The Cheese Board, what are you drinking?

Damned images.

https://cdn1.wine-searcher.net/images/labels/02/59/kikusui-funaguchi-ichiban-shibori-nama-genshu-honjozo-sake-niigata-japan-10300259.jpg

http://cdn8.bigcommerce.com/s-7a906/images/stencil/1000x1000/products/6853/11914/Narutotai-Ginjo-Namagenshu-720ML__10634.1498242657.jpg?c=2

xpost If you like barbera and rhone reds, you would probably like other random Italian reds (not chianti or barolo or montepulciano or basically anything pricey). Try a cheapish Barbarsesco or Ghemme although that may not have the color you want. Sagrantino or Lacryma Christi (tears of christ from Mt Vesuvius) are two of my favorite reds. But really, I think Italian wine is so great because it has so many styles and weirdnesses that I like. Also Sicilian reds (Cerasualo di Vittoria, Occhipinto and COS are two big producers, they are related) are probably something you would enjoy because it's frappato/nero'd'avolo which if you like pinot noir it's kind of in that same vein, lighter can be served slightly chilled, easy drinking. But funkier. I like a lot of syrahs from Washington. Colder vintages, it tastes like black olives. But you would probaly like some of the reds from Languedoc Roissillon, they are medium body, some blends. ALso Cahors which is the French malbec/cot.

late to this but the Willamette Valley is really coming into its own re: wines

Languedoc Roissillon, they are medium body, some blends. Also Cahors which is the French malbec/cot.

That is a very good arc of France from the Languedoc to the haute Garonne(OK Lot but the water still ends up at Bordeaux.: see also Corbieres, Madiran, Sabazan, Buzet

If you want to break down wines (although I have used it for beer and sake tastings) and have fun, this is the current court of master sommeliers blind deductive tasting grid.

http://www.courtofmastersommeliers.org/wp-content/uploads/Deductive-Tasting-Grid-Dec-2016.pdf

you hit on a lot of adjacent wines that i've enjoyed! i will have to track down some washington syrahs--v intriguing and something i've definitely never had.

Ha, I don't have a sweet tooth and a lot of american wines are too high alcohol and too fruit forward which tastes sweet even though they were fermented dry. So you have to look for american wine producers who make more subtle euro style wines. Like Sandhi in CA makes french styled Chardonnay. Also any wines over say 13.5%, you are not likely having a second bottle and it tips over into feeling unbalanced for me although a lot of people like that burn of alchohol. Some Australian shiraz are like 16%!

Ed, you should study to be a sake samurai.

xp lol yup, every once in a while i'm in the mood for a brutal 15% california zinfandel, usually i just pick up something from ridge b/c they know how to do that well. that happens maybe once a year at best.

part of the prob with american wines is economic, for ex. i really like ridge stuff, i like cakebread chardonnay a lot, those are intense and fruit forward wines but they have other interesting aspect. but also those are $35-$50 bottles. american wine <$20 is a nightmare. otoh there are $9 barberas i'll happily drink anytime.

Yeah, decent American wine, while living in America, is super overpriced. But since it's only for heathens and whores, that's the tax I guess.

two years ago I went from living in france for half of the year to living in Hawaii and it was a rude wine awakening. First time I routinely bought drugstore/supermarket CA wines. We got a lot of that Rex Goliath wine. I actually though it was fine. If I could find a Louis Jadot at Costco though, I was in heaven.And don't even start with me about being unable to find dry riesling. Ugh. #firstworldproblems

I’m not a wine drinker but i can usually find decent zins from some little town in central/northern california for about $15 — i guess that’s expensive compared to france where babies are fed wine instead of formula

Yeah, I really like Dry Creek zins and Italian primitivos. ZInfandel got a bad break for awhile after the whole white zin thing.

@Yerac:

My fave of the Willamette Valley is Crowley. I hope (think?) you'd appreciate.

Yerac, have you ever had the TJ's pine ridge chenin blanc + viognier?

I also love chenin blanc but there's not too much out here (even if it's bad)

Albert, I will look into it. I rarely buy Willamette though because I think it's slightly, 10%, overpriced.

Is the TK Chenin Viognier off dry? I had something they were tasting the other day and it was off dry. I got the one dry vouvray that they had though. It was fine.

