good as the "Grand Vin". I think that you should also take into account press wine that is not usually used in the 1st wine in any great quantities (if at all)).

Bojo Nouveau used to have some appeal in the UK as it was a sort of race to see who could get the first bottle back after release. Boys in their fast toys used to nip down and back as quickly as possible. Now that it is all pre-shipped so that the major outlets can have it on their shelves on the 3rd Thursday, the "fun" isn't there anymore.

I recently had the Musar 1996, which I believe was a difficult vintage, and found it impossible to drink and ended up throwing it away. It was thin, acidic and green. Was this a bad bottle? I haven't been enclined to try another bottle. Also I have a couple of bottles of 1979/1983 Musar in my cellar. I remember having a bottle a few years ago and finding it a bit past it. Does anyone have any views on this as it is just gathering dust at the moment.

Fortified wines (ie Noilly, port, madeira, sherry) will go off relatively quickly. As most of them are already oxidised being exposed to the air won't have a big difference. I think that 5 months maybe pushing things a little bit on certain things. Spirits can be left open for ever supposedly without any change. However I believe that there is only one spirit that is supposed to improve in the bottle and that is Chartreuse.

Monymusk 21/23/25 all comes from the same batch of casks, that were distilled in 1976. The 25yo was bottled in 2001 so when that runs out and if there are more casks available then I presume we will be looking at a 28yo+ Whether you get the 23 or 25yo I thik depends on what bottle size you go for. I think that there could be stocks of the 23yo still in 75cl butam not sure about this point. Personally I have had very few rums that benefit from being aged over 25 years but I am sure that there are some. Similarly to whisky, I was speaking to someone who knows about it who said that most whiskies over 20yo picked up too much wood flavours (or were beginning to) and masked the whisky.

I think that you might find that the release price (or rather the recommended sale price) of Royal Salute 50yo was $8,888 (ie in order to tap into the chinese market)