Wine Club Insider back with you…

I seem to be about 12 hours later than usual today, and I apologize… we have a large event coming up and I was in (unscheduled) meetings all morning, but here we are, so let’s call it Australia time, and we’ll be all square!

Earlier this week, I was thinking of the various wine clubs I either belong to or have belonged to, and began pondering what kinds of people join wine clubs, so I did some asking around, and the results may surprise you.

My first thought was that your regular wine schnobs like me would be the main culprits, and, to be sure, we make up a fair share of the members, but there’s an entire other segment of “wineclubers…”

Wine has kind of evolved into the drink of the hoi poloi, but if you do some research into the history of wine, you find that it was the drink of the people… the real people. It was the beverage that was drank at every meal, that was the water of life at weddings, at communions, at lunch with your falafel… this new “ooohh, wine is fancy” thing is, to a degree, understandable, but also has taken one of God’s greatest gifts out of the reach out of many, whether in price, or just in aura.

Some of our best friends are what you might call “redneck,” having come to the light from our a beer drinking background. “Pete” didn’t now squat about wine, but could speak eloquently about any of fifty kinds of beer. Now, they belong to three wine clubs (including one we gifted to them) and “Pete” enjoys a great red, and a nice glass (or bottle!) of port as much as anyone I know.

Another set of friends, “Keith” and “Sarah,” came from even further from Napa, so to speak, and after a couple of dinner parties, they enjoy a nice Gewurtz, and a spicy Pinot with diner now.

There are truck drivers I know that are on Pepperbridge’s list, a gas station owner who gets his allotment of Harlan, a meat salesman who is a ten year member of Leonetti, and a flower shop owner who is a long time customer of Araujo…

Yup. Turns out your job doesn’t have anything to do with whether you love wine. Turns out that drinking it out back by a fire pit is sometimes just as good as sitting in a chateau, and, if your real friends are with you, it can be even better.

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider back with you.

Sitting here watching the snow come down (again!) and just about getting ready for spring… Don’t get me wrong; I love winter probably more than the next guy, as I love XC skiing, snowshoeing, running and even biking in the snow, but I’m getting itchy to do some riding up in the high hills.

Speaking of high hills, we did some snowshoeing in the mountains a week or so ago, and took a bottle of J. Lohr Paso Robles Cab up in a Nalgene bottle to celebrate the summit. I’ve got to say there’s something about having a good glass of wine out of a camp cup while eating dehydrated Shepherd’s Pie made on a Jet Boil! It was great! (Seriously!) and the new dehydrated meals are really pretty good, especially at 6000 feet in the snow!

The Wine Club – www.thewineclub.com – has one of the better online wine selections anywhere, with hundreds of offerings, including a very nice dessert wine selection. They have been one of the leading online dealers, and also have three retail shops in Santa Ana, Santa Clara and San Francisco.

They are going to be starting a Wine of the Month program in March of 2009, and I’m interested in seeing what they offer, as they have a great inventory to choose from. Keep your eye out for what could be a great opportunity!

Another one that has caught my eye recently is the Pacific Northwest Wine Club – www.pnwc.com- which specializes in wines from the – you guessed it – Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. They offer two bottles a month, and also have several tasting events throughout the region. Their newsletter, Vin Affairres, is informative, and well written. They also have gift memberships available starting at $24.99/month.

Finally, there is the “Sideways” Wine Club at www.sidewayswineclub.com. They are a direct descendant of the movie, and seem to have a great selection. Their website is entertaining and informative, but I’m going to check out their selection of Merlots before passing judgement…

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you Monday!

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider back with you after a couple weeks vacation.

I’ve been going some outside stuff; some snowshoeing, XC skiing, even some snow biking, as well as attending the GIANT Outdoor Retailer’s show in Salt Lake City… boy, if wine had a weekend like that, we’d never got sober! Anyhoo, I’ll be back with you on Monday and Thursday from now on, so let’s get to it…

I met a couple of my friends there for the weekend, and I took a nice bottle of V. Sattui Pinot Noir to share, as well as a bottle of surprisingly good Fusee Syrah, which we drank over a late night business meeting.

The Pinot was so tasty that I decided to open a second bottle tonight. Now, Pinot is perhaps the most finicky of all the major red wine grapes, though it can be one of the most magnificent when done properly…

Andre Tchelistcheff said “God made Cabernet Sauvignon whereas the devil made Pinot noir,” while Vanity Fair’s Joel Fleischman described Pinot Noir as “the most romantic of wines,” and Master Sommelier Madeline Triffon calls pinot “sex in a glass”. Peter Richardsson of OenoStyle christened it “a seductive yet fickle mistress.”

