Carema

The Pomerol is probably your best bet. The Rioja is most likely pretty icky and I think your Rubicon is over the hill at this point. I wouldn't keep them around for very much longer. Pop the corks and see what happens.

It is so very unsuprising to me that anyone connected with anything would admit to something being corked. I have seen the nostrils magnified and enlarged in a giant riedel glass of something insisting the non corkines of it all- "good" wineries prey on the fact that you will not insist upon a retaste from vintage to vintage. This is imperative! never let yourself believe that "they make good wine every year" the proof is in the pudding. Do not let anyone bully you out of it! Demand it from your wine merchant. demand it from your suppliers. If it does not feel right just say no!

Steiner was deathly afraid of technology. Like the theosophists before him (whaddya think Frakenstein was all about?) he lived during the industrial revolution and watched as mechanization took over tasks formerly performed manually by humans. He percieved the death of skilled craftmanship and worried about the state of children. The Waldforf educational system was developed by him for the children of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory and is supposedly art based. The agriculture works because the soils stay healthy. The whole world was bromide blasting and going for high yield especially in the 1970s and his techniques are just gentle ways of keeping a balance going. The cow horn thing often gets over exemplified. Newton uses the techniques, for instance she has one vineyard plagued by a pest whose natural enemies are bees so she treats the soil with honey and there are gobs of bees managing the pests for her. The grape pickers do not care for this technique as much but the results are good. The educational system is another story. My child was a Waldorf kid for a year and that was the most f***k up place imaginable. The women sat around knitting like mini Madame Lafarges, I wore too much black clothing and eventually my son was expelled. Plus I didn't knit. Now he is in public school and just won a certificate from Pizza Hut for reading which would have been abbhhorent in the Waldorf world.

Switch the pasta order, ending with the procini one. then maybe go Provence Grenache based rose (Coulioure or some such thing, maybe a Tavel if fresh and alive) with eggplant dealy Lighter Style Priorat (Onyx perhaps) with shellfish chorizo Nebbiolo with porcini an older La Morra barolo would be lovely, the Viberti maybe just a thought

It is much less rustic and more sophisticated than Salice. It has one of those bretty Pakery noses, and luscious fruit.

That is indeed a lovely wine and inarguably one of the best values on any shelf under 20 bucks!

When you think of it, Cakebread is the coke of the wine world. No one in the history of marketing wine has done such a phenomenol job of convincing everyone that it is rare, fabulous and in its own league. "Oh you have Cakebread, it is so good. We had it at a restaurant last night- great cab outstanding blah blah blah." I like what the guy said about Burgundy- you know it is so true. It is rare unless you have tons of cash and cellared stock to have one of those epiphenal burgundian moments. The last time I had one was in the 80s! (the wine was from the 70s)

The same insane woman that brings me all my Friulian stuff also reps these wines. I think the winemaker needs more time to get adjusted and acclimated, I found them a bit out of balance and over alcoholic. I like the idea of Arizona wines, but they were damned pricey- upper 2 hundreds and 300 hundred a case cost. Too much. If I could have sold them for eight bucks a bottle I would have gone with it just for the novelty. To give you an idea of something comparable, Robert Craig Affinity Neyers Tofanelli Zin sell for about the same price.

All I got in jail was bologna................ oh and rice crispies. I went on a starvation protest and they let me out. Do you think this is why those Velletri bottles are so kooky looking? Mouth blown by prisoners outside of Rome? They are impossible to stock and you have to set them upright.

I think there are other issues at play here too: Guigal's masterpieces (as mentioned before by mark and others) come from up in the Nothern Rhone- Syrah land. La Famille Guigal seem to understand the nuances of this terroir intrinsically, they understand there difference between cote brune & blonde and make the famous single vineyard stuff that only fancy pants restaurants can buy ( I mean this in the sweetest of all manners) and us here at the cash n carry retail level have to beg on our knees and sometimes worse to get our collectors a bottle a year. Down in the S rhone I think the bottlings are more about commerce for Guigal. At the time the Spectator article came out, the price was much lower on the CNP. When I first tasted it i thought, ok very young grenache easy going, crushed raspberry, tasting like a gigondas more to me than a CNP. The Speculum released the top 100 early, the distributor got wind of it and immediately jacked up the price. We had it in (only one case at the time, it sold and I didn't re-order) for about 32 bucks per bottle but I think if I had ordered it the Sept before it would have been about 25. I like a little more Mourvedre in CNP than the Guigal offers. But I think for the most part a good Vacqueyras will do in any situation where you might think CNP is the only solution.

If Charlotte were alive today and living in my barnyard, into her web would be etched "some merlot". This thing is just vibrant alive, woefully beautiful, a finish that is epic and of course replete with lively acidity. Unfortunately about 45 minutes ago I popped a ham broccoli and onion frittata into the oven which might have to serve as breakfast and this just might be dinner. It is autumn after all and nothing is dying except last summer's leaves.

