So who knows about The Gold Medal Wine Club? They’ve got 5 different wine clubs and all of them offer highly rated award winning wines. If you’re looking to grow your own wine cellar or send a wine club gift to someone special I’m sure they’ll appreciate any of the 5 clubs from Gold Medal. The Gold and Platinum series are ideal as gifts… they are good value and still great wines. But if you’re buying for a real wine snob I suggest the Diamond Series. All of these wines are 93+ and are sure to please.

Everyone knows a Pinot fan… and now you have the perfect gift for them. You can get a Pinot Noir wine club from Gold Medal. Most of the selection comes from California but some also comes from around the world. If you’re really looking to experience different parts of the world then I’d suggest the International Series. The special part of this club is that these wineries cannot be found in the US. So they’re great additions to your cellar.

They’ve also got some tasting notes videos on their site. So if you’re not sure what to look for in a wine they’ve got you covered. The videos give some background on the winery, what to eat with the wine, etc. I think it’s a great idea!

They also do gift baskets… so if you’re looking for a one time gift rather than a recurring wine club I’d suggest the basket. Everyone’s always excited to get a gift basket.

Well I’m off to the grocery store. See you next week!

California Wine, International Wine, Pinot Noir, Uncategorized, Wine Club, Wine Club Gift, Wine Education 93+, Gold Medal Wine club, International Wine, Pinot Noir

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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