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I need to get a photo of a decanter of J. Bally Vieux and I have been trawling the www and not been able to find one. Does anyone have one that they can post/PM/forward? thanks in advance.

Latour 1964 for the next few years and then I would have to change for something a bit younger. As for the white maybe something a bit lighter than Yquem - say a Climens 1983.

Was going through another part of the cellar and found a few more of these "sample" bottles. 1991 Springbank 1989 Clynelish 1989 Bowmore 1972 Bowmore We were at one stage over run with cask samples so we made up a pure malt "blend" (ie pour everything in). I found the Islay blend and think that I might tuck into that next. Had whiskies from 1965-1990. I think that there are 14 or 15 different ones in there. Will be interesting to see how it goes!!!

I used to work for a Far Eastern company in their UK office. I started off doing wine but found myself going over to the whisky side of things. Some of these are our own bottlings and some are samples from another independent. There are 4 or 5 that are distillery. Without blowing my trumpet some of our bottlings fetured very highly in Whisky Magazine (getting over 9 out of 10). The Ardbeg 29yo was very well thought of and I seem to have 2 bottles but unfortunately I know that 1 is a fake (different colour). hopefully it will be something drinkable! The parent company wanted to taste a lot of the independent's bottlings so we got 70cl bottles sent to us. We forwarded 5cls for tasting leaving the rest for us!!!

Not had them yet but I know the agent in this country very well and am about ot start listing them, subject to a forthcoming tasting. For what it is worth the current range is: Jamaica 8yo Trinidad 1993 Barbados 1993 Venezuela 1992 Guyana 1990 The packaging has recently been changed a little as there were too many complaints from bar workers that it took too long to get the wax capsule off. It is now corked but has a very attractive strip label, over the cork, which is colour coded and named as per the rum.

I was going through my cellar over the weekend and checked what whiskies I had. I seemed to have rather more than I thought (as a legacy of working at my last company) and was wondering what everyone else has at the moment. For what it's worth here is what I have (most of which are independantly bottled) Ardbeg 1973 Ardbeg 1974 Ardbeg 29yo Benrinnes 17yo Blair Athol 1975 Bowmore 25yo Bruichladdich 11yo Caol Ila 23yo Carsebridge 33yo (grain) Glen Albyn 19yo Glen Albyn 1965 Glencadam 1971 Glenfarclas 1981 Glenglassaugh 22yo Glenturret 1965 Highland Park 8yo Imperial 1976 Isle of Jura 30yo Laphroaig 15yo Macallan 10yo Macallan 1974 Royal Brackla 18yo Springbank 8yo

I'll second that (but without the lime as I never have any!)

A couple of points - this vapourizer was not wide spread as far as I am aware and was only put in a few clubs as a gimmic. I have never seen one here in London and I don't think any of my friends have. But now that is all a bit passé and the latest thing is taking shots through the eyes Again I haven't seen this but heard an eye specialist talking on the radio about what a stupid idea this is. As I think most agree, what is wrong with taking it orally in liquid form.

what's this underbrush that RP always goes on about? never tasted it myself

That's a great question, John. However, I don't think Craig was making a link between the public's buying habits and Parker's opinion of wines. When Craig mentions the "American" consumer, he is likely paralleling other conventional wisdom regarding American consumers. One oft-opined point is that many Americans have a "Coca-Cola palate," that is one that has been weend on sweetend soft drinks. Hence, a preference for sweeter, lower acid, softened-by-oak wines. But taking your question on its own, assuming the rest of this thread didn't exist, that is part of the point I was making in my first post. If Parker gave a wine 93 points, then my friend figures he should like it, too. And then if he pays a lot for a wine with high Parker points, it's harder for him not too like it -- too much cognitive dissonance to overcome. John, I think a lot of people do. Brad, I think things are a little deeper than that. I agree with you that a lot of people see a high score and then think that it must be good. This is down to many consumers being very unconfident with their own choice either becuase they do not know a huge amount about wine or (and rather foolishly) that they do not want to be seen to be making a mistake when pulling a wine out in front of their friends. I find it very depressing when people who can afford the best but are not confident enough to look past RPs scribings, only buy the top scoring wines. They seem to pretend that they are very "knowledgeable" about wine when all they are in fact good at is reading. Here in the UK, I often get the same comment from people when discussing wine (either what we are drinking then and there or what they ususally plump for). It goes along the lines of "it's probably not very good", to which my answer is "if you like it, then it's good." But why are people sometimes so apologetic/unconfident about what they drink? Is it the same in the USA?

do wines with higher residual sugar contents go better with hot food?

Well if you have access to his website, maybe you should look up something like Laurent Perrier NV. If you do not it gets 90 points and the tasting note is "This wine was recommended, but no tasting note was given." The taster is named as Robert Parker. Not quite sure how to take this one and also the validity of the tasting notes attributed to RP in the WA

Actually, going back to Lynch Bages, I see that Mr. Parker scores the 1973 and 1964 even lower at 55 points!

