Wine ThreadFollow

Depends on the wine. Some mellow out with age and some turn to vinegar or turpentine.

Bolla; Valpolicella: It's a table wine so it's best to drink it when it's young. Not worth putting up a case or two and don't bother buying it if it's more than a couple years old (at most). Also, don't confuse it for the Amarone which is considerably more expensive, but also a much better wine.

Shooting Star; Syrah: Not really much of a syrah man myself, but I've taken a shining to this particular brand. Inexpensive and tasty, goes good with both stuff and things.

http://www.localwineevents.com/Miami-Wine/

You can probably find something there you like. You can find free tastings at many wine shops and/or restaurants. You can also get tickets for stuff like from the link above. They generally feed you there and the food is usually pretty good. Also, if you head to disney (if that's kinda close to miami) and they have wine tastings at some of the shops @Epcot. Look online for food and wine festivals, vineyards love to give away wine at those things and you will probably be ********* and stuffed to the gils with tasty vittles when you leave.

It's far too hot to just sip red wines without pairing, pick up a slightly chilled Sauvignon Blanc or Pouilly Fume, a close cousin.

Readily available and affordable, Blackstone Merlot, Chateua Souverain, Bodega Norton Malbec, any Ravenswood Zin (the VB is probably the most available), and gulp, Charles Shaw. Firesteed Pinot Noir and Central Coast Cali Pinots. All common to find and pretty reliable.

Nothing beats a $2 bottle, because after 3 glasses, it all tastes the same.

The vintage you will be buying in the stores won't make a ton of difference unless they have actually aged it for you, given that every vintage is completely different. Find a good wine you love, buy the hell out of that vintage, and enjoy for years as a staple to fall back onto.

The only wines worth aging imo are heavy reds, 10 yrs for cabs/meritages, 5-7 for Merlots and Zins, 3-5 for a Pinot Noir.

Serve all slightly chilled, reds for a couple of minutes, store with the cork the right side back in, in the fridge. All those gadgets that suck air out and drop in heavy gases don't make a ton of difference. My personal philosophy, don't open a bottle you aren't willing to finish.

Most of all, try everything once. You never know what a new country, region, etc will hold. That's the fun of it.

I have rarely been disappointed with [link=www.cuvaison.com]Cuvaison[/link]. I am not a white wine drinker, so their Chard, while reportedly very tasty, is not something I have firsthand experience with. Their Cabs and Merlots, however, are quite tasty.

My favorite wine is not available at retail, V. Sattui, but they are more than worth the price of admission. Their 96 Morisoli cabernet is one of the better wines I have ever had, and that vinyard turns out great wine year after year. Their Zins are also fabulous, and as a rule I would recommend anything they pour without reservation, with the understanding that you get what you pay for. If you are ever in the Napa Valley, stop by their winery in St. Helena. You won't regret it. It is the only place I have ever recommended as a must stop at winery, and I have been to over 300 wineries in the valley and surrounding area.

If you want a good table wine, not shabby for $10 a bottle, try Coppola's Rosso. Let it breath and it should be nice and tasty with a meat meal.

A word on wine's age and handling. A young wine simply hasn't had enough time to mature. Reds, good reds, really need at least 3 years to be drinkable. Pinot Noirs are a little less, Cabs and Zins a little longer. Table wines will never really mature, so pop the cork, give it 30 minutes of open air (decanted, please), and get sloppy. White wines are totally different, and I have no opinion on any but Sauvignon Blancs. WHITE WINE SHOULD NOT BE THE TEMPERATURE OF A REFRIGERATOR!!!!

Let any red you drink breath. Young wines to mellow the tanins, older wines to let them bloom a bit. You'll enjoy them more, trust me.

You can find great bottles for less than $20. You will drink a lot of sh;t to find them, but they are there. You can drink a lot of sh;t for more than $20 a bottle, too, but you will find fewer on average.

I grew up in Napa, so I focus mostly on California wines, but there are a lot of international wines out there that are really f'ucking good, too, I just know fewer of them.

Unless it's a 30 year old vintage, none of the sommeliers I use bother with 'breathing' any more. UK, France or Italy.

I'll bow to Moe as he seem to know more about this than I, but in London & Paris, nobody does it with wines below the $100-a-bottle or aged wines any more

Decanting and aerating even $10 Reds make a big difference in the end result. Not big enough to bother with most of the time, grant you, but certainly noticable.

Hmm. Yet to be convinced. First time I paid more than 50 quid for a bottle of red I was horrified that the Sommelier opened it at the table and poured straight away.

When I asked about breathing it, he looked down his nose at me and said "Sir still holds the 1960s in affection?"

In the last 10 years I've never seen a sommelier (and no, I don't mean wine waiter) breathe red wines.

In the last 10 years I've never seen a sommelier (and no, I don't mean wine waiter) breathe red wines.

Me either. On the other hand I've decanted wine and left it for three hours and then had a bottle from the same case and it tastes entirely different. Particularly less mature wines. I tend to find it actually less of an issue with wines that are close to peaking. So maybe he was on about that. I don't think letting wine breathe in bottle accomplishes much from a taste or physics standpoint, but decanting it to a container where more oxygen can hit it really seems to make a difference. Also I'm the last guy to do something for traditions sake, if I thought it tasted the same, or even fairly close, I wouldn't bother. Even thinking it makes a fair difference I often don't bother anyway.

You probably can't find this locally, but The Biltmore Estate makes wonderful red wines and sparkling wines. I prefer dry red wines to the fruity sweet stuff. Their affordable, my favorite from them is their sparkling Méthode Champenoise Blanc de Noir–Brut. It's great w/a cheese and fruit platter (brie, strawberries, and some dark chocolate) /yummy

I've found that just a couple minutes to let a cheaper red breathe helps to "open" the wine and get rid of some of the bitterness.
Maybe I've been bamboozled, but

I've always love Veuve Cliquot or even White Star. Hell, The Doggfather himself keeps his fridge stacked to the tizzle with it.

OK. Granted, I don't mind paying over the odds for Cliquot.

oh, for a spicy white, ice-chilled and peppery, Portugal's 'Vinho Verde' is yummy if you find a nice one.

Perchance it's an Oklahomianism

Not because I don't know the difference, but because if I say sparkling wine in NC someone is gonna bring back Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill

I drank sparkling strawberry wine just recently, because I'm just that polite.

I was assured, though, that it was the good kind.

:)



Edited, Jul 10th 2007 6:40pm by Smasharoo