Ok there it is in a nutshell. So now do we in the cooking community quit bitching about sellouts and start teaching people to cook? This is a call to arms or at least to spatulas. Sorry if this is too Oprah for egullet but I feel inspired and my normal jaded bitter posting is inexcusable in this instance. I am returning to the soup kitchen. Anyone joining me? Oh, and I am bringing Lambrusco.

Wow! Amazing. "Cooking at home" doesn't take hours it takes planning and training. Instead of "letting" the poor have their cheap, tasty burgers and fries we should be teaching them to cook. A simple bowl of Ramen can be nehanced with a radish or two, a cheap assed sweet potato, a chicken wing.There are food pantries but one of the problems is "Hey you, what do I do with a bag of flour, honey and a pound of apples?" That's where we come and and talk about savory crepes or apple flapjacks. You can do this at any food pantry in any city. They will love you for it. Read this link to find out more about the true state of our urban poor. Then also read Michael Pollan's article about why we are fat. Apparently it is corn.

Here the two are inexorabley linked.

If so then why do you claim you will cure us of all our bitterness? Our tongues are jaded our arms are burnt.....

Maybe it is all these fermented turnips I have been dreaming about, but I am still not sure what this wine clip thing rememdies. The layperson wine drinker (not always ladies in my neck of the woods) often uses the term bitter to refer to all manner of different characteristics. For instance, Kim ( a he not a she), special education teacher and all around nice guy often refers to wines high in acidity as bitter so we keep him out of Italy& other cool climates when he comes in thursdays for his two bottles. I could sell him a clip and he could put it on some Italians but I would rather just sell him three other bottles for the $79 bucks. Another male customer feels as if tannin (specifically wood tannin, not fruit because I have asked him whether its his teeth or his throat) is bitter. So we keep him off the over oaky woody stuff. Had a lady in who thought beaujolais was bitter- now we have a diehard Brachetto fan (she needs sugar and bubbles)- again just figuring out her particular perception was really all it took. Forgive me for being a dense and tired Momma, but technically, what aspect of the wine does this product neutralize/improve/ vanquish? Does it elongate a shitty finish? I vanquish those kinds of wines buy not buying for the shop in the first place. If this product promotes enhanced enjoyment of wine that is terrific. I just hate a life to be so mucked up with gadgetry however that a simple bottle of wine now requires 82 accoutrements in order to drink it. There is a band called the Magnetic Fields. Has the Wine Clip considered contacting them to procure song rights? It could be pretty cool.

Alpina Singh and Andrea Immer might have issues with this claim.

Lardon, dude!

Dynamite Sauvignon Blanc (12.95/btl) ca 2001 Brander sauvignon Blanc Santa Ynez 2002 (13.95/btl) Dal Piave Merlot Veneto Italy 2002 8 dollars Penfolds grange is 50 million dollars a bottle Jindalee Shiraz- Murray darling Australia 2001 $8.00 Wishing tree Shiraz, Western Australia 2001- $12.95 Conde de Valsuez Chardonnay Chile (tastes totally american) $8.00 Tiefenbrunner Pinot Grigio $14.95 All these are larger scale productions and should be found in most markets. good luck.

we sell it for $21.95/ btl.

Maybe team egullet should put together a comprehensive listing of those wine shops dedicated to friendly service and high quality products in any price range, those who refuse to do the corporate plonky deals and search out the little gems of the wine world. I know there are a bunch of small shop runners such as myself on this board- I never mention my shop's name because I view this board as a forum for discussion and not my own personal promotional tool. But there are a lot of us out there and if your town doesn't have one we can always do telephone and internet orders. I spend half my time on the phone anyway, a lot of stuff gets sold that way cuz we have shitty parking! maybe instead of fighting about Andrea, cheetos and KJ we can chant this mantra: "Today I will wake up and resist the Santa Fey Chicken Sandwhich and Kendall Jackson. I will eat something braised in lard and drink something from a wine region I have never heard of whose production is under 5000 cases a year. I will do this for me because I love myself and I will do it for the children" Say this ten times and breathe deeply. Now go out there!

From the historically tumoultuous Friuli where jota (thick soup of smoked pig and cabbage) and brovade (grape skins and turnips, fermenting together in covered bliss) this- Cividin. An ancient white varietal coaxed back from near extinction by Emilio Bulfon. Delicate floral aromas like night blooming jasmine carried on a soft September wind accompanied a complex and delightful spiced pear/honeyed peach flavor. Acidity was a solid medium. Tasted much better almost warm than cold. Even warmer than chardonnay is where it showed best.Read more about this crazy man and his mission to revive grapes of old here. We sold out of the Cividin in a hurry.

Actually the key to good value is when one distributor 'dumps' a brand after another picks them up. The more acrimonious the split- the bigger the discounts. Good retailers use this to their advantage, Ask your local wine person about what was dumped this week

many of the flaws of white wine can be determined when the wine is warmer. I always taste champagne flat and warm to give me an idea of the quality of the still wine before it was made into bubbles. however, those are buying temps and not enjoying temps. I agree with Mark. yeah, what he said.

OR pinots always (to me) had natural affinities for vinaigrette sauces, sweet onion etc.