I literally have 5 bottles of Huet Vouvray beside my bed right now that I plan on taking back to my home home.

sometimes you get decent discounts at world market if you get their free membership

bought a tj's gigondas as a treat the other day(not sure why i just didn't get a chateauneuf, but) - saving it for when there's some reason to celebrate. been drinking their cheapo but decent gruner vetliner lately. not mindblowing but it's a underrated grape imo. i've tried with zins and i think they're just generally harvested too late for my liking. the ones that i've tasted (it's my sister's fave grape besides gamay so she always has some at her place) just /seem/ so damn sweet and i think i hate wines over 13% or so. still living in a wine and cheese desert though and i'm not happy abt that

I was on a little bit of a gruner veltliner kick for a while and started thinking I would like any/all of them and then I got one that was too tart even for me. So I might need to back off a little.

I may have mentioned it on this or another thread, but I have a friend that thinks all zin smells like blueberry cobbler.

I am drinking Schäfer-Fröhlich, riesling "Felseneck". I ordered it off the internet because I like SF, but I didn't check the alcohol, (only like 7.5) so it's off dry and I was holding off drinking it because I never feel like off dry, but I am totally feeling it now.

I don't remember how to drink red wine btw since I switched to white/sparkling all summer. I opened a bottle of this organic tempranillo yesterday that I usually think of as being pretty soft and gentle and it was killing me about halfway through the bottle.

xpost I did a harvest in Vacqueyras (also nice and affordable, more so than Gigondas and definitely more than CdP) and it was quite easy to stroll over to Gigondas or a longer walk to Beaumes de Venise.

It's this one, and it's a super buy at $9.99.

https://www.midvalleywine.com/images/sites/midvalleywine/labels/bodegas-volver-venta-morales-organic-tempranillo_1.jpg

Put that in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. I personally would keep it in the fridge and just take it out 15 minutes before drinking.

I love almost all whites (so racist!). Except I still can't really love viognier or pinot grigio/gris. I think it's the alcohol and sometimes bitter/oilyness.

Vacqueyras duly noted. what did you mean by "I think it's the alcohol". holy shit, that Schäfer-Fröhlich wine you mentioned gets extreme raves: https://www.klwines.com/p/i?i=1334124

All Schäfer-Fröhlich is a winner. Viognier and pinot griogio can get too high alcohol for me. But that is also why some people love them so much.

Oh, I am drinking the kabinett Felseneck SF, a lot cheaper.

xpost I did a harvest in Vacqueyras (also nice and affordable, more so than Gigondas and definitely more than CdP) and it was quite easy to stroll over to Gigondas or a longer walk to Beaumes de Venise.

― Yerac, Saturday, September 22, 2018 6:38 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm going to be down there (prob staying in orange) in november or december. not the best season but if you have any tips/recs for wine stuff or otherwise i'd appreciate them.

Some things will have abbreviated schedules because it will be after harvest. And like most places in France things are closed, or close early on Sundays/Mondays, and for lunch. I think most tasting rooms close around 6pm or 7. I have only been in Orange to take a local train back to Lyon. Why not stay in Avignon? This tasting room is right off the train, so if you don't have a car, it's easy (like you can see it from the train). https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g674303-d3672918-Reviews-Chapoutier_Tasting_Room-Tain_l_Hermitage_Drome_Auvergne_Rhone_Alpes.html

The villages of Gigondas, Vacqyueras and even CdP are pretty small. Gigondas has a good tasting room right in the middle. If you have a car for CdP, I like Chateau la Nerthe and Vieux Telegraphe. And take pics of all the galets (puddingstones). It's going to be pretty grey and dead by that time of year, so if you want to go anywhere I would email ahead to make sure they are receiving people. The place I did a harvest is a bit hard to find but the proprietor speaks english and that vineyard used to be owned by Steven Spurrier. http://www.closdecaveau.com/

Oh, and not wine, but if you are there at the beginning of December you have to go to the Fete des Lumieres in Lyon (short train ride). I love it. http://www.fetedeslumieres.lyon.fr/en

thanks, that's all really helpful. we're visiting someone who's going to be in bagnols-sur-ceze so we may well stay in avignon--orange is just a little closer. i'm perfectly happy to rent a car and cruise around some small villages but it's helpful to get a sense of what may or may not be going on.

orange is very nice fwiw. I’ve spent more time in Avignon because it’s bigger but it brings the hassles of a bigger town

I do not know these wines but now I must!

