tjaehnigen

A recipe I got out of a Wine Lovers cookbook was great. It was a mushroom risotto with roasted shallots. I had some trepidation over making risotto, for reasons unknown, really, and man was it (making the risotto, EASY. And a knockout for flavor, too. It is now comfortably in my cooking repertoire. heh heh

jrage-- Many thanks. I very much enjoy dining at your place. I did not really think the chef had change, IMO, since the menu choices and presentations were not fundamentally different. I am thuinking of coming back again soon. We had this roasted tomato soup there I think last summer that was to DIE FOR. I applaud that you've given him some greater flexibility with the menu and ingredients, too. Nice.

I'll be dining there tonight. I'll report back int he next couple of days.

Some kind of T-1 problems have goofed up Vinocellar.com. The site will likely be down for a couple of weeks (horrors!) in case anyone was bugged why my tagline wasn't working.

I eat with the fork in my right hand when not using a knife. When I am using a knife, my fork is always in my left hand. It's the natural thing to do. Besides, my parents are off the boat German immigrants.

I may very well do that, Mark. But I was also considering BYOW. It's been my new mantra in 2003. Decisions decisions!

If you're ever in the DC area, I'll let you know. It's a hole in the wall kind of place...and I like it that way... Heh heh

As more states cave and allow their citizens to purchase wine for direct delivery, more states will follow suit. I am hoping for NY or NJ to happen -- as soon as they do, you'll see lots of other states join in.

What I am hoping for when I go to Palena this week is a great dining experience. And yes, this will most definitely include dessert. What I choose for dessert depends largely on how stuffed I am after the main part of the meal. Sometimes, I eat lighter during the main meal and I want a big dessert, other times it is the other way around. I hope to find desserts that range from dense and decadent monstrosities to light and perfect Napoleons and fruit-based desserts. I wouldexpect, given this pastry chef's reputation, for the desserts to be extremely well executed, or inventive (ie different from your typical run of the mill desserts in the sense of flavor combinations & presentations) or, better yet, BOTH (droooool). I am definitely looking forward to dining at Palena. heh heh

I ate the strip steak I ordered last night. I was not impressed. Don't get me wrong, the steak tasted really, really good. But I have a really excellent local butcher that I think edges out Lobel's in quality and price.

I think NY would make more money in taxes by allowing their NY retailers/etc sellt heir wines by phone/fax/web/etc to customers outside of NY, something that would likely happen if they became reciprocal, IMO. Plus, some of thos NY wineries could ship their stuff to people who sampled stuff at tastings but didn';t want to buy a case of this or that because it was too cumbersome (but would love to ship a case of whatever back home).

1/7/03 Mrs TJ was on a roll buying blends when we got this a year or two ago. 97 seemed like a good vintage, and I think we must have had something from Estancia around then that prompted us to remember the name and buy some when we got around to it. Well, I was disappointed. Granted, my storage conditions have not been the best (cool closet, but summer in there, even with the AC cranking, it got to 75-78 at times), but I expected more. So, no formal TNs. It smelled really good, with losts of jammy fruit up front, but it got thin and passionless as it spent more time open. Had only two small glasses the first night. Decided to vino-vac it and try it the next night, this time with some steak. It did not improve, it got worse. I was unimpressed, but am willing to concede it was due to not the best storage. TJ rating as it stood would be 84. If I had been better at storing it, who knows>?

2/17/03 $6 TJ Points = 82 I bought this on Saturday to make some bolognese sauce with. I needed some white wine to do this with since I was ashamedly almost out of ANY white wine in the house. This had simple white fruit aromas, the nicest was a bit of honeysuckle followed by off balanced lemon. It was quite acidic, which was good, since I had to improvise on my bolognese recipe (I didn't have a bunch of canned whole peeled tomatoes -- ACK!). Decent pale yellow colors with a tiny amount of green around the edges. The tastes revolved around everything that was in the nose, except really the honeysuckle. Just a bit too lemony for me. It would have been better with a dish that encompassed a bit more citrus in it, perhaps a fish dish. Anyway, all in all, a decent quaffing wine, and it delivered mostly what I expected of a $6 bottle of wine.