No matter which way you feel, it’s becoming an increasingly important wine, being grown (and well!) in Canada, Austria, New Zealand, Germany, and prominently in Oregon’s Willamette valley, and California’s Sonoma and Russian River Valley… Oh, and have you ever heard of Burgundy?

Yup. Pinot Noir is the grape that made Burgundy famous. That and Dijon mustard, Coq au vin and the Cote-d’ Or.

Some of my favorite Oregon Pinots include Willamette Vineyards, David Bruce, Andrew Rich, Elk Cove, and of course Domaine Drouhin… one cool thing about Oregon Pinot Noirs is that there is actually an Oregon Pinot Noir club! Yes, a wine club just for Oregon Pinots.

www.oregonpinotnoir.com has everything you’ll ever want to know about Oregon’s number one wine export.

Now, moving south to California, you get a different type of flavor… I think that for years, California Pinot was thought of as light and fruity, but over the past decade or so, the winemakers have been making a great effort to give it some real depth, and have, to a fair degree, succeeded.

My 2006 V. Sattui Pinot (www.vsattui.com) from tonight is a Los Carneros appellation, and I must tell you, depth isn’t an issue. This is a big wine. Maybe not Domaine Drouhin big, but very tasty. You’d like it.

Until next Monday,

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider back with you.

Just got back from a triathlon club meeting… I’m aiming for a 70.3 (1/2 Ironman) in a couple of months, and was actually presenting some stuff tonight… great fun, good fitness, and it justifies the wine as a “training aide…”

It’s coincidental that we’re talking about Merlot today… I got to try the VERY nice 1999 Willard Family Merlot from Caterina Winery - www.caterinawinery.com – that I mentioned last week… it was even better than the last time I tasted it a year or so ago, and looks to have another 5 years or so until its prime… wow, what a nice wine!

Merlot is the other Grand Daddy of red wine grapes, or should I say “Grand Pere?” The other key Bordeaux grape, it is also, like Cab Sauv, an offspring of Cab Franc, and predates the Cab Sauv by a few years.

Merlot is a more medium bodied wine, and ripens earlier than Cab Sauv. It also blends very well, making it uber-popular with wine makers world wide.

The movie “Sideways,” for all its quirky charm, and heaped with blessings from the Pinot Noir industry, did many wine drinkers world wide with lead character Paul Giamatti’s irrational dislike for Merlot. One of the bits of ironic humor was in the final scene when he sits at the table in the diner to drink his treasured bottle of French Bordeaux… which ends up being a Merlot!

Yes, two of the world’s most famous, rare and expensive wines are both close to 100% Merlot…  Petrus (around $3000/bottle for futures) and Le Pin (even more than that!) are both Merlots.

Merlot is also going to be the number one red wine grape (again) by the end of 2009, it looks like, surpassing Cab Sauv.

Merlot is often used to add body and softness to the oft-harsher Cab Sauv, and is grown most everywhere Cab Sauv is, though tends to do better in the cooler areas of the AVAs where it doesn’t ripen quite so early. It is the largest varietal in France, and is becoming more and more popular world wide. In the USA, it is hugely popular in Napa, and is making greater inroads in the Pacific Northwest, where wineries such as Leonetti, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Isenhower, and yes, Caterina are making notable and praiseworthy wines.

Myself, I love it. A great Merlot is a joy to drink… softer somehow than other reds, often “fleshy,” and filled with flavors of currant and plum, two of my favorite tastes in wine.

So, put whatever prejudices you might have aside, and take up a glass of good Merlot and join the rest of the world in appreciating this grand old grape! There might even be a Merlot wine club out there somewhere… hmmm…

Back tomorrow with Cab Franc, another of my favorites!

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider back!

One of the cool web sites I frequent on at least a weekly basis is www.winezap.com.

Winezap is kind of like a little community where you can actually get to “know” your online “neighbors” as you rate/discuss/argue about wine.

So, every week or so, I get an email in my regular box about the latest wines that have been rated by their distinguished panel of experts…

I think that having a few folks with respected, or at least educated palates can give us a basic groundwork to at least discuss wine, so I appreciate their efforts.

