UTMC

So, I sit here in my hotel room drinking a bottle of Chilean wine...it's an inexpensive yet tasty 2001 Reserve (although I think 2001 fared better for Australia than it did for Chile), and of a label I had never run across prior to this evening's happenstance visit to a local liquor store in Chickentown, USA. As I post on this board, it seems somehow appropriate that I am slowly refilling my glass of Royal Bitch Merlot. Cheers.

I will have to look for some, I know when I was in Hawaii I was heavily turned on by some of the Aussie wines that weren't available to the general US market at the time that are still impossible to find now. Though I prefer a Pinot Grigio and am not much for Reds at all...

I like the French-labelled Fat Bastard. I haven't tried a wine from Chile before, but Royal Bitch sounds interesting. Does it have a vinegary, bitter aftertaste?

I don't know much about wine. Does Jack Daniels make wine?

There's a california winery called Murphy-Goode (and Ready, but the Ready is only on the cork, for obvious reasons) that makes a great wine called Liar's Dice. It's appx $20 a bottle tho, so just get it for those special occasions.

...unless you're rich or something.

Bonny Doon makes a wide variety of wines with fun names. One of my favorites is "Cardinal Zin."

I have to thank Freek Show for turning me on to Malbecs, specifically Alamos, I believe, Las Hormigas. I have yet to try Fat Bastard, though I keep receiving recommendations on it. Oh, and I highly recommend Bolla's Valpolicella. As to smashinator's comment, the one bottle I will consistently spend $30something on is (and, yes, Goose, it's a Cali wine) Clos du Bois Marlstone. I could go on and on...ahhh.

Shit bucks is like 20 something 40's... I mean if you keep it in the paper bag what the diff right...

A few years back I stopped to pick up a bottle of wine at Argonaut Liquors on the way home from work. Lisa was making a nice dinner, and I figured it would be good to have tasty beverage to go with. Working in fancy restaurants for many years of course, the only stuff I knew the taste of was expensive stuff that I couldn't afford. So as I'm trying to make a guess as to what would be good, I find this bottle of French red from 1976. The price was seven bucks, so I figured it must be crap. Of course I'd never had wine that old, so what the hell eh?

I get the bottle home and we pop it open for dinner. It turns out to be the best wine Lisa and I had ever tasted, no contest. So we decide to look it up online to see if we can get more info (maybe the place is still in business). It turns out that a bottle of this stuff from 1976 usually goes for around $400 at auction The next night we finished the bottle off with a nice steak dinner! Best seven bucks I ever spent on something with alcohol in it!

my god, are all wines this expensive over there ?

no sweet luxembourg white bottles for 2 euro ?
no bulgarian headhache for 1,5 euro?!?

Yea. I have digressed from wine on down to beer with my poor ass, lately.
I just can't stand cheap wine. If I have to drink cheap, I'm going to drink some Fat Tire or something or nothing at all.
The only decent cheap wine I ever had was Sangria, but I forget the brand.
Then again there is also Takara. That stuff is fairly cheap and oh-so-yummy. Gotta love 'Japanese' wines!

peu importe le flacon pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse

xtian - there are some pretty decent ones for less than $10 (esp. because there was a grape surplus recently...), but in general, cheap wine here sucks ass.

...Oh for the days when I lived in Germany, and I could go into any bar, ask for a "beer" without any further specification, and be relatively certain that what I would receive would be drinkable, and cost less than 5 Marks.

xtian wrote:my god, are all wines this expensive over there ?

no sweet luxembourg white bottles for 2 euro ?
no bulgarian headhache for 1,5 euro?!?

Where do you shop for wine?
Non-specified origin headache, 69 cents!

When I'm going for cheap, I'll generally head for Bull's Blood, a Hungarian wine generally purchased for $5.99 USD.

