Wine Discussion

After going to many a business dinner and staring blankly at the wine list while someone else picked the bottle, I've decided to learn more about and experience more wine.

There's a Total Wine less than 10 minutes from me, so that will be useful. A couple doors down is a Barnes & Noble, where I bought The Only Wine Book You'll Ever Need to get me started.

The book's first recommendation for me was a 2004 Blackstone Merlot. It was $8.99 if I remember right, but it was a winner, as it went down very smoothly.

I'm trying to stick with stuff that's less than $10/bottle until I figure out what I like. Is anyone else into wine at all?

2 Buck Chuck FTW.

Cabernet IIRC.

I drink quite a bit of wine these days. I like Merlot and Rieslings the most.

If you can find a 2004 Jacob's Creek Riesling, I would highly recommend it. Goes great with pasta and/or seafood, and is like AU$9.00. It's from Australia's Barossa Valley, in South Australia. I go through about 4 bottles a week, heh.

Aussie wine is the shit, yo.

I'll check that out. I know there's an Aussie section at the store.

As of the year 2000, we export more wine to the UK and US than france does. Owned.

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Originally Posted by Revoltor

2 Buck Chuck FTW.

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Seconded. Comes in both Carbernet and Merlot varieties.

Target has a nice Austrailian wine, Yellowtail I think it's called, that they sell for 9.99 in a ginormous bottle (at least 2 liters). It's a nice drinkin' wine.

I also enjoy a good tawny port (Portuguese fortified wine) now and again.

I second the quality of Austrlian wine.

And those <$10 bottles of wine are still like 25-30 at restaurants.

I was checking out the port Wiki page I linked to above and noticed this:

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Originally Posted by Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia

There is a unique body of English ritual and etiquette surrounding the consumption of port, stemming from British naval custom.

Traditionally, the wine is passed "port to port" -- the host will pour a glass for the person seated at their right, and then pass the bottle or decanter to the left (to port); this practice is repeated around the circle.

If the port becomes forestalled at some point, it is considered poor form to ask for the decanter directly. Instead, the person seeking a refill would ask of the person who has the bottle: "do you know the bishop of Gloucester?" (or some other English town). If the person being thus queried does not know the ritual (and so replies in the negative), the querent will remark "He's an awfully nice fellow, but he never remembers to pass the port".

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Cool. It's like the Englishman's version of "puff, puff, give."

My father loves wine and my mother's parents were from Italy, so there was always wine around when I was growing up, but unfortunately, I don't know quite as much about it as I'd like to either. Now that I'm actually of age I tend to enjoy trying new beers a bit more, but I do have an interest in wine.

If you like Chianti, Ruffino makes great wines that aren't too expensive, from what I recall. The 2000 gold label Riserva Ducale is insanely good, one of the smoothest wines I've ever had. We've even made trips out of state to pick up cases at good prices, heh. The tan label is great too. The '03 Aziano is good too, and even less expensive.

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Originally Posted by Detour

Aussie wine is the shit, yo.

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I've always wanted to get around to trying more Australian wine. I remember having a bottle of the 2002 (IIRC) Mitolo Jester Shiraz with my father at Mantra, and it was very nice, but that was about the extent of it, I think.

If anyone wants to talk good beer in another thread, though, I'm game. :D

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Originally Posted by sleeve

Cool. It's like the Englishman's version of "puff, puff, give."

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PASS!

PUFF PUFF PASS!