Some of the wines I received reviews on tonight were (and the reviewer):

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Wine Club Insider back.

As the snow/slush/sleet continues to fall here in the Northwest, adding to the five feet we’ve already accumulated, I’m sitting in front of a fire, sipping on a glass of Corbett Canyon Reserve left over from New Years Eve… I’ve got to tell you that for an inexpensive wine, it’s pretty tasty! It’s a Central Valley product from Ripon, California, and as is becoming the norm, it’s hard to get a bad bottle of wine from California…

I think that the vintners from California have gotten so smart and do such a good job with their properties, and with their actual crafting of the wine that even “cheap” California wine is darn good, especially when compared with the product from a decade ago, or with similar priced wines from many other regions and nations. Go Left Coast!

Here are a couple of other wine clubs for you to consider:

The Wine Insiders (hey, I like the name!) at www.wineinsiders.com offers three choices of level (pretty normal) but also offer 3, 6 & 12 month options, with wine club gifts starting at $89, and ranging up to over $500 for a 12 month Connoisseur’s Club membership.

Their top level club is pretty substantial, with great options, including some nice Barolos and California Pinot Noirs.

www.winegiftclub.comis another online provider with a great selection of services. While their actual wine clubs are a bit limited, they make up for it by providing a great choice of seasonal gifts, including champagne, wine gift baskets, wine and food baskets, etc. You can choose your price, as well as your products, and they custom build your basket for you and ship them out. Right now, they’re getting geared up for Valentine’s Day, so check them out and be ready for the big day! (C’mon… don’t miss this one, guys… even if she says she doesn’t want anything, we know better… you’ll seldom go wrong from being too romantic, or spoiling her too much!)

Hope it helps, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out.

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Wine Club Insider back with you on January 3rd, 2009! Where did the time go? It seems like barely a year ago and we were welcoming in 2008…

I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year’s eve celebration. Ours was very nice, aside from the five FEET of snow we have, which limited parking to our party a bit. Still, we had a great day of paintball, fireworks, hot tub, good food, and, or course, good wine!

For our midnight celebratory toast, we cracked a nice bottle of Roederer champagne, which is, I must say, as good as the reviews say it is! Crisp, light, but with a body not at all common amongst many champagnes.

Today, I would like to revisit a site we touched on a few weeks ago:

Gold Medal Wine Club, at www.goldmedalwine.com, is one of the better wine clubs, I would have to say, and certainly has one of the larger selections, with 5 main choices, including their Pinot Noir club.

The reason I’m mentioning them again is that they have launched several new features that are pretty interesting.

They have a spot where you can answer some questions about wine and earn a discount, as well as they have a taster’s blog, where you can compare notes about the wine club offerings. They also offer free greeting cards, and are currently sponsoring a trip to Portugal contest.

One of the neatest features is that they offer a “live chat” opportunity, where you can actually chat with someone right now about the various wines.

You can also get upto 45% off winery-direct reorders, which can really add up when you find a wine you like.

On that note, when you find a great wine that you like, it’s not a bad idea, space permitting, to buy a case, if you have the chance, and the price is right. Wine is a growing thing, and you can never be sure what next year’s vintage will bring. If you find something you like, and you can get 45% off, like from Gold Medal WIne club, then buy a  case, and enjoy!

Overall, some nice upgrades to the Gold Medal WIne Club site, so check it out.

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out

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Wine Club Insider back.

Two days into the new year, and I’ve found two great wine clubs for you to look at!

Yesterday we talked about 4 seasons wine club, and today I’d like to share “My Wines Direct” with you.

My Wines Direct is located at www.mywinesdirect.com, and they have a wide variety of choices, including three month or six month subscriptions of three bottles of red, white or mixed every month.

• Baco Gran Reserva Pinot Noir 2006 (1 bottle)
• Finca El Retiro Barrica Syrah 2006 (1 bottle)
• Orrando Merlot 2007 (1 bottle)

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Wine Club Insider here on New Years Eve 2008!

What better time than New Years Eve to talk about champagne and the other fine bubblys from around the world!

Personally, I found champagne to be an acquired taste. I wasn’t an instant fan, and since my only previous experience with sparkling wine (and I hate to even admit this!) was with such fine vintages as Cold Duck and Baby Duck (as much as I love them, my parents were obviously connoisseurs… not!).

