You know, I really wish I had a good palate (also: a nice singing voice). My palate is adequate, but I frequently feel like I'm missing the next level of the wine experience.

Strawberry is a really excellent description of the main fruit on the nose of the Shea I had last night.

What are some pinot noirs that exhibit the complexity you're referring to? I'll keep an eye out. Or are these only Burgundies?

Haha, I've not looked at WS in a decade...but I have read Parker reviews before. I think it's more that my palate enjoys similar types of wine, perhaps. But I've loved wines like Littorai that Parker eschews, so I don't follow rankings. I follow my own tastes.

As I said, I was giving estimates. We also get single vineyard offerings that tend to be more expensive, but since we are ordering directly from the wineries, whatever we are paying is the lowest retail/wholesale price...so maybe I just overestimated. But I know we've ordered Cobos wines costing $175 from Paul Hobbs Imports (co-owner of Cobos).

We rarely buy Burgundies--just too damn expensive for a difference in taste that I admit to loving but which isn't big enough for me to justify. We mostly go for Burgundian style California Pinot Noir for the most part--since we do live here--and Felton road from New Zealand. My favorite Pinot is Aubert, followed by Morlet and Pahlmeyer and Sea Smoke. I've had some amazing Rochioli and Sean Thackrey, too...and Littorai may be the most elegant of them all. Williams Selyem are good, too...but the number of different single vineyard offerings were too crazy. I'd recommend looking at Pahlmeyer's Jaysen second label for a good deal, and also some Williams Selyem and Littorai if you can find them. But try out different ones and ask the salespeople at your local shop for their recommendations.

Palate is personal. What I describe one way you might also be enjoying but simply use different terminology to describe. It's wine. Enjoy it...and don't worry so much about these "qualities" unless you discover some that matter to you. For me, it often depends on my mood or what I happen to be eating. I can drink a big heavy Kistler Pinot with a steak, for example, even if I most often drink Syrah or a bigger red/blend. If I could get Carmenere more reliably, I'd drink them more, too--same big body and fruit as the biggest reds but without the complexity...and with significantly lower price tags! Syrah tends to fit that big for me more now these days...but it changes.

BTW, Wineries that sell direct often do so because they can charge HIGHER prices than they could if they went through distribution channels. Buying from places like The Wine Club and Costco is invariably cheaper than buying direct from wineries. Of course, the wineries that sell predominantly off of their mailing list are putting most of their efforts into maintaining an air of exclusivity to justify their pricing.

Well that isn't true for the wineries from which we order our wine. I've yet to discover any wholesaler that typically offers the wines we buy for less than we've paid--except for a few auctions or other distributor offers that are usually years later than the original release. Most of our wines are of pretty limited production, often because the wineries have such low yields that are required to bolster the fruit quality. We've never seen the wines we order at Costco (where we are members).

Costco in the S.F. Bay Area (Redwood City) was selling single vineyard Achaval Ferrer Malbecs for $85 a bottle 2 weeks ago.

That would be a great deal! I'd have bought them there but I didn't see them at Costco the last time I was there. I'll look for the next time, thanks.

Drinkable pinot noir starts at $25, and more likely $35 +.

Can I raid your cellar? :D

Have you heard of www.wineberserkers.com It's a website like Flyertalk, except most conversation is about wine. ;)

If you're drinking pinot at $80+, you're drinking good juice. I top out at Rhys and Sea Smoke.

On the high end of cabs, I enjoy Maybach, Schrader, and Kapcsandy.

You should join us at WineDo in NY this coming June. You'd be impressed with the wines we drink. Check out the thread in the Community forum from June.

All are welcome to join us. We have a minimum of $35, and no maximum. And let me tell you, some of the 24 attendees step up. ^

dh

I can't think of a nice way to put this, but if you can't find drinkable pinot at less than this you need to broaden horizons outside of California/Oregon and Burgundy or look harder.

I've had good-great German, South African, Chilean, Tasmanian, Kiwi pinot in the last 12 months in the $18-25 range.

My "cellar" is above-ground. :p This is why my average spend is less than yours, not to mention the annual round trip air and hotel + shipping to sample your cellar each year.

I must agree with some others; as much as I tend to drink pinots more than $40, I certainly have enjoyed many that are less, especially from New World wine regions. To be fair, I've found that many of those are not consistently enjoyable for my palate from vintage to vintage.

Rhys and Sea Smoke are excellent--as are Schrader and Kapcsandy! We have some in the cellar. We stopped ordering Rhys and Kapcsandy simply because we can't order them all. We still order Sea Smoke. I'm not as big a fan of Maybach compared to others at that price point, but it is a wonderful wine. We stopped ordering Schrader partly because of the way they handled a visit request on a few occasions--and since there are others that price similarly and were more accommodating, we simply chose the others. :-) Kapcsandy is one we might eventually sorely miss, but we have plenty of the Grand Cuvee and Roberta's Reserve in the cellar. :-)

Thanks for the invite! I'm not a big fan of crowds, big wine events, (or whisky events, to be fair), and tastings; I prefer to visit the wineries, chat with the winemakers (partly because of my winemaking interest), and see the vineyards--as much as taste the wines. We're heading back to South Africa in January to visit some of those we've not yet visited: Vergelegen, Kanonkop (meeting with winemaker), Tokara (meeting with winemaker), Chamonix (meeting with winemaker), Mullineux (meeting with winemaker), and Sadie Family (to possibly help with barrel selection!).

this thread should definitely be interesting
(considering: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/dinin...ur-cellar.html)

Guys,

nice thread !

In December we go to California(29 days) and we want to try some affordable wines.

We will spend Christmas near San Luis Obispo. Here is a good area to taste some wines ?

Which wines do you guys recommend to buy in California ?

I spend $15-20 for a house wine but

IMNSHO, if you are looking for California wines, or even if you're not, Groth Red Stripe is the best Cab out there...and Domaine Carneros La Reve is the best champagne.

Sharon

I buy three 5 litre casks at a time brought from Mendoza by my local shop owner. Usually a mixture of Malec,Tempranillo and Syrah. I uncork one at a time and decant into 6 bottles. Cost for 5 litres is 80 pesos which is tremendous value considering the quality. A weaker man than I could easily become an alcoholic here. :D

He brings some decent oporto and olives as well.

I'm always open to recommendations.

This is a casual setting where most of the conversation is miles, points, and travel (plus a little wine). Nothing fancy.

Just down the road, check out Los Olivos. It's a small town with several tasting rooms. Check out Tercero. He has good quality, and tasty wines, in the $20 range. This is adjacent to Santa Ynez and Solvang (cute Danish town), and Lompoc aka Lompoc Ghetto has lots of wineries there too. A favorite is Loring.
This area is ~60 miles south of SLO.

Also check out Santa Barbara. That's the big town on the coast. Multiple tasting rooms there.

You may want to check out the California forum. There may be additional information on wineries and places to see. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/california-450/

dh