I dunno what the deal is with wine. Allthough I try to appreciate the finer things in life, I'll be damned if a 1975 Chateu Lafite Rothschild tastes notably better than a 20 euro frenchy from the better shelf in the better supermarket. I know, I am a philistine. While I can usually tell the difference between cheap 3 year old blended Scotch and an 18 year old single malt (most of the time), or tell a Sumatra from a Brazil cigar (which, on the other hand is easy), I am so totally lost with wines that it takes the meanest mixed leftover swill that was too bad even for the cheap wino's cognac stills to use for me to tell that it is indeed a bad wine.

I had some wine with a turkey dish in Budapest and it was great stuff. My buddy, who's part owner of a Mexican restaurant there (hey!...even I wouldn't make THAT up) told me that the Hungarians produce some top notch reds and have been doing so for hundreds of years. They just don't have the marketing savvy and capacity of the French.

DerGolgo wrote:I dunno what the deal is with wine.

Me neither. I just try to remember which ones I like.

My wife and I committed to learning more about wine a few years ago and joined one of those "Wine of the Month" type clubs. Now I don't claim to be even close to well informed, but I did learn about different types of wines that I like. Based on that, I find it's a lot easier to head down to Argonazi's and pick through their collection of wines and find something reasonably priced that tastes yummy. I've found I'm particularly fond of Gerwurtraminers and Vouvray's. Very flexible wines that can compliment everything from appetizers to desserts. That being said, don't think for a second that I'm not still a beer snob first and foremost!

ha ha ha ha......

loved the drunky phone call & message.

miss you DEARLY.

promise to send month-old letter ASAP (hopefully tommorrow!)
and even write a new one to update on everything since then. and UH, where's my update on el polloville? HRRRRMMMMMMMM lucy?

HI. using message board has personal message space.

It's the tequila. Damn tequila.

ON TOPIC: I recommend Cakebread -- it's a white. No more info, but dear, sweet lord is that shit good. I don't even like wine and I can go through BOTTLES. Generally, only if someone else is buying cause it's 'spensive.
but maybe I shall pick up a bottle or two for your visit?

xoxox

p.s. I second the recommendation of Fat Bastard. Again, from a girl who would rather be consuming tequila/vodka... soooooo tasty.

aye! back to margaritaville!!!!

(ummmm....someone needs to TAKE THE TEQUILA AWAY)

xx

Muppet wrote:ON TOPIC: I recommend Cakebread -- it's a white. No more info, but dear, sweet lord is that shit good. I don't even like wine and I can go through BOTTLES. Generally, only if someone else is buying cause it's 'spensive.
but maybe I shall pick up a bottle or two for your visit?

If it's anything like that superdelicious South African Guwerstrameiner you brought back for Pat and me, then Hell yeah!!! I'm sure there will be much grape-byproduct consumption to be had during my visit!

Muppet wrote:
(ummmm....someone needs to TAKE THE TEQUILA AWAY)

pours a bodyshot with Family Reserve Anejo

wyckedsin wrote:

Muppet wrote:
(ummmm....someone needs to TAKE THE TEQUILA AWAY)

pours a bodyshot with Family Reserve Anejo

Is that a bit incestuous to do a body shot with a family reserve???

rhinoviper wrote:

wyckedsin wrote:

Muppet wrote:
(ummmm....someone needs to TAKE THE TEQUILA AWAY)

pours a bodyshot with Family Reserve Anejo

Is that a bit incestuous to do a body shot with a family reserve???

I bet you are familiar with the phrase:
"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, FLOOR!"

Can't get real drunk on wine, makes me ill. Now PORT on the other hand is a mighty desireable and tasty fluid to me. Took a informal wine tasting class and learned about port years ago. Damn well worth it.

brockster wrote: I bet you are familiar with the phrase:
"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, FLOOR!"

Can't get real drunk on wine, makes me ill. Now PORT on the other hand is a mighty desireable and tasty fluid to me. Took a informal wine tasting class and learned about port years ago. Damn well worth it.

I'll never tell how familiar I am with that phrase!

Wine makes me, um, how shall we say, a bit "frisky"??

Gee, I'm all alone in my corporate apartment and halfway through a bottle of Clos du Bois Cab. Mmmmm...2001 was a good year! Excuse me while I, um, go, um, wash my hair, yeah, that's it!

you big tease!!!