Wine ThreadFollow

Punch a hole in the top. It's way easier to shotgun that way.

I've heard people refer to Champagne as French Champagne, but only husbands who were doing their best to impress their wife with their level of worldly knowledge. That was when I stepped in to help usually.

<--- Ran the Wine and Beer Department for a chain of stores known as Cost Plus World Market. Fun job as a 21 yr old, got tons of free wines and beers from vendors, picked up some gigs as an unoffical party sommelier at some big Dr. and Lawyer parties. I just poured wine and babbled bs about terrior as I gazed down the dresses of many a buxom blonde.

Lucky really. They gave me a job opening a store in beautiful San Luis Obispo and made me one of the store managers within the end of the week. I happened to be the only one able to pick up a case of wine, so bingo.

Oddly enough, my roomate the year before was the victim of many a cork dork jokes. I hated wine when I started, adored it when I left. The beers, oh the beers I've tasted.

Greatest job ever.

There there, you tell Uncle Neph what's wrong...

That's been my experience as well.

Nexa

Well, I tried to keep out of this thread for fear of being branded a snob, but I gotta admit some of you know your shi't much better than I do.

I'm not a huge fan of drinking wine for the sake of drinking wine. And I only drink non-French wines when I'm at a party/dinner and don't want to be rude. But otherwise, I only ever buy French wine, so I know nothing about Californian/Chili/South African stuff.

I can, however, give one good tip for buying French wine. There are two ways to make sure the wine you buy will be at worst decent, and at best fantastic:

French wines can be two things: "Vin de Pays", or "Appletion Controllé". On the label, it will say either of those things. A "Vin de Pays" will usually be disgusting, while an "Apellation controllée" will usually be decent. That's teh first step.

Once you've found your "Appellation Controllée", check how it was bottled. If, on the label, it says anything else than "Mis en bouteille au Chateau" ("bottled in the castle"), it means that the winemakers have taken different grapes from different vineyards, some of them probably incompatible, and mixed them together. This is usually the sign that the wine won't be great.

But if it says both "Appellation Controllée" and "Mis en bouteille au Chateau", it means the grapes are pure, and the wine was made from a single vineyard. This is, in 80% of the cases, a sure sign that the wine will of good quality, that you won't get any kind of hangover the next day (unless you mix of course), and that enlightenment is approaching.

As for Champagne, the Pink Laurent-Perrier is my favourite by a mile. I could drink that all day, everyday...

The most important thing you should have learned from this thread is that Neph and I make drinking cheap wine look good.

Nexa

Re-reading this paragraph, all i can say is that the documentary is really much better, and slightly more complex, than I make it sound.

IT is pretty good. The funniest part is Michael Rolland driving around to every vineyard carefully tasting the wine in barrel, then saying "you need to microxygenate" "Hmm, this win...needs to be microxygenated"

I could go off on a rant about how all red wines have to meet Robert Parker's fruity standards, but I won't.

He was such a ******...

St-Emilion 1978? Microxygenate!
Ribena? Microxygenate!
Milk? Microxygenate!
I just took a piSs? Microxygenate!

But the little old guy leading the resistance, Aimé Guibert, was quite adorable.



Edited, Jul 11th 2007 2:24pm by RedPhoenixxx

Honestly, the best thing I've used to store an half-filled bottle of wine is a piece of heavy duty foil slightly stuffed into the top and wrapped tightly around the lip.
Sometimes I buy a couple of 40's of Private Stock for old times sake. It's funny looking at the store clerks with a bottle of Corsendonk in one hand and a bottle of Haffenraffer in the other.
I don't think most people know what that is.

Just sayin'

Ribena, a kid's drink made from 95% blackcurrent goodness, or something.

If you like red wine i highly recommend: Chateaux neuf du pape it IS more expencive than you off the shelf cheap crap but you WILL know the difference.

Only if it's a good one (as I mentioned earlier).

In UK the price range is £6 to £90 (unless you're into the mega-pricey vintages)

If it's under £10, save your money and buy a St Emilion claret or a good Chilean Cabernet. Cheap Chateau neuf is undrinkable, but the more expensive stuff (£15 to £25) is superb.

On a side note, the town of Chteau neuf du pape is a Shithole, but when my car broke down there, the local mechanic fixed my car (extremely well) while his wife cooked me dinner (delicious), and they refused to take a penny. Bloody nice people.