One of my customers has dumped a lot of wine with me and told me to sell it as and when. One of the lots is 1971 Lynch Bages, which Parker scored a massive 58 points Is that the lowest anyone has come across? Bearing in mind that he starts from 50 this must be a pretty bad bottle!! Fortunately I do not have to pay until the goods are sold, unfortunately it is my birth year

Passive - unfortunately the washing machine has to be down there and as my wife is a much cleaner creature than me, she turns it on far too often so the cellar is constantly at about 17ºc. For the overflow, I put it in my father's cellar, which has one big drawback - when it rains heavily for prolonged periods, a stream runs across the floor. The frogs that appear out of nowhere are cute but the labels don't like it too much. It keeps wine fantastically well and one side of the cellar is bare rock.

I import some wines from GITTON PERE ET FILS who is at Menetreoul sous Sancerre. I really like his wines as each vineyard is bottled separately and it is the best example I have come across to show the real differences of terroir. He has about 20 Sancerres, several Pouillys and a few other bits and bobs.

The French champagne growers view on the matter is that it is necessary that champagne only comes from the Champagne region in order to protect the consumer. It is of course not to protect their considerable profit margins!! The consumer obviously needs protecting on this expensive product in case they buy something masquarading as champagne but is actually from USA/Oz/NZ that is (of course) cheaper and not as good (subjectively). To a certain extent I have sympathy with the Champenois in as much as they have spent a lot of money over the years promoting their wines. Why should they let someone else from another country cash in on this? However I do agree with the rather patronising view that the consumer needs protecting from "imposters". I quite often use the analogy of cheddar cheese (which comes from around Somerset, UK). Most cheddar is labelled with the country of origin and has nothing at all to do with the "original". Being British, I try and buy as much British produce as I can and therefore never buy cheddar from Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand...... Therefore I am sure that fizzy wine buyers could be more than capable of making a similar choice. This weekend I had some Hardy's Nottage HIll Chardonnay (fizzy). Hardy's is not a producer I like but I have to admit that this fizz was very good value for money and I can see why the Champenois are worried. Having said that we did have a Veuve Cliquot afterwards and there was a huge difference but at 3.5 times the price, so there should have been

Not sure what you get your side of the pond but here the 2 that are most popular are Schweppes and Whites, with the latter being the best (claear cheap lemonade) Once tried making it with Fentiman's Victorian Lemonade (which is about 1 or 2% alc and it was filthy!). I did a Google search for White's in the US and came across a review about Pimms and the person was bemoaning not finding "UK" lemonade. It did say that something called "French Limonade", whilst expensive, was the best substitute.

Not wanting to abuse the board's rules in any way,.... I list Cos 96, at £440 In Bond, add £15 for Duty and 17.5% on everything for VAT and this comes to £534.63 x $1.8 = $962 a case cleared The 1996s in the UK are still very well priced. The 1995s seem to be higher priced.

Maybe in the US but here in the UK you will find that a huge number of us will admit to liking Pimms.

I just poured some Pimms on top of some cucumber, orange, strawberry and mint to let it infuse for a couple of hours before adding the lemonade. My boy is 3 and having a birthday party so as the weather is a balmy 28c, though that Pimms would be ideal. I did note that it was 25% alc and not 20% as in Jackal10's link. I am sure like many products it is different strnegth in different markets. In the UK it was reduced in strength to purely attract a lower Duty rate. At £19.56 per litre of alcohol it makes sense! PS I was in a pub last night on the banks of the Thames and for the first time came across Pimms on tap.

I was in a pub in London last night and they had Pimms on tap, so I really can't see why they could not have mojitos on tap. PS Ed - I think that I have to agree with your sentiments about both colas and that Australian spirit which is called a rum.

If you are ever in London you can buy 1996 Cos from me at $120 a bottle. Using a rough exchange rate and including all local taxes I could alternatively let you have it at our list price of $80 a bottle.

There are a lot of pre-mixed drinks out and about: Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Breezers, Pimms, Gin&Tonic etc and these are usually all at about 5%. There could be a problem (well at least to my taste buds) with a 5% rum and coke. I don't like rum & coke at the best of times as it is too sweet. If I have to drink it, I make sure that the predominant taste is rum so usually end up with a 50:50 mix (or more) which would be at least about 20% alc/vol!

I have a friend who makes wine in Argentina and he is regularly getting over 15% (pinot, CS, Merlot, Malbec). Short of adding water what is he supposed to do to lower the alcohol? If he picks to get 12.5% then the fruit would not be ripe. These guys are not doing late harvesting but it is the natural level of alcohol when the grapes are ripe. I think that a lot of new vineyards have been planted in areas where the high alcohol comes when the grapes are ripe.