Found me an interesting bottle today: the "French Fusion" by 90+ Cellars from the Lanquedoc, France region (southern Mediterranean along Spanish border): This is interesting for several reasons. One, the blend is the famous "GMS" (Grenache, Syrah, Mourverde grape blend--excellent breakdown here) known most famously from the Cotes du Rhone (France) region, but is also produced in Spain and Paso Robles, California... yet the wine is not labeled or marketed as such. 90+ Cellars is interesting. They buy wines from other wineries and throw them into their own bottles. The thinking with this (I suppose) is that it has an American looking package that doesn't clutter the label up with a bunch of foreign words. And they think by calling it "French Fusion" it'll sell better in the US, and they're probably right. Weird. A very nice wine though. Fairly light with blackberry and plum notes and just a bit if the smoked meat synonymous with the Syrah grape. $11. I've had decent luck with 90+ French wines, though most of their whites are dogshit.
That is very interesting indeed. I might pick some up and see for myself. So they're just bottling other brewer's wines and selling them cheaper. As a business model this strikes me as very odd, but at the same time it's genius if you can get enough quantity from those wineries at a low enough price. They said that people thought they were crazy pretty much, and I happen to agree, even though this is apparently working for them, it is rather...ambitious (actually, it's just insane). The logistics of this is unpresidented, and for many reasons. First, there needs to be enough stock that they can buy at that price that the winery is willing to part with. I imagine wineries also have excess that they can't sell, and possibly don't even bottle because they've moved on to their next batch already and the old one has filled all the orders that were placed for it. Buying up that excess stock at a lower price is probably something they'd be interested it (I'm assuming that there is excess, I don't really know how this works exactly). No business is going to sell product at a lower price unless there's a reason to do so. If there is wine sitting around from the batch, then that would be an excellent reason. My question is, how is there enough of it to provide 90+ wines with a consistent product that they don't have to worry about it changing? Maybe the answer is in the business model. Those wineries weren't able to sell as much as they were, so there's a lot more left not being bought. The market had changed, and people just aren't spending $20 on wine anymore. That leads to my next head-scratcher...why didn't the winery simply drop their price and sell it all themselves? Maybe pride? "We aren't going to allow our name to be shamed with a lower price point, keep it at $20." Long before 90+ came along, that's what I would have done though to make sure I was still selling wine. If I owned a winery that was losing money to this, if that was the case, then I'd have simply corrected the problem, they wouldn't have been able to make that deal. 90+ wines has to make sure they have enough stock, and a consistent product for each kind they are selling. If, for example, one year a winery did not have enough stock to sell them, then that product would either be in limited supply, or might be removed from the shelf entirely. If you can't make that deal with the winery each time for at least the same amount, that product would be unstable. There's a threat that each time you go to buy wine from those places, they might not have enough to sell you, especially if the market came back. That means that at any given time, you might have to pull a product from production. Maybe that shifting market is okay though, maybe one winery might have more to sell than another, so you just focus on the products you can make and don't worry about the others until there's enough to continue with production. That seems like it would cause other problems though... The entrepreneur in me says this is a bad idea, but maybe there's something I'm not getting. Or even yet, maybe the consistency isn't important at all, and simply putting anything similar in that bottle for that one product is all that matters. Who cares, so long as the wine is good at a cheaper price? Maybe I am the snobby businessman that wants a consistent product every time... Thought for the foodies I guess.
This ain't wine but it's thematically relevant: It's a Brazilian sugar cane liquor. My aunt got me the bottle for xmas and it's been sitting around every since. I didn't have any wine so I cracked it open today. It tastes kind of like a cross between tequila and vodka. Actually, it tastes like ass. And not fresh from the shower ass, but just climbed a mountain and mowed the lawn ass. Truly vile. I ended up making a kind of ghetto mojito thing with it using fresh mint, simple syrup, lime seltzer and fresh lemon (I didn't have any limes). It came out okay. Fairly refreshing. And the alcohol did its job. So there's that. I've lost close to 15 pounds by not drinking beer much anymore, but now I hear it calling me from the refrigerator.
Beer has telekinetic powers. Don't let them whisper their evil lies, always deceptive and manipulating. Don't give in! But that's pretty good, 15 pounds. I gained the ten that I lost recently, and I was actually starting to see a difference too, almost felt like a normal weight. Having purchased any wine for a while, or spirits in general, but this weekend maybe. The neighbors have become friends over the last year or so, and we're going over to play a drinking card game (can't remember the name). I already know who's winning this one, though. Even though I don't partake like I used to, heaven help the poor soul who tries drinking me under the table. If I can still handle half the liquor I used to, then yeah, I got this.
Okay, so we played that drinking game. Rum and tequila shots. I stuck with one kind, no mixing them, except someone brought out a bottle of sparkling wine, a Martini and Rossi. I had some of that, and it was rather good actually, but I soon would regret it. I won the game, but I knew that would happen. However, before going to bed later on, I had to call ralph a couple times on the big white telly. And man, oh man, was he pissed. Rum and bubbly...my only mistake was combining them. Regardless, I'm awake already, woke up around 7:30 am, don't remember when I went to bed, maybe around one or so. I'm fine, no hangover, nothin'. My better half is still sleeping, she's not used to drinking too much anymore, and she definitely is hung over. The neighbors...well, we can now have a moment of silence for the neighbors.... hahaha Edit: Yeah, must have been a wild night, I just found a bra that was put, and properly mind you, onto Snorlax (it's a big stuffed Snorlax, what can I say?). Poor guy got molested by a bunch of drunks. lol
My wife is hungover, too, which is fine by me. Saved my ass from having to go out and do a bunch of stuff. Not that I don't like doing stuff, but I hate doing it on Saturdays when our town turns into a fucking zombie apocalypse. Streets clogged with cars, rivers choked with dipshit kayakers and tubers, every restaurant from here to Maine stuffed full of sniveling, screaming children.... (shudders--I can't wait for summer to end)
Hey @Homer Potvin, thanks for the Sour Grapes documentary recommendation. Mr. Kelly and I watched it last night on Netflix and it was excellent!