2/17/03 $11 -- TJ Points = 84 I popped this bottle open after finishing off another bottle with bolognese sauce. Greener in the glass than in the bottle, but maybe it was just the lighting. It seemed more pale yellow in the bottle. Anyway, the nose reminded me of peach blossoms and pears. It tasted of peaches and melons, but really only faintly so. The acidity was more in check with this wine, and thus it seemed better balanced than the Ruffino Orivieto Classico I'd just had. A better wine, but not significantly so. A decent enough simple Italian white, but there are better wines out there for $11, let me tell ya.

2/18/03 I had this tonight with those pan roasted pork chops I have been talking about the past few days. The pork chops turned out pretty good (juicy as hell) and I've been meaning to pull the cork on this for months to see what all the fuss was about. This wine was really quite good. I popped the cork and left it in the bottle for about a half an hour. Then, I splash decanted it and it sat there for about another 45 minutes to an hour before I took the first sip/wiff. I tasted over the next two and a half hours out of Spiegelau Bordeaux stems. The nose on this wine was wonderful -- raspberry blossoms were shoved away quickly by violets and kirsch. This was a medium dark violet purple color. It had terriffic legs and it burst onto my tatsebuds as soon as I tasted it. This wine is pretty huge and well structured with a nice long finish. I got cherries, vanilla, traces of raspberry and currant followed by some nice herbaceous notes and peeled bark along with a tiny bit of toast. Some good mocha notes as well. This is one delicious wine. I think I paid $35 for this in a mixed case last year. I'd certainly pick up more at that price. I'd rate this a 91 on the TJ scale.

2/22/03 $17 Light pale gold color, thin bespeckled legs. This wine had a pretty explosive nose of lemon, citrus blossom and tropical fruits. This was followed by more of the same when sipped. As the wine warmed a little in my glass, other undertones of kiwi and lime emerged. This was a nice pairing with an impromptu scampi I whipped up. I'd rate this 89-90 points.

NY state would be smart to allow these wineries to direct ship to customers abroad in other states and thus become reciprocal. Too bad they only see the potential loss of tax money as the only possible offset to that. They don't think NY based retailers, etailers and so on will set up shop to sell stuff to customers in other states (and thus make more money for the state coffers in the form of increased sales (and thus taxes))?

One thing that you can count on is me tasting wine wherever I go that has wineries. Those places are like magnets.

Without an extended lecture, can you expand on your point? Perhaps a reference or two about better inexpensive American Rieslings? I prefer the Rieslings from the WA state region, Eroica from the Chat Ste Michelle project with Dr. Loosen comes to mind. But I wasn't sure we were just talking about Rieslings. I am no expert on Finger Lakes and LI wines, but, from what I have tasted, I have not been impressed. My home state, MD, has wine that is even more bleah tasting.

I'll keep it up. I am really just digging up my archival WTNs at this point, but will add 'new' 'new' ones when I make em.

IMO, the Finger Lakes and Long Island regions have a looong way to go. IMO, Virginia wines are only slightly ahead of NY wines.

I tip on the pre-tax total. A nickel if the service rates as one of my worst 5 experiences ever, 10% for sub-par service, 15% for average service, 18-20% for very good service, up to 25% for exceptional service. I tip on the wine service usually a flat dollar amount as I am prone to bring my own wine from my cellar (whenever possible), otherwise, I'll tip on the bottle cost, too, as I no longer buy bottles more than $50 off of any list (on my own nickel anyway).

Wow, cool. And I thought I was the only one that did this. As I said in the other post, my choice would be-- McDonald's Fries Wendy's Frosty Burger King Whopper w/cheese

OK, here is an angle on this thread... If you could merge your favorites from a variety of different fast food chains, what would your best meal consist of? I have many possibilities. But, for arguments sake, I will start with-- Burger King Whopper with Cheese (with everything) McDonald's Fries Wendy's Frosty Yeah.

Mark, I am trying to be a good little WTN poster. Heh heh I have been accused of using 'auto-posting' software on other wine sites. But I can assure you that this is not the case.