I tried a few of the less expensive (read: “cheap”) so called champagnes, and much the same as drinking your regular “plonk” still wine, it didn’t blow my skirt up, so to speak. But then… ahhh. At the Millenium New Year, I opened a bottle of 1992 Dom Perignon, and I tell you, my eyes were opened!

Though some folks might say that Dom is over-priced/over-rated, I think it is still a great bottle of bubbles, and the ’92 was really awesome.

Okay… I’d seen the light, and now the search was on. Over the next couple of years, though it still wasn’t my top priority, I certainly tried my fair share of sparkles, enjoying many. By the way, www.1-800-wineofthemonthclub.com has a pretty nice club for $49.99/month for two bottle.

Okay… here are some of the snazzy champagnes I loved besides the famous “Dom”:

~ Domaine Merriwether (Oregon): Beautiful, soft champagne. One of the best I’ve ever had, especially for the price.

~ Champagne Duval-Leroy: Nice, beautiful bottle, good depth.

~ Taittinger Domaine Carneros Brut: Velvety. About $20

~ Paul Chenau Brut: This Cava is a Very nice Spanish addition.

~ Mumm’s “Millenium Cuvee:” Excellent. Produced for wine club members for the New Years 1999.

~ Domaine Chandon “Etoille Rose:” This unique wine is a Chard-Pinot Noir blend that is one of my favorites from the marvelous Napa house owned in part by the legendary Moet Chandon.

And now, probably my two faves of the past year or so:

~ Schramsberg “Cremant Demi-sec:” Cremant means “creamy,” and this demi-sec is a sweeter, softer wine using the rare “Flora” grape (a combination of the Semillon and the Gewurtz).

And possibly my favorite champagne ever…

~ Scramsberg “J. Schram:” served at White House dinners, consistently wins taste tests against Europe’s best, this vintage wine from perhaps the USA’s best champagne house is also one of my favorite wines ever. A bit pricey at $100, I could easily drink this every day, but will have to settle for tonight at midnight!

Schramsberg is found at www.schramsberg.com, and you’d be well served to give them a try!

I wish you all the best of the season, and hope you have a safe and happy celebration tonight. Blessings to all of you for a healthy and prosperous 2009, and may all your gifts be wine club gifts!

Cheers,

Wine Club Insider out for 2008!

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WCI back to regale you with an evening of some of the best reds I’ve had in a long while…

As soon as we finished our salads, Don Townshend of Townshend Cellars (www.townshendcellar.com) started pouring. Nothing like starting with the Big Boys, so we poured Don’s acclaimed ’00 Cabernet Sauvignon, and my first contribution to the evening, a St. Supery 2000 Dollarhide Ranch Cabernet. (www.stsupery.com)

These were some huge wines! The St. Supery was a bit softer but still had a ton of fruit, while the Townshend was huge… a bit more acidic, as is Don’s tendency, but easily worthy of another decade in the bottle. The five of us began our informal, highly subjective judging, and declared it a tie, with a caveat that we would taste again in a half hour or so.

We’d barely finished our first tastes of those when he poured his 2000 Cabernet Franc. It was one of the biggest wines I’ve had in years. It was a giant, and leapt into the running for the evening’s top wines. I love Cab Francs, but have had some disappointing ones as well, so it was a great surprise.

Now, we were using an air breather by “Air au Vin,” (www.airbreather.com) that breathes air into either a bottle or a glass of wine, equalling about an hour of decanting in about 30 seconds. We were able to “taste test” the new wines fresh from the bottle, and then airate them and taste them again; it makes a real difference.

Don then opened a second Cab Franc, this time a  1999 L’ Ecosse from California, that he had bought a case of years ago. On any other evening, it would have been a star, but while tasty, didn’t stack up to the Townshend Cab Franc.

Finally, he opened his 1999 Merlot. This is a Monster wine. As many of you likely remember, after the movie “Sideways,” Merlot sales fell, while Pinot sales climbed, and people kind of went off Merlot. I think it’s kind of ironic, since two of the most acclaimed, expensive and rare wines in the world are Merlots… yup, Chateau Petrus and Le Pin are both Merlots. I think Sideways did wine drinkers disservice, because with a wine like this, people are missing out! It is easily one of the best Merlots I have ever had, and Don said it might be one of his top two or three best wines he’s ever made, along with his Late Harvest Chenin Blanc, and his 95 Reserve Cab… Legacy wines.

I haven’t even got to tell you about dinner yet, so I guess I’ll be back to finish the story tomorrow!

Cheers,

WCI

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