Right? What a magnificent bastard! It's almost a perfect scam because there's no real way to verify the authenticity of the wine by tasting it, and the dudes who buy it don't even drink it half the time. If they did a better job faking the label they'd be harder to spot. There was a Law and Order about a wine forger who got his ass killed. That was the first time I'd heard about it.
I have not been active at all on this forum in the last month or so but figured I'd share that I'll be in Lodi for 2 days in about a month (part of a 3 week road trip, yay!) and will be getting the rockstar treatment at Michael David Winery thanks to their representative (perks of being in the industry). I will probably be checking out Klinker Brick (another one we carry at the store) and maybe some others. There's loads in Lodi. Looking forward to it. It will be in my first time in California, mainly going for Yosemite, Joshua Tree, Death Valley and the John Muir Trail Edit: Forgot Oak Ridge Winery are in Lodi too. They are quite big with brands like OZV and Old Soul. Probably worth a visit!
@HistoricalScience Sounds like quite a trip. Be sure and tell us about it later. I haven't been posting much in this thread lately because I just haven't been buying wine for several weeks. I did pick some cooking wine, but I compromised on price and got a bottle of Dark Horse Pinot Grigio at $7.50. It was easier to drink than the Bay Bridge by far, but is wasn't too memorable. I will say that the first few sips I actually tasted some depth to the wine, orange and lemon backdrops mostly, but then it soon became overwhelmed by a flurry of free radicals.
I like wine. Perhaps too much, lol. I prefer the whites- Reislings are my favorite, they are a nice blend of sweet and tangy. I also enjoy Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc, and the occasional Chardonnay, but I can't drink much chardonnay without it starting to taste gross after a few glasses. Moscato is waaaayy to sweet for me, though I do enjoy the occasional White Zinfandel. A few notable wines that have stood out to me over the years... There was a local winery near where I went to college (in Pennsylvania) that had an amazing sweet red. They used to call it "Patriot Red" but now appear to have changed the name to "Benigna's Red". http://www.bcwinery.com/ourwines.html Wish I lived closer and could get a bottle of that again... Also enjoy HalloWine in the fall. https://store.dcwine.com/winery/product/hallowine/?age-verified=d3ad935657 It's a spiced apple wine, very yummy. I never did understand the use of the word "dry" to describe a liquid...can anyone educate me a bit more about that?
Apparently one theory is that in the past, wine was more often drunk "young", and therefore was more astringent, which produces the sense of dryness in the mouth. Sweet wines were less astringent, so the opposite of "sweet" was "dry". That's one theory.
Like ChickenFreak said, it's describing the taste, whether it's sweet or dry. I think the tannins come out a lot more in dry wines, and I believe that dryer wines will sometimes have more tannins, but that's really something for Homer Potvin to answer for us.
Speaking of dry, I finally found a nice dry, barely sweet Riesling that I love - Kudos 2015 by the NW Wine Company in Dundee, OR. So refreshing on this very warm summer night!
Nice... I actually made a note to get back into this thread. I had some cool shit to share but I forgot about it when I sobered up. Will try to get something up later tonight, though I've been mollifying this heat and humidity with some Bex Riesling (not quite dry but not offensively sweet) and I feel a small bender coming on.
Didn't see this earlier, but honestly I don't know if there's any correlation between tannins and dryness. If I had to guess, I'd say there's a greater correlation between body and the perception of tannins. Like anything else, and this is even more true for beer than wine, the heavier the body, the more "stuff" you feel in your mouth. Whatever you taste will be amplified, whether that's tannins, fruit notes, oakiness, whatever. Tannins have a dry, astringent taste to them anyway, so, yeah, they probably go hand in hand.
Well, I was half right, I guess. XD I'm trying to sell a set of concert speakers and an amplifier on EBay (been having good success on there so far, sold a grand worth of crap in a month). What does that have to do with wine, you ask? Well, these babies are worth some money, even used. I'm hoping to get half the full retail price, so I'll still end up with an extra $600 I never expected to get until recently. I'm planning on pulling a @Laurin Kelly , I'm going to use a portion of the funds to buy a bottle of wine that I would otherwise not even contemplate buying. My starting price is $50, and my absolute maximum is $120. Looking for a wine in that price range. Any bids? ...and by bids, I actually mean suggestions.
These are Wharfedale Pro, big ass speaker cabinets. There's two main speakers, 18" I think, per cabinet, and three or four tweeters. Bass is great, doesn't need a sub, but adding one would be awesome. I'll miss them if they do sell though, I just can't use them where I am now. I bought them when I lived in the industrial park of my old town, and I could turn them up as loud as I wanted and no one cared. Can't do that in a residential area though, plus my circuit breaker can't handle the bass when it drops. Lights used to flicker in my old place, not bad, but you could tell. Here, it just blows the breaker, even at low volumes sometimes. lol
