Date: 24-Jun-2005 03:39
Author: Jim Verlautz Email
Subject: Help with my upcoming wine buying binge
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Don't know what you have access to, but here's what I'm buying in the under $20 category:
2001 or 2002 German Rieslings--you can get terry thiese's catalog off the internet, and I use that as a general guide as to what I'd like to try.
2004 New Zealand sauv blanc. I try to avoid the huge names like Brancott/Montana, but Kim Crawford is an example of a pretty well known name that makes great wine.
1999 Chateauneuf du Pape from a name grower. It's hard to find these under $20, but I sometimes can, and they tend to be pretty good values because of all the hype for 1998, 2000, and 2001.
1999 Bordeaux. Same kind of story as above, but you have to tread carefully becasue not everthing is all that good. Get recommedations from someone you trust who's tried a bottle, or buy one and try it first.
2003 Beaujolais I'm not much of a beaujolais drinker, but that's Ok because the 2003 are different (bigger) than typical beaujolais.
2002 Oregon Pinot. I don't know if can find much of this up there, but if you can find non-mass produced stuff under $20 (Acme wineworks and Witness tree are two examples) they can be pretty good.
South African wines seem to be improving dramatically (at least the few I've tried recently.)
Had a Pepiere Muscadet last week that was delicious. In US$, the regular cuve is $10, and the presttige cuvee is $13.
I'm avoiding anything from SOuthern Rhone from 2002 or 2003. Rains were bad in 2002, and everything I read is that alcohol is very high in 2003, and I'm getting more and more sensitive to to much alcohol. I know I'll be missing some good wines by excluding the whole category, but there's enough other stuff out there to buy (like remianing stocks of 2000 or 2001)