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Wine thread - what are you enjoying?

Wes

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Parker provided an independent rating for wines and vintages. Before him most consumers were forced to rely on advice from those with a pecuniary interest in selling them a wine.

So he removed a confounding factor, monetary bias. Sounds a bit like audio, eh?

Also, Parker is pretty consistent about his taste preferences. Mine are about 180 degrees from his, so it is easy to re-ordinate the axis of desire and avoid overblown vintages based on his advice.

Wine shop employees can sometimes be knowledgable but too often simply "bone up" on shelf talkers, etc. I find the folks at the local shops know less than I do except for wines I don't care much about.

If anyone, I pay attention to Monsieur Burghound, but I am biased and think a $600 Burg is better than a few thousand dollar Cabernet.

My goal is to be happy with $40 bottles of Burgundy or it's younger and limestone lacking sister, Oregon Pinot Noir.
 
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SIY

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Parker provided an independent rating for wines and vintages. Before him most consumers were forced to rely on advice from those with a pecuniary interest in selling them a wine.

Yes, that's his story. It's not particularly true, there were a LOT of very skilled critics out there who weren't in the wine-selling business. Bob's monetary bias was in selling himself as a product, his magazine, his appearances, his celebrity lifestyle stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but that inherently builds in its own biases; I used to joke that Parker never made any poor winemaker rich, but he made a lot of rich winemakers richer.:D It was an open secret in California that to get him to "discover" you and give high ratings, you had to pay certain wine consultants extremely high fees for a walk-through. Some wineries had special "Parker Cuvees" that never got sold to consumers, so reviews were often of wines different than the ones on the shelf. Certain importers could have access and good reviews, while others were deliberately shut out. And I personally witnessed him using legal and professional bullying tactics against people who questioned the quality of his work.

Really, it was just substituting one kind of corruption for another.

Also, Parker is pretty consistent about his taste preferences.
Partially true- indeed, he prefers big, heavy, woody, and thick, but within that category, I cannot find any particular consistency. For example, Ridge Montebello is a terrific wine. Screaming Eagle is not. Yet he describes and scores them similarly.


If anyone, I pay attention to Monsieur Burghound, but I am biased and think a $600 Burg is better than a few thousand dollar Cabernet.

Allen and I tasted together weekly for some years until I moved away from Sothern California. He's very good.
 

PaulD

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I think in Australia we were lucky that Parker was never a significant player. We had more influence from local wine critics and those from the UK. We had James Halliday as the local equivalent of Parker - patchy reviews but not overly influential fortunately. In around 1989 I gave away the only Parker book I ever had, and ignored him from then on. Maybe local producers were more concerned about Parker if they had international sales to consider. I do know some retailers who watched his writings though.

Parker did help to overinflated the price of some of our wines (Penfolds Grange for example), but none that I was interested in buying. He seemed to stay away from our more boutique producers, or perhaps never saw them anywhere. Except for Rutherglen fortifieds - he wrote something about these a long time ago and caused an international stampede for them that drove me out of the market. Luckily that has now past, just another fad, and the wines are as good as ever and fairly priced. I still get a giggle out of people buying Grange, we have much better wines at a lot less money.
 

Wes

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I was not aware of any critics much pre-Porker. If so, they were not widely publicized so his self-promo may have helped in some collateral fashion.

I'm not a fan of Calif. wines at all, tho I liked the Heitz Martha's I had... never tried Screaming Beagle.

----

Interested to hear the about the much better wines at a lot less money than grange.

...or about Argentinian wines...
 

Aldoszx

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1613417866723.png
 

PaulD

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Interested to hear the about the much better wines at a lot less money than grange.
In Australia, not that I drink them any more (I've been seduced by red burgundy and the similar spätburgunders), I would list:
Mount Langhi Ghiran Langhi Shiraz
Mount Mary Cabernets
Henschke Hill of Grace
Wendouree shiraz
Bests Family shiraz
Cullen cabernet
Moss Wood cabernet
Wynns John Riddoch cabernet

Hope that helps Wes!
 

Wes

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Thx - I'll keep a lookout for those.
 

SIY

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Embarrassing story: Years ago, the legendary Wine Box gang in the LA area would have an annual tasting contest against an LA Sommeliers' Society team. Three per team, and given blind samples, the teams name variety, vintage, origin, and producer. It was always a fun event. One year, I was on the Wine Box team, and about midway through the evening we were doing pretty well. A red was placed in front of us. We huddled up as usual. "It's a Syrah." "Yeah, and it has to be a Jaboulet, I recognize a little sour milk smell, that's the house style," "Well, it's not an Hermitage, so I'm thinking Crozes, from the slatey sort of smell." "Yeah, but it's not their regular Crozes, it's the Thalabert." "Yup, and a '91." Nods of agreement.

The sommeliers go first. They announce, "This is a Jaboulet Crozes-Hermitage, Domaine de Thalabert, 1991."

Well, how lame is "ditto" going to sound? We sheepishly admitted to coming to the identical conclusion.

Unveiled:

1613438704158.png
 
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They strike me as being above Sanzay and Guiberteau, but not quite at the lofty height or price of the region's obvious most famous producer.
 

TulseLuper

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They strike me as being above Sanzay and Guiberteau, but not quite at the lofty height or price of the region's obvious most famous producer.

Haven't had Sanzay, but I agree with that otherwise. Collier's La Ripaille is up there with Germain for me, when you get a good bottle. IMO Obvious most famous producer deserves the reputation, but recent pricing makes it a bit hard to get excited about.
 
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Haven't had Sanzay, but I agree with that otherwise. Collier's La Ripaille is up there with Germain for me, when you get a good bottle. IMO Obvious most famous producer deserves the reputation, but recent pricing makes it a bit hard to get excited about.
I totally forgot about Domaine du Collier.

Oh man it would be fun to do a horizontal tasting of the top producers in the region once such gatherings can finally be safely done. I'm going to keep that in mind for a long overdue reunion with the wine nerds.
 

TulseLuper

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Hell yeah. Despite drinking less with friends, I bought more wine in 2020 than ever. So I'm gonna need a lot of those nights once it's possible.
 

Wes

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I hear a lot about Thierry Germaine from Kermit (Steve) Lynch. He seems to have gone back to trad. methods to put the Loire (back) on the map.
 

Wes

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It is horrifying to think that someone is drinking a 2016 already.
 
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