A long day of whiskey and sake. Yoichi distillery was worth the trip. A really beautiful spot, very generous tasting pours, at least of the generic blended stuff which were also free. Had to pay for the rarer stuff, yoichi 10 and 21, the 10 is non existent outside the distillery. That said it’s not the richest or biggest of whiskeys at any age, there’s some peat but not a lot, somesweetness but not a lot. All in all I think I prefer the nikka from the barrel and nikka Coffey grain/malt blends to the single malts.

On to tanaka shuzuo Sake brewery. Healy interesting to taste the junmai daiginjo and and daiginjo (honjozo) from the same brewery same year. Honjozo hands down winner, crisper, cleaner and more separation in the flavours.

Back to Sapporo, dinner with Suntory Haiboru then onto a cat themed sake bar on the 6th floor of a building full of maid and nurse themed establishments. Super enthusiastic owner who knew everything about every bottle in the place, but spoke so fast it was super hard to follow. I did get that one bottle was from Hiroshima and the brewery was up a twisty road but this was about the best I could do, (she also had a 21 year old cat at home). Most interesting was was something called Cocoromi Protype Junmai, made with all white (no red koji), really great citrusy flavours.

More studying of photographs of labels needed to work out exactly what I was drinking.

Woah! Sounds COMPLETELY epic, Ed

I am trying to pick something to drink for Halloween. Who has a plan?

I am doing a DJ set and will probably stick with pale ale, sorry for boring

A friend posted a picture of amaros available at a local liquor store and Pelinkovac looked interesting

I have never had a spirit from Croatia. Would try (even though I don't love anise flavored anything).

We order in indian and I opened a 2012 Albert Boxler riesling and a not important Vosne-Romanée Bourgogne.

we had a very very pale languedoc rosé

the dead rabbit's "mixology and mayhem" arrived today so i was excited to scan through that. as anticipated i found exactly *one* drink i could make with my (very extensive) home bar without needing to make a purchase or do an infusion/tincture/etc. my initial reading is that this book doesn't have the same madcap genius of their first (understandable, since that guy isn't developing recipes anymore) but will still have some fun stuff to work on.

the drink i could make, an irish whiskey/campari/cacao/banana/absinthe joint, is a full-bodied winter warmer.

Once upon a time, I had the cachet to draw out a Yerac & and a young Ian but those days have expired. I feel like I owe CAD a decent night out of refreshments at some point (& place).

Tonight I enjoyed the Nelson Sauvin (NZ) hop to its fullest.

I brought some vinho verte back from Portugal, will be next week’s drink.

But this week we are in England, and so ESB has been the order of the day.

I was just working for 2 months 2 bocks form Dead Rabbit and never went. Next time maybe.

That Albert Boxler (not albert broccoli) was delicious.

CAD is the first Dead Rabbit book a good one? I have been thinking about an interesting cocktail book as a gift for someone.

I love British beer but I will be delighted if I never have another pint of ESB (or ESB equivalent).

the first dead rabbit book has some of my favorite drink recipes ever, but it is not for the faint of heart. if the recipient is the type of person who will make mace tincture and infuse gin with green tea and track down amaro sibilia then go for it. if not, the first death & co. book is also full of good recipes and is maybe a little more accessible. the second death & co. book (cocktail codex) also just came out...i haven't seen it yet but i understand that the premise is using 5 templates to build a ton of drinks, which might make it a good choice for someone more novice who is getting into this stuff.

also if your friend has ever enthused about exotic cocktails the smuggler's cove book is amazing and the definitive resource in that area imo.

cross-posted from my cocktails thread...this recipe is from the first DR book and is the best drink i've ever made, iirc it's called the montana club

1.5 oz. cognac
1 oz. bonal gentiane
.5 oz. anisette
.25 oz. amaro sibilla
4 dashes aromatic bitters (dead rabbit/angostura/boker's/whatever you have)
lemon peel

yum