What I'm having for New Year's Eve...

Tonight's menu? "Surf and Turf" with king crab legs (RIP Captain Phil!) and steak; on the wine front, I picked up a lovely Blanc de Noirs from Gruet yesterday at Total Wine & More. All Pinot Noir, so it may have a bit of a blush color, but will be a nice 'middle of the road' option for both items. (In all reality, I'll probably end up popping a nice aged bottle of 'something red' as well). Regardless, God Bless you and have a great evening--best wishes for 2011!

(Gruet is a great label from New Mexico, click here for more info. Cheers!)

Wine and Freakonomics

Not sure if you've read the book Freakonomics but this is a funny twist on wine pricing and how high prices may or may not relate to quality. What really 'got me' was the fact that 'experts' who tasted the same wine (blindly, and more than once) had given wildly differing scores! Very interesting point of view. I find it funny to hear how one gentleman purchases wine (most expensive looking label, but under $15 a bottle--that would rule out most 'critter wines' that look silly!). Click HERE for the article. Enjoy!

Another HR 5034 Rant

Another article against HR 5034. More money going to Congress, big surprise there! Let's make this go away, shall we? Contact YOUR Congressman and say NO, this won't do...

Is my champagne still good?

Your questions answered! Read this article to learn about 200 year old champagne STILL being yummy after all those years! CAVEAT: this wine was "stored" properly--contents under pressure, with a constant temperature and not affected by light or humidity. Your results could vary ; ) See you in 200 years, eh? Cheers, Bo

Another warehouse club 'find'

Found another cheapie... online you can find Marques de Riscal Tempranillo for just under $10 (not that you can ship to GA but I digress--see my comments on HR5034 while you're at it) but locally I found it for $6.99 at BJ's Wholesale Club. Not a bad wine at all; great price and good quality. If you belong to BJ's, give it a shot! If you don't, you can typically get a temporary shopping pass (unlike the other clubs you can just walk into BJ's--they don't ask for a membership card until you check out). Enjoy your weekend! Bo

Fun with Wine!

Enjoy this widely circulated email funny!

A Real Man
A real man is a woman's best friend. He will never stand her up and never let her down. He will reassure her when she feels insecure and comfort her after a bad day. He will inspire her to do things she never thought she could do; to live without fear and forget regret. He will enable her to express her deepest emotions and give in to her most intimate desires. He will make sure she always feels as though she's the most beautiful woman in the room and will enable her to be the most confident, sexy, seductive, and invincible. . . . . . . . .








No wait... sorry... I'm thinking of wine. It's wine that does all that...... Never mind.

The A-list (+ one!)

I love wine (DUH) and you know I love a good deal (also DUH). Today I offer three wines that start with the letter "A" (oh great, now I hear the voice of Grover in my head...). In an earlier blog posting I talked about finding a great deal on a yummy wine called Aconga. The blend is 80% Malbec and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2009 evidently scored 85 points from Wine Enthusiast magazine. The best thing? With your Kroger Plus card, the price is only $3.99 (though it's only $3.88 at the Mcfarland/Hwy.9 Kroger in Alpharetta)! One thing to note, however, there seems to be a limited supply of this wine so you better stock up quickly!

My second A-wine is actually called A by Acacia. Like many other producers, Acacia has several different product lines. Their single-vineyard products are their finest (and most expensive), but you can find the more reasonably priced "A" line in stores and restaurants. Their Pinot is great (around $20) but I love the A by Acacia "Red Blend" (much lower-priced, at around $10 to 12) as it is a Syrah based wine. You won't find it everywhere but it is worth looking for (or trying at restaurants).

My 3rd (and favorite of the 3!) A-list wine is called Apothic Red. I also blogged about this one previously (as did Gil Kulers with the AJC) and I can't get enough of it! Excellent fruit, but not a full-on, in-your-face 'fruit bomb'. Apothic LOVES spicy foods and is widely available ($8.73 at Sam's, around $8.50 at Tower and even Kroger had it for under $9 a few weeks ago!). Syrah and Zin? YUM!


Bonus wine--a week or two ago I was in the Alpharetta Costco, wandering through the wine aisle. A nice blend caught my eye--a bordeaux blend with 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Cabernet Franc and the final 33% Merlot. As the price was $15, I thought what the heck, I'll buy it (really, you had me at 33% cab franc). You may have read this old blog post about friends in the wine biz (and my 'heroes'), so you know how happy I was when I saw the names on the back of the bottle--Highway 12 Vineyards was co-founded by the guy who gave me my first job in the wine industry, Paul Giusto. Check out their website and try the wine--the winemaker is Michael Sebastiani (bet you've heard that last name before?) who I also worked with at Viansa ages ago. Kudos to them; the wine was awesome as well! Cheers!